'The only sad thing is how few people know about this. Under-privileged students think they can only afford state schools.'
This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essentially never sent any graduates to Ivy League schools. Why? Because it wasn't part of the community's culture.
How do you fix this? In anything other than upper to upper-middle class suburbs, the parents themselves probably went to state schools and have middle class jobs (which themselves are under pressure now). So the parents and neighbors didn't know anything about Ivy League schools or how to propel their own kids into the upper class.
By the time most kids learn how the culture works, it's too late, they're already in whatever college and life track they happened to fall into. It's takes especially thoughtful parents or other older role models (like great teachers or counselors) to see a kids potential and tell them about their life options.
Some kids have this experience (maybe it's a family friend or distant relative that happens to be very wealthy and shines a light on possibilities to the kid), but most do not.
> This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essentially never sent any graduates to Ivy League schools. Why? Because it wasn't part of the community's culture.
Hmm, I'm skeptical that it was a cultural issue. I went to a suburban high school and the issue wasn't that we didn't somehow know about the top schools, it's that you had virtually zero chance of getting in.
My best friends were the top couple students from my year and the year before me and I watched them mortified as the pattern played out -- they each applied to several top tier universities and were deflated when the stream of rejections came in (though one got into Notre Dame). Just being a valedictorian, active, national merit scholar wasn't enough. Most ended up going to their "safety" schools -- either University of Texas or Texas A&M.
My takeaway from that was that if you were white, middle class and middle-American suburban, that there was almost nothing you could do distinguish yourself enough to get into the country's top schools. As such, I think this announcement is more meaningful for folks from genuinely poor backgrounds than for those from relative suburban privilege.
>My takeaway from that was that if you were white, middle class and middle-American suburban, that there was almost nothing you could do distinguish yourself enough to get into the country's top schools.
90% of my graduating class fits that description. Out of a graduating class of 500 I'd say close to 10% of my class got into an Ivy League. Hell we had 9 get into Cornell alone. The 2013 class sent about 5%. It is a public HS but they offered tons of AP/extra curriculars/etc.
That's impressive. But I think we're working with different notions of suburban. For a suburban high school to have a graduating class of 500, you were presumably around a large population center? Where I grew up, that was the size of the high schools in the city (of about 120k).
My school district, an amalgamation of suburban enclaves and small towns, only had about a third of that. I think being close to a larger city means probably a more sophisticated suburban population (I don't think I'd ever met anyone who'd been to an Ivy-ish school prior to college) and larger schools, which allows for more stratified educational tracks.
White middle-class male here, graduated HS in 2000. Got perfect 800 on SAT Math, National Merit Finalist, played two sports. Rejected by both Notre Dame and Stanford. Not sure what else I could've done.
And does Stanford really make a difference over a state school over the long term? Motivation and talent are more more important than a particular school.
Yes, it does. While at the end everything depends on the student, Stanford offers better connections with companies, a brand name that helps get interviews, and really, just better education. I've watched plenty of Stanford lectures and every professor I watch there is way better than most of mine.
All of this makes a big difference when getting your first couple of jobs. After that, it doesn't matter as much.
"The famous paper Estimating the Return to College Selectivity Over the Career Using Administrative Earning Data (2011) by Dale and Krueger raises the possibility that on average, attending a more selective college doesn’t raise earnings at all. They found that as a group, there was no statistically significant difference in income later in life between students who went to more selective colleges and students who went to less selective colleges. Their finding is somewhat robust: it’s based on a large (~10k) sample size, it’s true both of the class of 1976 and the class of 1989, it’s true of the class of 1976 from age 25 through age 50 and it’s true both of men and of women."
Looking at the earnings of graduates, it doesn't appear that Stanford graduates earn much more than other graduates. It seems like the degree mix the institution awards and the cost of living of the area have the greatest impact on post college earnings. We also need to remember that computer science students comprise just a small portion of the overall student body. http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/full-list...
In regards to the online content, keep in mind that this content has been developed and published with the knowledge that tens of thousands of people will watch it, so it is important to ensure it is of high quality.
What the student gains from college is up to the student themselves. But if a student tries just as hard at Standford for example, compared to some other, smaller school, then the rate at which they succeed or find top notch jobs/internships is much higher than the other student. Basically, the name branding gained through a school like Stanford is a catalyst towards success. It is achievable everywhere, but the rate at which it is gained is different and the name of your university does make a difference there.
> Motivation and talent are more more important than a particular school.
That is probably true, but there are undeniable benefits from the networking that happens at schools like Stanford. So if you have motivation and talent, you may derive even more benefit from going to an Ivy or similar school.
At one time (forty or so years back) this was definitely so. I used to say that the closest I heard to college counseling was the obiter dictum of one of the secretaries that you needed a 1200 combined SAT to get into Notre Dame. The salutatorian of the class ahead of mine got into Princeton, deferred a year, and I don't know who put the idea in his head, but probably nobody at the school. Most of my classmates went to state schools--generally in-state, a few promising jocks elsewhere. I went to a local private university that offered some money, knowing no way to distinguish it from any other school.
This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essentially never sent any graduates to Ivy League schools. Why? Because it wasn't part of the community's culture.
How do you fix this? In anything other than upper to upper-middle class suburbs, the parents themselves probably went to state schools and have middle class jobs (which themselves are under pressure now). So the parents and neighbors didn't know anything about Ivy League schools or how to propel their own kids into the upper class.
By the time most kids learn how the culture works, it's too late, they're already in whatever college and life track they happened to fall into. It's takes especially thoughtful parents or other older role models (like great teachers or counselors) to see a kids potential and tell them about their life options.
Some kids have this experience (maybe it's a family friend or distant relative that happens to be very wealthy and shines a light on possibilities to the kid), but most do not.