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Yeah, I think part of the problem is that people don't really understand this. I have taken classes at a community college, a directional state school, an R1 an

Yeah, I think part of the problem is that people don't really understand this. I have taken classes at a community college, a directional state school, an R1 and my master's degree is from a highly selective school. My n=1 experience is that the coursework from any accredited program is largely the same. The professors at the state school were actually better than at any of the other schools from a pure teaching perspective. The biggest difference between them was the profile of my classmates. The entire value that Harvard et al. provide is the name brand and the alumni network. The education itself you can get anywhere.

esafak 3y ago
So be sure to network when you get there. Socialize! Attend the parties! It's not just for fun's sake.
tekla 3y ago
Not necessarily true. The more prestigious schools have more budget to hire better professors, but more importantly, can fund top class research that costs ALOT of money. Your random college probably can't afford a research nuclear reactor, but MIT sure as hell can if they want. Getting a position as a undergrad on those research projects is incredibly competitive.
- spullara 3y ago
  MIT is different though as they don't have legacy or athletic admissions.
  - meetingthrower 3y ago
    False. They do have slots for athletes.
    - spullara 3y ago
      "Unlike many other schools, MIT does not send “likely letters” or do “signings,” nor do our coaches have discretionary “slots” which they may fill." https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/does-mit-recruit-athletes/ https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/does-mit-recruit-athletes...
      - meetingthrower 3y ago
        Yeah right. From same doc. "If you’re a prospective student interested in playing varsity sports at MIT, you should contact the coach of your sport by completing a recruitment form. Depending on your potential contribution to MIT’s varsity athletics, they may choose to advocate for you in the admissions process..." Heavy thumb on the scale with 90% accept rate.
- importantbrian 3y ago
  > The more prestigious schools have more budget to hire better professors Better by what metric? It has not been my experience that instructional quality is in any way correlated with budget or prestige. > Your random college probably can't afford a research nuclear reactor, but MIT sure as hell can if they want. Idaho State has a research reactor. As does Kansas State, Missouri S&T, NC State, Ohio State, Oregon State, Penn State, Purdue, Reed College, Texas A&M, Cal-Davis and Cal-Irvine, Florida, Maryland, UMass, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Washington State. You don't have to go to MIT to get onto good research projects in that field. And that's true of every field. MIT is also a bad example because as the sister comment points out they don't have legacy or athletic admissions.
  - lordnacho 3y ago
    Have to agree about the professors. They aren't there to teach, they're there to do research. I found that despite being in regular 2 v 1 tutorials, a large number of professors are simply not that interested in teaching. The best tutors ended up being PhD students. They knew how stuff actually worked, and had been through the material recently enough to understand how undergrads might not get it.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    > Better by what metric? Sometimes, by material. If the class can be taught from a textbook, the instructor may be irrelevant. The best classes at my alma mater were being taught by professors who handed out paperback copies of their as-yet-unpublished textbook, or had us work from the first-print editions they authored, or who's "textbook" was the aggregation of notes they'd collected over the years.
    - importantbrian 3y ago
      Your experience is wildly different than mine then. The worst professors I had were the ones teaching out of their own book.
      - thelock85 3y ago
- toast0 3y ago
  > more importantly, can fund top class research that costs ALOT of money. That's important if you're at the college to do research; but many people attend college to get instruction. Top class research says nothing about top class instruction.
  - melagonster 3y ago
    but some people try to find top class instruction of research. what's can better than hiring best researchers, give them foundation for research and require they teaching students how to research in same time?
    - importantbrian 3y ago
      The University of Kansas is an AAU school and has an acceptance rate of 92%. Most R1s are big state schools who admit almost everyone who applies. You do not need to go to an Ivy League schools to get top notch research instruction.
- chaxor 3y ago
  You're incorrect about better professors, but the extra money does allow for ease of research. The only reason research is perceived to be better at certain institutions is due to the extra money, which allows ease of research. Most researchers at any university can have the same ideas, and be equally intellectually qualified (if not more intellectually qualified at non-ivy league universities, explained in a bit) to do the research. The difference comes in the availability of specific labs, with extremely expensive equipment, to perform tasks for collaborators. At ivy league universities, the graduate students effectively get to treat their work as if they were a manager who contracts out every price of work needed. Need cryo TEM of some samples? Send it down the hall, don't worry about it for a week, and then get nicely formatted results done for you by staff scientists that perform this service for the university daily. Need statistics to be done? Send it by email to the team, they'll let you know when it's done, etc. Other universities don't have this luxury, but I would say it improves their capabilities as a scientist; hence my argument that non ivy league universities have more intellectually capable scientists. For example, instead of sending that sample for TEM, they learn how to do TEM, but not on a fancy new system; rather, the one that uses a car battery and a circuit board that you have to understand well enough to add some extra solder when needed. I've worked in several different universities, and it's definitely still surprising to me, but the level of incompetence from grads coming out of ivy league institutions is astounding sometimes.
- jjav 3y ago
  > The more prestigious schools have more budget to hire better professors The prestigious schools are interested in hiring the best researchers. They don't much care how good they are as teachers. Some are great, many are terrible teachers. And you don't get to see them much since all appointments are with TA kids anyway. At the unknown schools the professors are there to teach and do little or no meaningful research so the are judged based on teaching ability, not grant-pulling fame. So they are on average much better teachers. If you want an academic career, you need to hook with advisors who are famous in the field to get your early papers connected to their fame. But if you just want to learn and go into industry, you're better off with good teacher professors at the no-name school. I did both, having a degree from a school you've never heard of (but is very good) and a degree from a top-1 (or top-3 depending on your biases) university. At the top university I had an advisor who was well-known in our field, which was fun. But I didn't go into research or academics so that advisor connection didn't do anything for my career. And he was so busy with grant and research work I only got to talk to him once a month. In terms of learning I learned more from the unknown-name school where the professors were dedicated to teaching and were happy to chat about projects every day.
largeluke 3y ago
I did both community college and Harvard undergrad. My experience is that while some intro classes were similarly structured, Harvard offered far more accelerated options for people who are prepared for it. You're right that the student body is a huge difference though.
wrp 3y ago
Absolutely, but it's hard to convince people of this. Elite schools (generally) provide better facilities and peer support, but the quality of teaching is usually better at non-elite (but not bottom-of-the-barrel) schools. Also, grade inflation is, or was, not such an issue. You don't get a "Gentleman's C" at a public college.

esafak 3y ago

So be sure to network when you get there. Socialize! Attend the parties! It's not just for fun's sake.

tekla 3y ago

Not necessarily true. The more prestigious schools have more budget to hire better professors, but more importantly, can fund top class research that costs ALOT of money. Your random college probably can't afford a research nuclear reactor, but MIT sure as hell can if they want. Getting a position as a undergrad on those research projects is incredibly competitive.

spullara 3y ago
MIT is different though as they don't have legacy or athletic admissions.
- meetingthrower 3y ago
  False. They do have slots for athletes.
  - spullara 3y ago
    "Unlike many other schools, MIT does not send “likely letters” or do “signings,” nor do our coaches have discretionary “slots” which they may fill." https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/does-mit-recruit-athletes/ https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/does-mit-recruit-athletes...
    - meetingthrower 3y ago
      Yeah right. From same doc. "If you’re a prospective student interested in playing varsity sports at MIT, you should contact the coach of your sport by completing a recruitment form. Depending on your potential contribution to MIT’s varsity athletics, they may choose to advocate for you in the admissions process..." Heavy thumb on the scale with 90% accept rate.
importantbrian 3y ago
> The more prestigious schools have more budget to hire better professors Better by what metric? It has not been my experience that instructional quality is in any way correlated with budget or prestige. > Your random college probably can't afford a research nuclear reactor, but MIT sure as hell can if they want. Idaho State has a research reactor. As does Kansas State, Missouri S&T, NC State, Ohio State, Oregon State, Penn State, Purdue, Reed College, Texas A&M, Cal-Davis and Cal-Irvine, Florida, Maryland, UMass, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Washington State. You don't have to go to MIT to get onto good research projects in that field. And that's true of every field. MIT is also a bad example because as the sister comment points out they don't have legacy or athletic admissions.
- lordnacho 3y ago
  Have to agree about the professors. They aren't there to teach, they're there to do research. I found that despite being in regular 2 v 1 tutorials, a large number of professors are simply not that interested in teaching. The best tutors ended up being PhD students. They knew how stuff actually worked, and had been through the material recently enough to understand how undergrads might not get it.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  > Better by what metric? Sometimes, by material. If the class can be taught from a textbook, the instructor may be irrelevant. The best classes at my alma mater were being taught by professors who handed out paperback copies of their as-yet-unpublished textbook, or had us work from the first-print editions they authored, or who's "textbook" was the aggregation of notes they'd collected over the years.
  - importantbrian 3y ago
    Your experience is wildly different than mine then. The worst professors I had were the ones teaching out of their own book.
    - thelock85 3y ago
toast0 3y ago
> more importantly, can fund top class research that costs ALOT of money. That's important if you're at the college to do research; but many people attend college to get instruction. Top class research says nothing about top class instruction.
- melagonster 3y ago
  but some people try to find top class instruction of research. what's can better than hiring best researchers, give them foundation for research and require they teaching students how to research in same time?
  - importantbrian 3y ago
    The University of Kansas is an AAU school and has an acceptance rate of 92%. Most R1s are big state schools who admit almost everyone who applies. You do not need to go to an Ivy League schools to get top notch research instruction.
chaxor 3y ago
You're incorrect about better professors, but the extra money does allow for ease of research. The only reason research is perceived to be better at certain institutions is due to the extra money, which allows ease of research. Most researchers at any university can have the same ideas, and be equally intellectually qualified (if not more intellectually qualified at non-ivy league universities, explained in a bit) to do the research. The difference comes in the availability of specific labs, with extremely expensive equipment, to perform tasks for collaborators. At ivy league universities, the graduate students effectively get to treat their work as if they were a manager who contracts out every price of work needed. Need cryo TEM of some samples? Send it down the hall, don't worry about it for a week, and then get nicely formatted results done for you by staff scientists that perform this service for the university daily. Need statistics to be done? Send it by email to the team, they'll let you know when it's done, etc. Other universities don't have this luxury, but I would say it improves their capabilities as a scientist; hence my argument that non ivy league universities have more intellectually capable scientists. For example, instead of sending that sample for TEM, they learn how to do TEM, but not on a fancy new system; rather, the one that uses a car battery and a circuit board that you have to understand well enough to add some extra solder when needed. I've worked in several different universities, and it's definitely still surprising to me, but the level of incompetence from grads coming out of ivy league institutions is astounding sometimes.
jjav 3y ago
> The more prestigious schools have more budget to hire better professors The prestigious schools are interested in hiring the best researchers. They don't much care how good they are as teachers. Some are great, many are terrible teachers. And you don't get to see them much since all appointments are with TA kids anyway. At the unknown schools the professors are there to teach and do little or no meaningful research so the are judged based on teaching ability, not grant-pulling fame. So they are on average much better teachers. If you want an academic career, you need to hook with advisors who are famous in the field to get your early papers connected to their fame. But if you just want to learn and go into industry, you're better off with good teacher professors at the no-name school. I did both, having a degree from a school you've never heard of (but is very good) and a degree from a top-1 (or top-3 depending on your biases) university. At the top university I had an advisor who was well-known in our field, which was fun. But I didn't go into research or academics so that advisor connection didn't do anything for my career. And he was so busy with grant and research work I only got to talk to him once a month. In terms of learning I learned more from the unknown-name school where the professors were dedicated to teaching and were happy to chat about projects every day.

largeluke 3y ago

I did both community college and Harvard undergrad. My experience is that while some intro classes were similarly structured, Harvard offered far more accelerated options for people who are prepared for it. You're right that the student body is a huge difference though.

wrp 3y ago

Absolutely, but it's hard to convince people of this. Elite schools (generally) provide better facilities and peer support, but the quality of teaching is usually better at non-elite (but not bottom-of-the-barrel) schools. Also, grade inflation is, or was, not such an issue. You don't get a "Gentleman's C" at a public college.