Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's not the Ivy leagues themselves, its the upbringing before. I went to an Ivy, but came from a rural, lower middle class household. I went to a fairly large school: there were definitely people there from the upper crust that were in their little frats and looked down on others. Fortunately, they tended to major in business so I never really had to interact with them much.
Going to an Ivy was great because I was (well, am) a big nerd, and I got to hang out with other big nerds and talk about big nerdy things. Being around other people who are really into learning is a good environment for a kid loves learning. I absolutely loved college, but mostly because of all of the resources available, the cool research projects that were happening, and the other students who came from all over the world. Not because of the name on the diploma.
I'm not sure why a parent wouldn't send a kid to a certain school because they're afraid she'd turn out to be a snob. Let the kid decide where they want to go.
Another thing: the stereotype DOES hold true. I'm hesitant to tell people where I went to school because I'm afraid that they'll think I'm a snob. I hate that. As if going to Yale or Dartmouth automatically makes you a mean person.
From my experience at both a Large State University and an Ivy League is that the Ivy league courses are more difficult, but not overwhelmingly so.
The curriculum itself is usually similar. For example, most Majors level Intro Bio courses in the country all use one of about 3 textbooks. And the material in these textbooks is very similar. It's not like there's a super secret Ivy League textbook. However, there will be higher expectations at the Ivy for things like lab reports, papers, and exams. My Ivy League exams were HARD and many of them were given at night, so as to not take up class time. While TAing at Large State University, I got some really crummy lab reports, which brings expectations down for the whole class. Still, the amount of work and the material covered are similar in these Introductory classes.
Curving is popular in larger intro classes, so you're measured against your peers. As your peers tend to be better academically at an Ivy than at a Large State School, it theoretically should be harder to get an A at an Ivy League than at a state school.
As you get to upper level classes, in my experience, the workload gap widens. For example, my genetics class at Ivy League School had much more intense labs than the comparable class at Large State University. I think that this is where you're going to see the most divergence. More of my TAs at Ivy League, especially for the upper level courses, were Postdocs. Most of the TAs at State University were Graduate Students.
The classes I teach at a community college are similar in content and rigor to the classes at the nearby state college (we trade materials...and instructors with them all the time). 100-200 level classes are very similar almost everywhere you go, whether it be Hicksville CC or Harvard. It's really with the 300+ classes that you want to make sure you're in a good place for your major.
A homely brilliant working-class friend of mine went through Harvard. At social gatherings, if he told someone he was pre-med at Harvard, the girls flocked to him. When he said he attended "Cambridge Community College" (which doesn't exist), no go.
He did say he thought places like Harvard should have a pre-freshman year study month, call it "math catchup" or whatever, but really it would be sort of a socialization to a social strata unfamiliar to working-class people. People do not become snobs, but most people's life experience at age 18 is constrained by their social status,and they likely have largely been around people like them. If old money or close to it, likely they never waited on a table for a summer job. Maybe they think "summer" is a verb, as in "We summered on Nantucket."
Friend told me that about 30 percent of his undergrad class were legacies, descendants of alumni/old money families. He learned fast, though- he was proud that Harvard did NOT accept Brooke Shields, but snotty that Princeton did. He learned the social riffs pretty fast, but never really fit in. When he stopped trying to social climb, he did a lot better emotionally, and was always a brilliant student.
Curving is popular in larger intro classes, so you're measured against your peers. As your peers tend to be better academically at an Ivy than at a Large State School, it theoretically should be harder to get an A at an Ivy League than at a state school.
Well...maybe. A bell curve centered on C is not very popular anymore in the US. It is still frequently used at Canadian universities, however. The question you should ask is: what marks are the classes curved to?
You can be sure that the article is not bogus. The author is a serious, well known academic, and the publication, American Scholar, is the organ of Phi Beta Kappa. You may disagree with his point of view. But given his level of involvement with Ivy League education, it would be hard to argue that he is misinformed, uninformed, or illogical. What he may be (or may not be) guilty of is building a strong case around outliers who rub him the wrong way for one reason or another. In this case, the article would be more a polemic, with a deliberately hard edge, intending to make a point that has some validity by means of aggressive exaggeration.
I work in hiring and my boss told me that state school graduates actually out perform kids from Harvard in the financial sales/advisement roll that we hire in.
Ivy kids tend to get too analytical with clients and have trouble relating to clients and building rapport.
They also may think they are above having a sales job
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
