Are "elite" schools a meme?

listen to this guy
i graduated from a no-name undergrad with a great education and got into an ivy-equivalent grad program but because i was really there more for the prestige of the school than for any research-oriented or academic reasons i quickly feel into a really serious depression and i ended up leaving
i then applied to a state school that, while not ranked anywhere near as high, has probably the best phd program in the world for my current field of study and i can say i'm much happier and better off for it

Nope.
Especially not for finding work or going to a good grad school.

School rank is by far the most important factor for the former two. If you're at a top 100 state uni, and you get a 4.0 and have great research, 99th percentile GRE, you still wouldn't get into ANY top 10s or even 15s, because they'll take that 3.3 - 3.6 Ivy/MIT/Caltech/Berkeley student over you. These aren't my words, they're from former adcoms.

Same thing goes for work, especially engineering. I know multiple people at Berkeley with 2.5-2.8s with maybe one internship at a literal who startup with only one decent project (they didn't even compete in engineering competitions because they were too hard) and they found jobs at Google and Amazon before they even graduated, at 90k starting. On the other hand, I know people at CSULB who graduated with Honors, and had GPAs in the 3.7-3.9 range who did competitions, had multiple cool projects, and did internships (still at literal who startups, though.) All 9 of them, save for one, are working in non-engineering fields, since they graduated in May. The one engineer makes 55k. The rest work in fucking retail or shitty technician jobs. You know why? Because companies don't want to settle. They will fight tooth and nail over the students at top unis, even if there's not enough to go around. It's the cold, hard truth, and Ivy students only tell you otherwise to make you feel better, or because they're too naive.

what was your GPA when you applied to grad school, my dude

3.69
i was taking upper division courses since first semester though thanks to having done dual enrollment so i ended up taking so many classes that shit like combinatorics (which is definitely not my forte and for which i had a terrible professor) brought down my gpa a bit

i can give you a full history i fyou're interested i'm kind of drunk and i have nothing better to do

>School rank is by far the most important factor for the former two.
laughing my FUCKING ASS OFF you could not be any more of an undergrad if you fuckign TRIED
it's people like you who i've met who apply to grad school fresh out of something like an ivy and get rejected outright because you have no research experience, no grad classes under your belt, no writing skills, and no professors to vouch fo r your sorry ass, and who are then left wondering whrere the fuck they went wrong when they jacked off for four years while little Bob from no-name University worked his ass off and got the fellowship at MIT after graduation

there is much more to your post-grad life than the rank of the school you graduated from, even though brand-recognition does play a non-negligible role

>If you're at a top 100 state uni, and you get a 4.0 and have great research, 99th percentile GRE, you still wouldn't get into ANY top 10s or even 15s, because they'll take that 3.3 - 3.6 Ivy/MIT/Caltech/Berkeley student over you. These aren't my words, they're from former adcoms.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
How’d I get into an Oxford grad program with a 4.0 from San Diego State University then? If what you’re saying is true, then it couldn’t have been my GPA or research experience. Guess I’m magical or something

This.

oh my god i didn't even read that part of that faggots post
he's beyond delusional
truly undergrad is getting to his head and he thinks he nkows how the world works based on what collegewhateverreport sells to him

yes. school name matters.

the only thing that matters is how they are ranked in your major

youtu.be/Ow1-uj0ToVY

Seems the data suggests it's better to be in the top 5-10% of a mid-tier school than the 80th-90th percentile of a larger school.

That being in the top 10% is the best, no matter where you are, and that falling OUT of the top 10% at an elite school is just as bad as not being in the top 10% of even a low-tier school.

MIT is not going to be the only place in the country with serious research in automation/robotics. Do some research and make a list of like 10 schools with substantial programs in that area of research. You absolutely do not want to have one option, especially if that one option is MIT. Surely there is equivalent research at places like Carnegie Mellon, GA Tech, etc.

Narrow it down to 5 or 6 places you would be willing to apply to. Contact professors and try to speak with them directly about their research, the coursework and admissions process, what you're interested in, etc. If you're applying for 2018 entry, you're already behind and should hurry up. Just start firing off emails introducing yourself briefly and asking for a 30 minute phone call. You may find that a professor at another university is much more receptive and enthusiastic about you joining the university and their group, and that is already a better lead than MIT just b/c it's MIT.

With a knowledge of what's going on at several universities you will be able to make a much more educated decision that you will be more comfortable with.

If you really want to get into the robotics/automation field, you should educate yourself about other options besides memes like BD and Tesla. Applying to these companies b/c of their notoriety is the corporate equivalent to applying to MIT b/c it was in a top 10 list online. These are places where few people stand out, where you will not be able to make a name for yourself, where you will be surrounded by people who want to cut your throat. If what you say is true, if these companies don't give a shit about a solid research record at a state university and only want to see MIT on the sticker, this should be a massive red flag to you. If their hiring process is based on pedigree alone, the working environment is going to be equivalently delusional.

For undergrad it literally does not matter one fuck of an iota. All majors are the same, they standards are set at a high academic level of "here's what you need to learn in college" with some minor additions or differences.

The graduate or medschool or law school differs. Each university or department has different emphasis or focus or specialty.when you go to gradschool, you are typically picking a professor to work for, not a school.

Don't believe the rank memes, it's just an effort to get out of state students taking to attend their undergrad institutions so they have to pay out of state tuition for more money.

Thanks again for the great answer. I do have a few schools in mind that I'm already guaranteed acceptance at due to transfer agreements. There's no chance I won't make it into a mid-tier school for EE. It'll just be a mid-size state school and not anything prestigious.

Hence, this whole thread. Do I want to spend hours studying on retaking the SAT/SAT Subject Exams and spend hours on application essays and reference letters just to go to a more prestigious school? That's time and energy I could spend on keeping my 4.0 far out of harm's way and socializing or something.

How do I even find other robotics companies to research? Google mostly turns up the meme companies.

Given my socioeconomic status, I've been told my ride would be paid for at any elite school I got accepted to. IF I get accepted.

A degree from MIT looks better on job applications than a degree from Shittytown State University

Except for getting a career, yeah they're basically the same. Shit, some university in some shithole Eastern Europe country will be better than any American university, in terms of education.

They used to be good schools
Now places like Harvard are jewish, black, mexican, and asian
No whites allowed

So its all just a fucking meme now

not really , in east europe they teach us too much theory and no practice at all
t.slav who immigrated to america

>Now places like Harvard are jewish
>now
lol stay mad brainlet goyim

Just to be clear, are you still an undergrad and considering transferring to finish your undergrad? Are you already at a "mid-tier' school?

If so I would seriously recommend staying and finishing. As you said, you can maintain your high GPA. Also you can continue developing relationships with professors at your current school who recognize your academic ability. If you transfer you will be losing all of that. You will have to adapt to a new academic environment. You will have to pack your life up and move during one of the most crucial periods in a person's life. You will have no friends there. No professor will know you or even know how good of a student you are. In terms of the implicit opportunities like undergrad research opportunities, professors' connections to grad school, etc. you already have a bird in the hand.

I don't know much about the robotics industry, but here's how I might go about it.First off, robotics is a huge deal for military, so every defense company is going to have work in robotics going on. Northrop, Lockheed, BAE, General Atomics, Raytheon, Ball Aerospace, etc. Also every major car manufacturer will have research departments for autonomous systems. Heavy machinery companies like Caterpillar, John Deere, Hyundai, Komatsu, etc. have a massive interest in autonomous farming equipment. Government and university-affiliated research outfits like NASA JPL, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), MIT Lincoln Laboratory (where I work). Appliance and security companies like Honeywell, Bosch and ADT will have an interest in developing autonomous systems as you mentioned, so look around on their career sections.

I would suggest working at a larger company for a few years to begin with, as you will have access to a large community of experts to learn from and gain connections, and there will be more people at your stage in their career to learn and socialize with. Then later you can decide if you want to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond

"Harvard Medical School students have delivered a petition to their administration calling for more diversity"

>He thinks elite schools are a meme now because of """diversity"""

No user, elite schools are a meme now because colleges in general are nearly as common as a fucking corner liquor store and anybody including their fucking dog is eligible for a school loan.

That and you know the secret is out that the biggest advantage for Elite Schools was in fact their connections and not academics. Thus it's no longer that impressive to get a degree from such a place anymore and you're better off going to a state school and making your connections via the Internet/social media.

Lol if you’re going to get a full ride then of course go to the more prestigious school. Most of the advice in this thread is assuming you’ll have to pay more or put yourself in debt for it

Elite schools are definitely overrated at undergraduate level. But if you want to be able to do the best research with the best researchers, you want to be at a top institution. There's no getting around that.

The guy teaching biochemistry at your next door college is just as fascinated by protein folding problems and even has his own bits of wisdom as the guy at Columbia studying protein folding who has his own take on it and they both can tell you about it in detail.

My mom went to U Penn in the 1980's, and she's a fucking idiot

UPenn is the 'retarded brother no one talks about' of the Ivy League.

>But if you want to be able to do the best research with the best researchers, you want to be at a top institution

You really only need to be in the area. Going to the university helps, but you can get into labs as an outsider

Elite schools have much better infrastructure and give you a more prestigious degree but the teachers can be overrated. My calc 1's local community college serbian american teacher is much better than my Princeton's Chinese linear alhebra prof.

Yes, I'm sure you can just walk into MIT and collaborate with top researchers if you ask nicely.

>'retarded brother no one talks about' of the Ivy League

That's Cornell.

Not a meme. This:

>You get to network with students and professors, widening future career options.
>network
>widening future career options

In HS, I looked forward to the day I would no longer be around fucking idiot peers who believe in crystal healing. But despite my perfect act/sat scores, I didn't get in to a elite school because all i did was smoke weed in my free time. Biggest fucking IDIOT mistake of my fucking life.

I went to a college where an 18 was the average ACT score. Now I'm 24 and all my connections are to dead-end jobs. Everyone around me acts like they're great opportunities. Everyone I know is an idiot that pursues base pleasure as the greatest things in life. "It doesn't get better than weed, threesomes and videogames every weekend!" says a friend with a fucking master's in physics from my school. Smartest guy I know probably.

I can sense the gulf between what I know, and what I could know, had I been surrounded by motivated, smart, ambitious peers. I'm literally dumber because of the school I went to. I am in a lower class of personal quality, I robbed myself of the opportunity to develop amongst the talents of others.

And the thing is: you don't get to go back.
I can study on my own all I want (and I do). There's still no catching up. I occasionally cross paths with someone who put in the effort I didn't and I can tell in so many ways how they are superior in ways I want to be; managing themselves, interacting with others, access to capital, etc etc. Once you're my age, the world sees you as wearing certain 'marks' of not being as good. I hardly have the opportunity to distinguish myself. Go be a mid-level manager and raise revenues 4%? Wow BIG DEAL, universities will laugh at me. Employers scoff at the name of my school. When I run into other graduates and see what they're doing with themselves, it's no wonder why.

OP go to the elite school. Make the best of it. Don't lock yourself to a lower tier.

that's not true. you want to be at the best institution for YOUR AREA OF STUDY and/or the university which has the professors or group who you want most to collaborate with
read my other comment:

Tfw not American and only a couple universities I could realistically go to.

On the bright side I probably won't be loaded with debt once I get out.

Sir you ought to realise that you have the knowledge to commune with the right people, it's up to you now to seek out these opportunities.

Not saying you are wrong, but maybe your friends are right, and feeling good and leaving teh world a better place is all there is, maybe it's wahtever makes you happy

I'll start my Bachelor next Monday at ETH Zurich. Does anyone in the us even know the institution? I have the feeling that most people only know Oxbridge and US schools

I think the main thing is that you're on a strict curve competing with students that were often valedictorians of their high schools and professors that are good enough to instantly answer all the things you don't understand.
Or at least courses that were required to push these students to the edge of their abilities are very helpful.
There are a lot of ivies that have insane grade inflation though, and I'm not into that.
There are godly professors where I am as well who can generally tell you if you're wrong and why you're wrong quickly even for pretty complex problems.
You can learn anything on your own, but a professor can tie in the concepts you learn with relevant knowledge from courses you haven't taken yet or from the perspective of a researcher working in a field that a ton of people are interested in.
Or in some cases, you can study with professors that invented the field they are teaching which is a really cool experience.

They are to some extent.
What really matters, assuming you're not a dipshit undergrad, is who your advisor is. The thing is good schools are more likely to have good advisors, but if you have to choose between the two, always go for the advisor.
Also research direction

Hello MIT user,
I am planning to get a phD in mechatronics while im pursuing my BS in MechE. I am legit stressed. Should I shoot for finding interviews for jobs or prioritize my time getting good grades or research? Im also a first year eng student so itll be awkward to ask for research positions this fugging early

Ive heard many terrible stories of my competiton, from kids whove done formal research since they were 13 or some sht to genius students who are 4.0, perfect GRE, top internships, etc. Meanwhile in a cc transfer student and I will be transferring into a new area where I have to kiss professors ass for 2 years before I graduate and apply to grad school MIT. Pls help, what should I be doing my 4 years??

I went to UCSD, a school in the US, and their science departments very much wanted to adapt to the MIT standards at least for engineering and science and Ivy Leagues standards for math. In fact, they prided themselves if they landed a MIT or CalTech alumni, which many of my professors were.

Compare that to UCI, which was the next closest UC school in rank and location. Their courses are more pedestrian friendly, and more in turn, content with lesser requirements.

I don't recall hearing it when I was at university, it was always American centric. I know ETH Zurich is one of the best universities in the world, and in Europe. They don't get much respect here, not any of France or Germany's universities either.

>Just to be clear, are you still an undergrad and considering transferring to finish your undergrad? Are you already at a "mid-tier' school?

Due to the aforementioned low socioeconomic status, I'm actually doing my Gen Eds at a 2-year school because tuition and books for full time enrollment only cost $2-3k per semester. 4 year schools in my area cost 10 times more. The school has transfer agreements with every 4 year university within about 500 miles, so I have several decent state schools I'm virtually guaranteed a spot at, and with no credit loss.

But, as I said, I've taken classes with people who studied (or now study) at Harvard, Exeter, MIT, Rensselaer, and have talked to professors who have studied or worked at Oxford, Brown, Colombia, etc. This is my basis for comparison, and I've compared and been compared favorably to peers who have come from or gone to these schools.

I'm getting an Associate Degree next Spring so I'm applying to schools now for next Fall, where I'll finish out undergrad. There are still some connections here that will follow me if I stay local, though. I know dozens of people that've transferred to some of the local state schools I'm likely to end up at, and a lot of professors here are alumni from those schools who have gotten me in contact with current professors at those schools. So I'll have to think more on your advice. Thank you for taking the time to share it.

From what I've found so far, it'd be CHEAPER for me to go to an elite school than a state school. Those elite schools all have financial aid programs specifically for people like myself from poor backgrounds. They say they charge $20-40k to other people in part so that they can offer free rides to poor students.

Meanwhile, at my local state schools, tuition for everyone is much less, but the proportion of poor students enrolling is higher, so it's looking like I may have to take out loans if I stay local. Probably something like $10k per semester after other financial aid is considered.

I've encountered this personally. I have a math professor that does combinatorics for fun in his spare time, despite the school only having enough students at a high enough level to take a combinatorics class once in a blue moon. He talks about stuff like the "lone runner problem" every few class periods and injects some higher level math into even lower level classes.

Another professor has worked in groundbreaking biomedical research in the past. Has his name on some patents that still pull in enough cash to keep him driving a decent luxury car. He's formally retired, but teaches a few classes at the school because his wife is an English professor there. He'll talk all day about optical physics and how hard it is to make a functional prosthetic eye.

This is what gets me. Sitting in classes of 15-20 people with professors who know your name and crack jokes is great. The prospect of being in a class of 40, 80, etc, and being unknown by the professor seems like the worst thing to me. Plus, not much research going on at a 2-year school, so the professors are mostly ALL there specifically to teach.

Its not a meme although it matters much more for graduate students, as 50% of tenured professors come from like the top 20 schools in general, not in a given field. Although it used to he the case that you shouls go to good program over prestige, now its just becoming a prestige circle jerk

>Yes. You get to network with students and professors, widening future career options.
This guy gets it.

However:
>In the end, a hiring manager will hire you based on your experience, not your GPA.
This is at best true in good times. When times are hard networking is crucial in landing you the next job.

I'm at a top 25 school and I can tell you that courses are much more challenging than at your average flyover street shitter community college, so you should weigh how much more work it will take to succeed and differentiate yourself from the other autists, because really gaining experience, research projects, internships is much more important in the long run than taking difficult courses.

Having a 4.0 in an honours program doesn't make you more hireable if Stacy and Chad have a 2.5 but lots of small projects to showcase their abilities.

when you are 2nd year undergrad and think you know anything at all about anything the post

holy shit you are dumb as fuck, actually neck yourself right now if this is the way you genuinely think

Just after first year search research projects or commercial project, because nobody care about you get A+ in class, get some intership or some summer job, if you don't do that after graduation only you will get shitty offers because people believe you are antisocial,autist.

> Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan.
It is the guys with the poorest social skills who are least likely to talk to adults and find out what the salary and working conditions are like in different occupations. It is mostly guys with rather poor social skills whom one meets in the university science halls.

philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

yes actually you can
t. worked on some shit with them because I asked nicely and baked them cookies

It's a meme continued by American ranking systems so their for-profit schools can continue making more money.

This is one more reason we should kill all bourgies.

Just remember that apps are a crapshoot, you aren't guaranteed in.
On one hand, I'm at UC Berkeley, which is the school I was most excited about and was super excited to go to.
On the other, my best friend, who is at Harvard, got denied from MIT in favor of some political science retard hispanic kid. My friend was one of the smartest people I've ever met, and he's having a great time at Harvard (giving him therapy for Math 55 was always entertaining), on the other he deserved MIT and they picked some idiot instead.
Sometimes it works out and you go to the place you are looking for, other times you don't and still go somewhere amazing. Another friend is starting at UCSB this year, he and I both applied to Berkeley and he didn't get in. Again, we both deserved it, had similar credentials, etc. But he's clearly really excited and it doesn't matter where you go as long as you love the way it feels and the program is pretty competent.