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Why not go for the best school you can get into? You'll get a great education.
I agree. I know it is popular around here to downtalk elite schools, but I can tell you I used to work with the graduate school at one, and I was in the room when a professor referred to the practice of favoring students from other elite schools in the admissions process as "logical" because "they've already done our work for us, they've already picked out the truly special students". It was in a meeting to discuss strategy on how to broaden the pool, since this department was notorious for filling it's slots with strictly people with near perfect grades from Ivy & Ivy Plus schools. Sometimes some would get in from another fairly elite institution like Duke, etc. but that was not as frequent.
Most top graduate departments across various disciplines are not as bad, but for a whole lot of them coming from the "right" pool of schools is a huge advantage in gaining admittance.
I've also seen the HUGE difference in which companies come to the career fairs as several elite schools, versus who comes to the career fairs at a large state school, and who comes to to the career fair at a regional college with a good rep. There are also huge differences in what kind of positions are offered, and what kinds of jobs the alumni are doing 10 years later.
Of course you can do all of this coming from somewhere else besides the top 30 or so elite schools, but it's not as easy to do so, the bar for entry is a lot higher and you might have to go out of your way to get considered. The truly extraordinary will rise to the top regardless, but for most people the elite school graduates will come out of the gate with a very real head start on everyone else IMO.
I agree. I know it is popular around here to downtalk elite schools, but I can tell you I used to work with the graduate school at one, and I was in the room when a professor referred to the practice of favoring students from other elite schools in the admissions process as "logical" because "they've already done our work for us, they've already picked out the truly special students". It was in a meeting to discuss strategy on how to broaden the pool, since this department was notorious for filling it's slots with strictly people with near perfect grades from Ivy & Ivy Plus schools. Sometimes some would get in from another fairly elite institution like Duke, etc. but that was not as frequent.
Most top graduate departments across various disciplines are not as bad, but for a whole lot of them coming from the "right" pool of schools is a huge advantage in gaining admittance.
I've also seen the HUGE difference in which companies come to the career fairs as several elite schools, versus who comes to the career fairs at a large state school, and who comes to to the career fair at a regional college with a good rep. There are also huge differences in what kind of positions are offered, and what kinds of jobs the alumni are doing 10 years later.
Of course you can do all of this coming from somewhere else besides the top 30 or so elite schools, but it's not as easy to do so, the bar for entry is a lot higher and you might have to go out of your way to get considered. The truly extraordinary will rise to the top regardless, but for most people the elite school graduates will come out of the gate with a very real head start on everyone else IMO.
hey now only 4 of the ivies are ranked above duke. one is ranked the same and the other three are ranked below. not biased or anything
But some of these old professors that have been tenured since slavery are a different breed... LOL. They don't care about any stinking rankings.
It's like Ivies, Stanford and MIT. at the top (and really, it's like Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and MIT at the top).
Then it's places like Berkeley, Duke, Caltech, UChicago, etc that get respect. Another 20 or so schools.
After that they don't care, unless you come with rainbows shooting out of your butt. Or you come from their alma mater. Or something.
They're nuts. Things will get better as the hardcores retire in greater numbers I think. I believe the younger folks aren't as bad as a group.
well the point still stands that regardless of how great your actual education was and regardless of how great you are (or aren't), you will be judged by whatever is on paper. your alum base is important, too. yea you can be top of the class at a lower-ranked school but when you're somewhere really prestigious that has a long history and reputation of excellence, often the alums will feel more "connection" and "school pride" and will hold your hand through things in life. you will go to school with more accomplished people and you will be among an alumni network of more accomplished people just by virtue of exclusivity...even if you're in the bottom half of the class!
well the point still stands that regardless of how great your actual education was and regardless of how great you are (or aren't), you will be judged by whatever is on paper.
OP's question concerned engineering and computer science. In those fields, the paper that you want is the first page of a dissertation signed by the best guy in your specialty. Nobody cares where you got your undergraduate degree. Moreover, many of the super-prestigious schools really aren't all that that good in engineering. For example, North Carolina State has a better engineering program than mighty Duke.
By the way, OP -- UNC does not have an engineering school (they do have CS, though). This kind of oversight shows how far students can go astray in pursuit of prestige. Find a school that actually fits you rather than one picked from magazine rankings by insecure hand-wringers.
Last edited by Hamish Forbes; 10-11-2013 at 02:42 PM..
OP's question concerned engineering and computer science. In those fields, the paper that you want is the first page of a dissertation signed by the best guy in your specialty. Nobody cares where you got your undergraduate degree. Moreover, many of the super-prestigious schools really aren't all that that good in engineering. For example, North Carolina State has a better engineering program than mighty Duke.
By the way, OP -- UNC does not have an engineering school (they do have CS, though). This kind of oversight shows how far students can go astray in pursuit of prestige. Find a school that actually fits you rather than one picked from magazine rankings by insecure hand-wringers.
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not biased or anything 
