Top Schools & Ivy League - What's the diff? | INFJ Forum

Top Schools & Ivy League - What's the diff?

Gaze

Gaze

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I went to a fairly apt university. But i've always wondered about the top schools or the ivy league? What's the diff? How is the experience different? How is the level of satisfaction different coming from these educational environments? How is the classroom experience different? How is college life different?

Anyone?
 
you get to say I graduated from such and such school, And people will think your smart. Regardless of your grades and the aptitude of your professors.
 
I went to a private university, then transferred to a community college to finish out my degree. Im in NY so I have friends that went to NYU, Columbia and such. From what I understand Ivy League schools are beneficial reputation wise if you are going for the hard and long degrees. These include the sciences, law and medical.

In my opinion, Ivy leagye school education quality is no better than community colleges.
 
I went to a sort of "wannabe" Ivy League college. The difference is networking. Ivy League schools attract more well known people/companies. It's bologna.

Also the teachers tend to be more educated/absurdly overly nerdily educated.
 
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The difference is resources and opportunities. An Ivy League, or very well funded public (like UC Berkeley) or private (like MIT) school has access to equipment and people that a community college or a normal state school does not have. Examples of this are better telescopes, fMRI machines, more funding for travel arrangements to archaeological sites, robotics labs, taking classes from professors that have made more significant contributions, and access to conventions that attract more renowned people.

The benefits of these universities are also in the form of resources. You get access to the equipment and networking, but your degree also tells future employers that you will have an edge because you did have access to those resources. A degree is but another form of social resource, and a degree from a school like Stanford or Cornell is a better resource then a degree from Oklahoma State or Alaska-Pacific University.
 
Thanks for the responses. My question was really meant to find out how going to an Ivy League or top school affected learning experience. In other words, what was I missing.
 
The resource pool is true but as the bar for what is needed for more advanced jobs is raised from Bachelors to Masters and Ph.D it becomes what graduate school you go to. In these cases the more prominent schools do have more equipment more collaboration and more people in general to work with. As I wish to go into academia, the people I work under are key as if I did my Ph.D research under Bary Trost at Stanford I would then have people realizing that I was trained under one of the best in the field.
 
Restraint said:
Thanks for the responses. My question was really meant to find out how going to an Ivy League or top school affected learning experience. In other words, what was I missing.
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You'll get a lot more hands-on experience in research at an Ivy League University, that is the primary difference.

What major are you going for? That will put the question into a much better context.
 
I've got a friend at Dartmouth, who's done extremely well in the Computer Science field. He's also a natural pro who's been teaching himself since he was about 6 or so, I believe. Likewise I have a cousin who was a computer science guru at 15 with no formal education in it.

I think a lot of it really depends on the drive of the individual as well, so there's probably just a lot of prestige in the school name. I CAN tell you though that with experience at both, the art school I'm at is leagues above what I had at my old community college in terms of an art program.

Duty said:
You'll get a lot more hands-on experience in research at an Ivy League University, that is the primary difference.
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Very good point. That actually nullifies my computer science point since the entirety of it is contained on the internet regardless.
 
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Duty said:
You'll get a lot more hands-on experience in research at an Ivy League University, that is the primary difference.

What major are you going for? That will put the question into a much better context.
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It's not meant to be specific really. It's just to get a comparison, to have a better understanding of differing perspectives coming from those who've gone to other institutions. Yeah, research 1 schools are the best, i'm sure if you're going into academia, but I think they're less focused on teaching. So, professors spend more time on writing papers, publishing, research, etc.
 
Restraint said:
Yeah, research 1 schools are the best, i'm sure if you're going into academia, but I think they're less focused on teaching. So, professors spend more time on writing papers, publishing, research, etc.
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But at the same time a direct means of application is their and personal experiences/stories are told. Oh the stories I heard about UCLA from one prof of his grad schools days.
 
I'm not simply asking for myself. But I thought it would be cool to get some perspective based on the experiences of those who've been to different schools at that level.

And not just in the US either. Other countries included: For those who go to colleges/uni elsewhere, what's been your experience?
 
Networking is a big plus too. I went to a really exclusive prep school and honestly, I could still exploit those connections to move ahead. Most of my buds went on to Ivy League or at least Top Schools because that's just what you were supposed to do.

As far as how it affects the learning experience? Hmm students tend to be more ambitious and aggressive. Everyone was the academic superstar of their school and they don't want to give that up just yet. If that sort of thing drives you to strive, then that's a plus. But college is pretty much what you make it.
 
Anyone newbies been to ivy league colleges? How was your experience?
 
Wyote said:
I went to a sort of "wannabe" Ivy League college. The difference is networking. Ivy League schools attract more well known people/companies. It's bologna.

Also the teachers tend to be more educated/absurdly overly nerdily educated.
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Yup is the networking from what I understand. And there is the issue of prestige

for many of the very education heavy degrees (Law, Medicine, Professor) are drawn from these schools. There is also an issue of class standing. I had to professors that went to Hareved They mentioned never fitting in their because they weren't upper class or famous.
 
Ivy League schools have students who are connected to old money: Harvard, Yale. Top schools are good places to learn how to work for those people who graduate from Harvard and Yale: MIT, Purdue, etc.
 
I know the difference, it is easy …

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None, really.

I went to a school that people considered a "Baby Ivy." We were very competitive with the ivy league. Only 2400 kids. Academically, it was awesome. Socially, it sucked. Miserably.

PLEASE make sure that, in your search, you also account for how you'd fit in socially. I only looked at academics because "it was the reason why I was going to school, and it was of the only importance." Please.

If you end up at a school that you just don't fit in at (like I did), you'll have a miserable time.
 
Elitism.

There are better opportunities for business networking and placement into graduate and post-grad programs. You could be a genius and have 4.0 at a no name school, but the nice medical/law/business or whatever school you're applying to would still probably prefer someone with a 3.4 from an Ivy or other high rep school. This is because these schools essentially serve as vetting agencies for businesses and graduate schools. I have heard from others that these schools are often breeding grounds for snobby elite children (the future stuck-up rich people), but I assume that those students are a minority. In any case, you have to have a great degree of connections and/or resources to get in or otherwise be a perfect person, and from the one guy I know who got into and went to Harvard, an application well salted with lies and half-truths also helps.

I'm sure that the social experience doesn't differ greatly from other schools except that you might have the opportunity to do things that cost considerably more money. More students will probably be prone to treating college like Disneyland instead of working or struggling financially when not in class or doing homework.

Academically, all the profs will be required to have published a great deal and be the experts on the subjects that they're teaching, which you don't always get at other schools where professors usually have to teach the subjects that need teaching and budgetary constraints are more of an issue. This is probably good if you're planning on a career in academia and especially if you can get one of these people to write you a letter of recommendation. Otherwise, if you're just going for general business or something, those professors are probably wasted on you. For most people, the difference in the quality of education is negligible.
 
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