

Question for the Ivy Leaguers - jamielee

Hello,<p>I&#x27;m sure there are a lot of people here on HN who have graduated from or are attending an Ivy League school. I was curious about how the classes are different from other schools (or if you don&#x27;t know, what is it that makes the schools so elite? How do you feel about the education that you received?) I am really curious. What sets the education apart?
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gregcohn
I think there's more to it than social milieu as other commenters have
suggested.

One way to look at it would be to think about a university as a series of
(populations of students, professors, alumni networks, recruiters, athletes,
extracurricular options, etc) that can be thought of in terms of their means
not their maxima.

It is probably true that you can get as good (or nearly as good, or perhaps
even better) an education from a good state school as from an ivy, but the
"average" student, class, social outing, etc. is not going to be great. You
will have to be in the top decile of students in terms of work and effort,
identify and select the top decile of professors, etc. to get a top-notch
education. From a social point of view, if you want to associate yourself with
interesting, smart people and engage with interesting social activities, you
will have to identify and seek those out from among everything else. (Whereas,
the average social behavior might be frats and football culture.) These things
are not always easy to do when there are sources of friction in the mix --
everything from popular classes that fill up to human nature are going to get
in the way here.

At an ivy or comparable elite school, the average class you pick, the average
dudes on the hall you clown around with, the average group of people in any
given extracurricular population, these are all going to be strong, and i
would assert as roughly equivalent to a top 5 or 10% orientation at more
average schools.

And, of course, if you've got the brains/talent/work ethic to be top 5% at an
elite university, you can have a world-class outcome.

I do think that non-ivy elites are absolutely equivalent to ivies though (e.g.
Stanford), at least at a general level; it gets down to school-by-school
comparisons on specific dimensions after that, e.g. if you want a world-class
education in literature and the arts vs physics and math.

(edit: minor, for grammar)

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Nicholas_C
> From a social point of view, if you want to associate yourself with
> interesting, smart people and engage with interesting social activities, you
> will have to identify and seek those out from among everything else.

Other than less desirable job opportunities, this was the worst part about
going to a school that isn't top ranked. Most of my classmates and people in
my social circles were there to go through the motions and weren't interested
in anything academic. Although I enjoyed college, the whole experience really
made me regret not taking high school seriously.

~~~
gregcohn
This is a very insightful comment.

It's hard to imagine most high-school seniors having the sophistication to
make good choices here without the guidance of sophisticated parents or
supporters, let alone imagine younger students making them early enough to
have good options.

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chrisBob
Its not just about the classes and education. Its about the resume.

The Ivy League doesn't teach you anything you can't get at another school, but
it makes it easier to get your next job which is what college is all about.

Ivy League schools do tend to offer slightly better than average educations
partially because of their funding. The alumni are successful, and tend to
give a lot of money back to the schools which offsets some of the cost for the
undergrads. When my wife was attending undergrad, for example, she filled out
the FASA paperwork, and then they paired her up with an alumni who just wrote
a check to cover the portion of the cost that would otherwise be a student
loan. If you are interested in any kind of research science, the Ivy League
schools do tend to have well funded research programs also.

I am married to a Princeton grad, but I went to USMA myself. My school was
similar in some ways, but its in a different sports league, and offers less
undergraduate research options.

~~~
lugg
Does having a piece of paper from stanford stand out more than a piece of
paper from somewhere else?

I'm from australia, we don't really care where you got the piece of paper,
just that you did your time and even then you could probably argue your way
into an interview without it.

We value education sure but we don't really have the whole ivy league elitism
thing going on. I don't think there is even much of a deal to do with alumni.

Economies of scale I guess.

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maxerickson
Most of the extra signaling value comes from the competitive admissions.

(Which I think as much as anything means they have a great pool of applicants
to choose from, meaning they would have to do something pretty radical to
screw it up)

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jamielee
I really enjoyed reading all of the replies! Thank you all for the input.

To be a little more specific, I want to know if the classes themselves were
significantly more effective in transferring knowledge to students. Do the
classes at Ivy Leagues have a measurable superiority to classes of other
colleges (as in, do the students learn more because the classes are way
better, or do the students learn more simply because they are smarter, more
hard-working, more interested and engaged than the average student)? Why do
the Ivy Leagues have classes if it does not seem to be the main value added?
It looks to me that Ivy Leagues are great because they figured out a way to
attract all the smartest people to a central place. Is it really the Ivy
League that transforms people, or would highly motivated people turn out the
way they are regardless of the formal classes that seem to go hand-in-hand
with the concept of "education?"

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jerrytsai
I went to graduate school at a state school and at an Ivy League school, and
my twin went to an Ivy League school for college while I went to a prestigious
non-Ivy League school. So I will try to answer your questions based on my
experience. YMMV.

No, I did not find that the classes were significantly more effective in
transferring knowledge in either type of school. My impression was this:
depending on the school, the class may be more "ambitious", i.e., may cover a
little bit more material. However, many times the material is basically the
same, especially in the introductory classes.

The main pedagogical effects of going to a prestigious school is: (1) Your
classmates tend to be stronger students. They tend to be a little smarter,
harder-working, more interested and engaged. Yet you can find the same type of
people in less-prestigious schools, although there are fewer, percentage-wise.
(2) Your professors tend to have accomplished more in their field of study.
However, this often does not translate to having better classes than other
schools. You could have lots of crappily-taught classes even if you're
attending the most prestigious school in the world if that school (or a
department within that school) does not care that much about educating its
students. (3) You might have a little more variety in the interesting things
you could learn in upper-level or graduate-level courses. (These things tend
to be very department-specific, rather than school-specific.)

Off-topic observation: MOOCs are democratizing education nowadays. Ten years
ago, say, if I wanted to take a thorough, competent class on database query
languages, I would have to pray my institution, or another, sister
institution, offered a class in that topic. Nowadays, I can go to Stanford's
Class2Go website. I don't need to spend any time (a) applying to Stanford, (b)
pray that I get admitted, (c) if admitted move to Palo Alto, (d) wait for that
class to be taught, and (e) focus on that class while taking four other
classes. Today I can stay where I am and take that class at any time.

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jamielee
Did you find yourself enjoying the Ivy League environment (being around other
high achievers) more? Has being at an Ivy League changed your world view?
Which one did you like more?

I don't know if MOOCs will take off (in terms of being reliable for hiring).
Just an unjustified gut feeling. Maybe they already have. I know they offer
"certificates" that you can pay for.

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josephschmoe
For small departments, your experience can vary strongly from the school in
general.

I went to UC Irvine in physics, which both has an extremely high
teacher:student ratio (42 teachers, graduating class of 18 students) and
abundant funding. While the university is known for its research, having that
kind of ratio can have a drastic effect on your education. My favorite class
ever had only five students in it. It was an upper division math class.

Just my two cents - look at the departments you're interested in. It can make
a much bigger difference than the schools, especially in terms of research.

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jamielee
Wow, that teacher to student ratio sounds seems like it would make for a great
educational utopia! That's crazy and I have never heard of such a thing! :)

I asked this question more so for potential-start-up research purposes. I have
already graduated from college, though I did think about getting a graduate
degree, but I am not so sure I want to do that anymore. I concluded that it
would be more effective for me personally to study on my own (if I were to
pursue computer science). Classes sort of make me lose motivation. It feels so
forced much of the time.

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gyardley
Quality of education varies with the professor, as always, and what you get
depends on how hard you work.

The Ivy League - and other high-prestige schools like Stanford - are primarily
useful for the connections you make and the status they convey to others. On
many people, knowing that you went to [prestigious school here] has a "these
are not the droids you're looking for" effect that comes in handy all over the
place, even in areas totally unrelated to your education.

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jimt67
While quality of education varies with the professor, I would argue that it
also varies with the student...possibly even more so.

Let's assume Instructor A teaches Introduction to Nordic Studies at a non-
selective university. Two of the factors that control the design of that
course (there are many, I'm just isolating two) would be: -the instructor -the
students

In ideal conditions, the course iteratively develops into some dynamic
equilibrium where aggregate student learning is optimal (yes, I realize this
is fantasy). Replace those non-selective students with students from a highly-
selective university, while keeping the same instructor. Imagine how different
the course might develop.

From a learning standpoint, if you are a student that is talented enough to be
admitted to a highly-selective university, the latter course would likely
result in you learning more. In reality, there are a lot of other factors that
impact the growth and development of any individual student, but all things
being equal, if you are a smarty, you will probably learn more in a class with
other smarties.

