You just made a very nice argument for the value of networking. But your argument says nothing about educational quality. The Ivy’s are a laughing stock everywhere else in the country in that regard. They are coasting on a reputation that hasn’t been true for decades.
The Ivy’s have always coasted on reputation. Full disclosure my older brother graduated from Harvard on a full scholarship, so I have a little inside information. Like it or not an ivy degree is a ticket punch to a prosperous future. You can literately coast through four years of college and multiple firms will be lining up to offer you six figures. Work hard and put in the effort and no grad school will turn you down. Laugh all you want but the graduates are having the last laugh. I will say this though, it does seem that Harvard has gone full affirmative action in the last few years, to the point that working class ethnics like by brother are entirely extinct on Harvard Yard. Now all you have are entitled prep. school students or entitled politically correct minorities. No one in the crowd working hard and pushing up the grade curve. So maybe you’ll get your wish. A failed ivy league graduate is entirely to blame on the person, for the school gave them all the world.
I went to a “near Ivy” - Georgetown University in DC. I also took summer courses at Rutgers (the state university in NJ, where I was from, which was NOT a competitive university back then) to get rid of some of the basic course requirements at GU, so that I could fit the courses that I really wanted to take into my schedule (there was no AP then, else I’d have knocked off a half dozen or more classes that way). I can tell you that back then there was little or no difference in the quality of education, or the difficulty of the tests, or the rigor of the grading.
I have found, through extensive discussions with friends and family over the ensuing years, that this condition STILL exists. So the question arises: why wouldn’t one take the core requirements at a local community college, or at least a cheaper state university, and then transfer into a name university (maybe even an Ivy) starting in your Junior year? The difference in education would be about nil, your diploma would be from the name university, and you (and/or your parents) would have likely saved several tens of thousands of dollars.
Networking is very important, that’s for sure. But there is also something to be said for networking in your immediate area if you plan to stay in the vicinity, rather than going to a prestigious school and starting essentially from scratch 500 or 1,000 or 3,000 miles from home and all of the contacts that you and your family have made over the course of decades.
Yes exactly! That’s why my kids go to Texas A&M: 1) It’s one of the few remaining large conservative universities in the country, 2) Ergo, we love the people it attracts and graduates, and 3) It has a huge networking platform to draw upon once you graduate.
Gig ‘em! I pity the fool that goes to TU!