Reprint from the Linda Christas Counselor Comments Blog:
http://lindachristascf.blogspot.com/
To: LaTracy Renner From: Virginia Benoit, Linda Christas Counselor
Subject: The pros and cons of going to a selective college
This is to respond to your request for the first concern or consideration
I have at the beginning of a student/Linda Christas relation****p.
I suppose the very first thing that most students say when we first
discuss college is, "I want to go to Harvard or Stanford or MIT or Yale or
Williams, or Vassar, etc."
There are some colleges and universities that have been around for a long
time. Colleges like the Ivies have had in some cases over three hundred
years to develop a reputation. They have the feel of the Mayflower or
Plymouth Rock.
When one considers 20th Century Presidents of the United States, the list
of colleges attended looks like this:
Theodore Roosevelt - Harvard
William Howard Taft - Yale
Thomas Woodrow Wilson - Davidson/Princeton
Warren Harding - Ohio Central
Calvin Coolidge - Amherst
Herbert Hoover - Stanford
FDR - Harvard
Harry Truman - School of Life
Dwight Eisenhower - West Point
John Kennedy - Harvard
Lyndon Johnson - Southwest Texas State Teachers College
Richard Nixon - Whittier College
Gerald Ford - University of Michigan
Jimmy Carter - Naval Academy
Ronald Reagan - Eureka College
George Herbert Walker Bush - Yale
William Clinton - Georgetown
As we can see, the majority of our 20th Century Presidents graduated from
highly selective schools. Nine from the Ivy League or the so-called Baby
Ivies: e.g. Amherst, Military Academies which are high selective, and one
from the West Coast Ivy: Stanford.
Only one President, Harry S. Truman, did not graduate from a college.
The point here is that attending an elite college has been in the past an
aid to rising to great heights in our society. (On the other hand, it
doesn't hurt if one's name is Roosevelt, Kennedy or Bush at the beginning
of life.)
However, in the last twenty years or so, the career promise that an
"elite" school once offered is beginning to wane. (For example, as many as
fifteen percent of some Ivy League graduating cl***** are involuntarily
unemployed or subsisting below the national poverty line.)
What can we say today about attending an elite institution? By elite, I am
referring to colleges that accept less than 20% of their applicants from
year to year. These colleges tend to have a very high yield as well, that
is, the percentage of students who attend the college once offered a
place. For instance, if one hundred students are offered places in a
freshman class, and eighty actually enroll, the yield is 80%. That is a
huge number and one seen by colleges in the Ivy League, Seven Sister, and
Baby Ivies.
So what are the advantages in the 21st Century of going to a college that
accepts less than 20% of their applicants?
First, we have the prestige factor. Being a "Harvard Man" or, properly,
"Harvard Person" still carries with it a certain feeling that somehow that
individual is "well connected." (As an aside, many of our foreign students
will not consider attending a United States college unless the school is
well known throughout the world. (In the early part of the 20th century,
the Ivies were a frequent destination for students from Europe and Asia.
This is still true.)
Second, the students with whom one competes and associates are usually in
the upper one or two percent of the Country in terms of academic
excellence. In speaking with Ivy League admissions personnel, it seems
that every other student on their freshman rosters are National Merit
Scholar****p winners. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of
one.
Third, selective colleges very frequently have both the money and the
reputation necessary to attract the very best theorists in any field as
professors.
Fourth, there is something to be said for tradition.
All this having been said, it is becoming apparent that there are some
real downsides to attending these schools. Not every student suffers all
of the following. However, it is difficult for any student to avoid them
all.
First, the temptation of professors on many elite college campuses is to
feel as though they are working in a sellers market. Any time a company,
school or any other organization can convince the public that they, the
public, need the product or service being offered more than the
organization involved needs the public, a sense of "you can be replaced"
is often felt by the consumer. It is a feeling that will discourage
students from approaching their professors. (Places like Harvard try very
hard to make sure this does not happen. For example, they break their
campus down into small houses, so that there is a feeling of family.
Harvard's retention rate is very good.)
Second, it is possible for a student to go four years on a selective
college campus and never speak with a real professor. U.S. News and World
Re****t ran an article some time back regarding what they referred to as
"face time." Leading theorists on an elite faculty are not overly
inclined to seek out undergraduate students, especially in the lower
division years. (I have been in a circle of parents of graduating seniors
at one of the Baby Ivies, and noted that the professors in attendance by
and large were not sufficiently acquainted with student surnames to
identify the parents of students using that criterion. That's four years
at $40,000 per year, and the professors did not know the graduating
seniors surnames. It was a smallish school. (There are schools that are
both selective AND the names are known. For example, Pomona in California
is a great school, very selective, and it is difficult to hide there.
Pomona is considered one of the happiest campuses in the Country. Beloit
is another.)
Thirdly, many of the elite colleges today are not in the top fifty schools
in the United States in terms of things like placing undergraduates in top
ten graduate schools or executive jobs in American cor****ations or
eventually listing their undergraduates in Who's Who in America (Some
schools that are in the top fifty in all these categories are Oberlin,
Colorado College, Wooster, Haverford, Davidson and a dozen or so others,
none of which are Ivy League, Seven Sister or Baby Ivies.)
Fourth, when populations of students are as gifted as those who do command
seats on a selective school's campus, it is easy for the student to add
information for the four years at the school without really blooming. (On
the other hand, a college like Juniata can take a C+ or B high school
student, and prepare her so well during her stay on campus that she will
sometimes outperform a straight-A high school and Ivy graduate on the
Medical Entrance Examination. Juniata, Hamilton and the like provide the
student with a nurturing environment as well as professors who are
promoted for undergraduate teaching excellence rather than for other
activities not connected directly with the undergraduate experience.)
Fifth, a student who has had to study hard in high school to maintain an A
grade may find that he is a small fish in a big pond. Selective schools
often have students who can look at material once with perfect recall.
That can get a "normal" person into a desperate fix at test time.
Why not go to a place where the school needs the student more than the
student needs the college. What a person will find on such a campus are
professors promoted strictly based on undergraduate teaching excellence, a
sense of family, real professors in every classroom, and small cl*****
where every day a student must be ready to discuss the subject matter with
an expert. The A high school student who had to work for her grades will
be evenly matched in the classroom which encourages even more growth and
development.
Thank you for the op****tunity to contribute to the first consideration
survey.
Gini
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