Why are Americans obsessed with what university they go to instead

>>8577196
Because it means that you're smart.

>>8577196
Having a paper from Harvard = good chance of a six figure job

Because going to university isn't as much about what you study as it is the connections you make while there with alumni, faculty, and other students. If it was all about education, people would just sit at home, browse the Internet and make their own projects as proof of competence rather than paying 50k a year to go to Uni.
Though don't take this as me saying you can go to Uni and major in dance or something retarded like that. The major matters, but where you go can arguably matter more.

>>8577196
Because it boosts their ego and makes them feel good about themselves. Most geniuses would have been of genius caliber regardless of school attended.

>>8577196
Because americans have an economic system called 'bad capitalism'. In bad capitalism you care first and foremost about brand. That is why people wear shirts full of logos and brand names. And they pay for it! You are supposed to get paid to do publicity but in the US people pay for it instead.

The same happens. "top unis" (unis with lobbyists and also insiders on the associations that rank universities" are the branded product. Normal universities are the same product, just without the branding. Therefore they are inferior by the american metric. The less logos the worse.

>>8577196
heuristic generalization

many good people have come from harvard + harvard is rich + it takes good grades and therefore smarts to get into harvard => people who graduate from harvard are smart

>>8577196
Because Americans are obsessed with status, wealth, money, convenience and instant gratification. Americans would say "Who's not?", but the truth is, nobody is quite as obsessed as Americans.

>>8577196
>Brown
more like brownstain lmfao 0wned

>>8577330
Chip?

>>8577196

Because if what you actually care about are things like money and power, normie interests which most americans do (money, at least), then it actually is much better for you to go to higher-tier schools, because it puts you in the same milleu as the children of elites who are themselves groomed for government, industry, and so on. And if you are actually an extrovert, then you will be able to capitalize on this proximity to the elites' children and make social connections which will redound positively to you later in life.

Furthermore, there is both an undeniable brand recognition in better schools, Ivies, say, just as the OP's images suggests, which marries up with their genuinely and measurably good academic programs, to make them desirable institutions to attend. If you apply to Goldman Sachs or whatever meme you choose, and the guy you talk to himself went to Columbia (as did you, and the odds of this type of meeting only get that much higher if you apply for meme high-status jobs), then you automatically have a nepotistic "in" with him, based not in family or friendship, but alma mater. You're "from" the same place, so you know the same sorts of things about the place. In our little hypothetical, this makes the interview go more smoothly.

But of course all of this requires you to care about money and power, and also to have a willingness to play the game. In short, you pretty much have to be a turbo-normie, or even a minor Chad.

>>8577196
Because prestige is big in non-STEM shit when it comes to jobs.
They are also all outstanding in nearly every way regardless so its not like its bad. Only STEM really has its best colleges not correlate perfectly with prestige and typical sought after universities (as examples, RPI and Georgia Tech are two of the absolute best engineering universities and employers love them but I never heard of kids talking a lot about them back in highschool even when they wanted to be an engineer)

For reference here is a good list of some of the best Engineering colleges in terms of RoI

>>8577500
http://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2016/07/07/top-stem-colleges-of-2016/#136b5029660c
Forgot list

>>8577196
A very significant amount of kids (possibly the majority) have no idea what they want to study when they apply to college.

cause good school = good education
no matter what you study

>>8577243
>>8577256
>>8577312
>>8577462
>>8577500

Huge advantage of a prestigious school is $$$. To put it in context, the endowment of every Ivy League school:

Harvard ($32.7B -- #1 overall)
Yale ($23.9B -- #3 overall)
Princeton ($20.7B -- #5 overall)
Columbia ($8.2B -- #12 overall)
Penn ($7.7B -- #14 overall)
Cornell ($6.2B -- #21 overall)
Dartmouth ($3.4B -- #29 overall)
Brown ($3B -- #32 overall)

Endowment matters because the University can pay for all sorts of shit (scholarships, professorships, facilities, etc.) that grant money can't. Resources are the most important thing a university can offer to its students, and these resources in turn can facilitate better research.

>>8577222
>>8577462
>>8577500

These posts are right on.

The Ivy League plus a handful of other schools comprise the best way to get access the most prestigious, highest paying, so-called "elite" firms in prominent industries such as consulting and finance (Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, BCG, etc.). In big-name tech firms (Google, Facebook, etc.), the list of schools for recruiting may not be quite as stringent, but pretty much the same rules apply. It's the Ivies plus a few other top schools (Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc.), and Public Ivies (Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, UT-Austin, etc.).

>>8577196
ITT: Anti-America circle jerk

>>8577650
Enjoy your major in feminist basket weaving

>>8577758
ITT: Justified Anti-American circle jerk

>>8577331
not even from your country you humorless spastic

>>8577736
the list is actually much larger than most people think, like you have to be really stupid to legitimately not have a chance at any of the schools.

Because elite american colleges are more about networking than getting an education.

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>>8577196
Because I go to Cornell and you don't

>penn state
>state university
>ivy league
how

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Let's face it.
Ivy's are pretty neat for networking and prestige.
But in terms of education the US is really lacking and most likely none of them are near the education level of a regular German state university.

You're basically ensured to get your degree there once you get accepted and show up regularly.

>>8577196
Brown should be kicked out
Columbia should be kicked out
Pennsylvania should be kicked out
Cornell should be kicked out
Dartmouth should be kicked out
Yale should be kicked out
Princeton should be kicked out

That just leaves Harvard, doesn't it?

>>8577810
This. American BSc = High school diploma in Germany.

>>8577803
>being this retarded

>>8577810
>once you get accepted
that is the hard part, here in europe we have a system that accept everyone(pretty comfy though) and it selects the best with exams

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>>8577810
>>8577818
Cool opinions. Got any sources to back up those claims?

>>8577803
UPenn, you halfwit.

>>8577827
enlighten me

>>8577843
what. again, enlighten me

>>8577848
>http://www.psu.edu/
>http://www.upenn.edu/

>>8577853
oh fuck private unis shouldn't use state names what the fuck

i feel like the dumbest human alive

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>>8577818
>American BSc = High school diploma in Germany

>>8577835
we do standardized tests too (ACT which is out of 36 and SAT which is out of 1600), its just that the volume and quality of applicants has been so high that just test scores cannot get you into Ivies and the like anymore. They consider everything to split hairs. Basically it includes all of your GPA (grades), Test scores, Extra curricular activities, legacy (basically everyone but MIT), quality of college essay, AP/IBs taken and your test scores /5 on those, and so on.

For Ivies if you don't have at least a 30 on the ACT or a 1400 on the SAT you shouldn't even bother applying, and if you want a serious chance at it then you have to get at least a 32/1450, preferably higher unless you have something great going for you (legacy, female engineer, cured AIDs in Africa, started a business, etc)

>>8577853
It's the same as with the University of Chicago (ivy league) versus the University of Illinois at Chicago (state university). Easy mistake.

>>8577855
UPenn was in existence for at least 100 years before Penn State.

Its a common confusion so don't feel too bad

>>8577810
Don't forget about Oxbridge either. The Cambridge mathematics Tripos are the gold standard for math exams, for example, and "extracurricular" nonsense simply doesn't exist there. A Senior Wrangler in math is formidable.

>>8577835
>>8577866
I am also going to note that in the US "holistic review" is just a buzzword for "we want to be able to arbitrarily accept and deny people because they are a minority, legacy, or their parents donated to the library and we don't want to be held accountable for it"

>>8577866
>32
>1450
That's absolute bullshit, I got a 36 and 1590 with perfect GPA, top of class, all 5's on AP exams except for one and took research positions in government labs and universities and was rejected from every elite school I applied to
t. cis white straight middle class male

>>8578868
This is true. I was a spic with a 35 and elite schools drooled over me. Got a lot of acceptances that I shouldn't have gotten due to grades. God are spics dumb, thank you white guilt and liberal cucks for allowing me to forever attain positions that I am not remotely qualified for.

>>8578868
I have strong doubts this is true. Please show credentials plus rejection letters.

>>8578868
What research position would hire someone without even a plebian bachelors? Liar and a faggot.

>>8578868
I said that if you have a 32/1450 you have to have something else significant going for you, learn to read faggot

They are the highest rated universities in the world for a reason, the delusional eurocucks ITT unironically think their backwater irrelevant schools actually provide them a quality education.
99% of euro PhDs wouldn't survive a semester at the level of an Ivy League school I can promise you that.
The course load alone would rape them. Most Ivy schools have courses in the first semester that are literally designed to weed out the brainlets and weak. The people saying things like 'it is for the connections!' have clearly never set foot in anything that would resemble a quality university.
Ivy league schools are designed to provide the most rigorous education with an environment that produces the BEST professionals that it can. Your state schools are full of professors that barely got their degrees while Ivy League schools are filled with professors that literally write the books in their field and provide ground breaking research.
TL;DR: ya'll niggers delusional underachieving brainlets

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>>8578895
I haven't received physical copies of the rejections yet
>>8578903
It was the USGS and UofM, I had connections

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>>8578940
I'm too lazy to redact more shit right now

>>8578868
they can't prove you aren't hispanic. re-apply.

>>8578940
>>8578944
Interesting. If you do find the time though, please include the rejection letters, proof of GPA and class rank, and research positions.

But worth noting is that a problem with the Ivies is that it attracts the top brass from all around the country and the world. While scoring 99th percentile is quite impressive in itself, the school has no way of knowing if that makes you a better choice than someone scoring a 1500, or 34 or someone who scored a 1600 or 36 due to the difference potentially resting on multiple choice and in turn some people guessing right or wrong on the questions they don't know the answers to. And there's a lot of people who make those kinds of scores and have more things to offer the college including guaranteed funding through tuition payment, guaranteed funding from the state through pell grants for taking in a low income applicant, sob success stories to tell at graduation to advertise for the college, etc.

If you are low middle class, or true middle class, have nothing but your academics, which all other applicants have on a reasonably similar level, and you're most likely going to be coming in on bank loans and no outside scholarship aid (unless you do, and if you do you better do your damn best to play this angle up) a college may not bother to take the risk with accepting you because you might not get that loan renewed year after year and the cash flow can stop, whereas with a poor student for instance, the pell grant is guaranteed as long as they stay in school, and it's guaranteed for ALL poor applicants by the state.

Though I will say it does strike me as odd that you'd be rejected if you held important research positions. If you included that in your application essay in great detail, it's surprising that they didn't accept you, given that some Ivies are research hubs and could always use another set of qualified hands in the lab.

>>8578944
What was your ACT/SAT on your first try? That picture seems to be the December ACT so its not relevant for ED/EA, what ACT score did you submit? Do you have anything beyond grades and the research? Despite what I said here >>8577910 Ivies and other elites do split hairs and get down in the weeds and do take into account ECs and other shit, if you are a white middle class guy with no legacy, a mediocre/bad essay, and shitty/very few EC's then your chances aren't as amazing as the grades and scores should dictate.
I think your chances should be high thought as your scores and grades are top notch and you did research shit. Remember the entire thing is a crapshoot regardless so nothing is guaranteed.

>>8579051
>>8578944
Also some Ivies (Cornell is what I remember prinarily) take into account all the scores you have ever taken and its not optional. If you had a mediocre (30 or lower) score it might count against you.

>>8579051
It's April, I just had a screenshot already and was too lazy to log in to get the official report
>>8579052
That was my first time taking both tests

>>8578887

>This is true. I was a spic...

Yeah uh, nice try anon. Try to be more subtle next time.

>>8578940
>>8578944

What score did you end up going to?

>>8579130
School autocorrect sucks

>>8577835
That's how education should be.

Here in the US, you're pretty much never gonna attend a top school unless you're already wealthy and connected. Europe has it's shit together.

>>8577868
Chicago isn't Ivy, but it's definitely on the same level.

Ivy only refers to eight specific schools in the Northeast. Not even MIT is among them.

>>8579644
The universities benefit far more and actually in a twisted way can produce better research and shit by prioritizing legacy and connected people.

Doing that keeps families in schools, dramatically raising the chances that family will give money to the university and also naturally increasing the power and wealth of that family, which helps the university's prestige and money inflow. There is almost no incentive beyond higher ideals for universities to not run admissions the way they do.

>>8579649
Yeah theres some misunderstanding that Ivies alone are the greatest schools in the US. The truly best schools in the US are Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and I would not say U of chicago is equivalent to these 4 I would say U of chicago is better than the likes of Brown and Colombia. Most of these "lower ivies" are known for their graduate school prestige not their undergrad

>>8579644
>>8579654
I'm afraid you are both highly incorrect about a vast number of things, which is common for people who dont actually go these schools. For PR purposes these schools want to get away from the WASP atmosphere as much as possible, and so the vast majority of their attendees have their "quirk" as either being poor, brown, or both, and smart. I have shared photos that make myself living proof of this although I am white.

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>>8577196
It used to be the University set your path in life.

Not anymore. The Ivy League schools and places like Stanford, Cal, etc are not as awe inspiring as they used to be.

Why? Because in the past the truly gifted went to those Universities. If someone came to you with a degree from one of those places you knew this person was smart.

Now in the age of diversity and SJW these former places of higher education have become a joke.

In a strange way thanks to the progressives devaluing the name of these once great Universities the actual person now matters not the school you went to.

>>8577196
The real reason is that a lot of colleges a balance of two things: Money, connections, and opportunity. Schools like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and MIT have these in spades for their respective focuses (let's be real, Yale and Harvard are more focused on finance, law and humanities than anything else). Other schools require a balance, and as such are not as good for people who are entrepreneurial and want to be in a high place by the time they're 40. Schools like mine (UC Berkeley) have resources and connections, but almost no money (due to public funding). Quality of education really doesn't play that much into it, because undergrad curriculum is relatively standardized and you're basically just trying to get yourself in the same place as people of similar or higher caliber to yourself, since that makes employers and outside entities recognize your relative ability. Think of it as binning for CPUs and GPUs.

>>8579656
If you want to split hairs about elite schools:
Ivy rankings:
Tier 1: Harvard, Yale, Princeton
Tier 2: Columbia, UPenn (For Business/Wharton only), Cornell (For Engineering only)
Tier 3: Cornell (everything else), UPenn (everything else), Dartmouth, Brown

Overall Elites:
Tier 1: Harvard Yale Princeton Stanford MIT
Tier 2: Columbia, Caltech, UChicago, Williams
Tier 3: Cornell, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins
Amherst falls somewhere in 2/3, probably 3
If I'm forgetting anyone significant just say it.
within the tiers the order doesn't mean anything its just the order I remembered them in.

>>8579662
My father who is a legacy at an Ivy is deeply aware of why they do shit in admissions, stfu

I was only referring to legacies, and I didn't imply that legacy automatically gets you in. It can cure the sick but it can't raise the dead unless your parent has the influence to make a phone call. Of course minorities have a much easier time getting in.

Additionally, you are statistically wrong to say the vast majority of attendees are either poor or brown/both+smart. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that its false, and it takes a simple google search to disprove it.

>>8579677
Cal for sure has a lot of people who are there for bullshit reasons (though if there's anything I've learned since coming here it's that it's impossible to judge a person's relative intelligence and giftedness just by their major and outward presentation), but if you look at the STEM and business fields they're still totally top notch. As a matter of fact, almost every 1990 or earlier Cal alum I've talked to has opened with "Man, if I applied today I'd never get into Cal."

>>8579677
I don't know anon, the people at those schools are still some pretty smart fellows. It's not like Yale and Harvard are taking bums off the street because they're black. And furthermore, the graduate research departments have benefited greatly from the new business style approach of accepting legacy primarily.

>>8579685
First of all, both of what we are saying is anecdotal, so if you want to tell me what I am saying is shit, you need to throw "my dad works at Nintendo shit" out the window. In retrospect "vast majority" wasnt the best term to use. But heres the truth: just about 50% of undergraduates at Harvard are a minority, counting asians. Harvard and other top schools have some of the largest financial aid programs in the world, and if your family makes less than 80K you basically get in for free. You can get both of these from harvards website. So the point is the majority of people that get into these schools are not "wealthy and well connected." You could count the number of nonwhite historical harvard families on one hand, and the perpetuation of a wealthy elite exclusively through the Ivies is bizarre considering the political climate of the current era.

>>8579703
>both of what we are saying is anecdotal
Both of what we are saying is also clearly false based off your backpedaling
My dad went to an ivy but doesn't work in admissions
>vast majority wasn't the best term to use
Yeah its just flat out incorrect
>50% of undergrades are minorities
Exactly 50% are so thats correct
>If your family makes less than 80k you basically go for free
Most are over 80k but yes
>majority of people who get into these colleges are not wealth or well connected
This is all right but I never implied that. I said and implied that they proritize legacies and the well connected. I did not qualify how much they did, but they do it about as much as they do an individual minority group that isn't Asian (about 16% of Harvard is legacy, about 14% is Black about 14% is hispanic. I exclude Asians because colleges actively discriminate against them which is twisted)

Calling what i said "highly incorrect" is a stretch. Being a legacy helps about as much as being a minority, both raise your acceptance chances from sub-10% to about 30%.

>>8577222

I get what you're saying (and I below wrote a post which can easily be construed to agree with what you wrote here), but your prose suggests the mistakes that everyone actually does value the exact same things, which is of course obviously false. The whole thing goes to what people value. The OP literally questions why "Americans" taken as a group presumably value what they value, and the very question suggests the reality that others (Europeans? Introverts? Muslims? Christians? Nihilists? Hedonists?) don't have the same value system.

Less spicily, broadly, yes, adults have a certain practical "money/employability" expectation of a college education, for all the trouble involved, and culture the young to have similar expectations. But even this isn't exactly the same thing as "muh social connections", though of course the two are related. If that is what one either genuinely values, or is obliged to value.

The other huge thing that you are missing in your post is the social proof-for-employment of credentialling, which I think you know so well that you simply didn't make the point of mentioning it, but it does deserve being mentioned in conneciton with all this. HR people don't want to talk to the elevated-NEET sperg who actually does know economics inside and out because he took two years off to research independently. HR people, or people making hires, just want to tick the nice box that this one has a post-secondary degree of some kind and consequently 1) can actually finish a long-term, high stakes project and 2) isn't a total status-loser. That is what goes on in the head of a hiring person. That said, it makes me happy that the department that everyone focuses on killing dead nowadays is HR. And I say this as a person who recalls no personal suffering or loss at the hands of HR, it's just this stupid idiot culture thing in the way.

>>8579849

expanding very slightly, and making the point, you ignore the simple fact of actually completing a college degree of any kind, and how that does in-and-of-itself automatically raises you in employers' estimation of you, versus your more detailed project of the networking bit, because you would rather contemplate the actions of more self-actualized adults. My point here is that if you want to honestly describe all of this in a broad sense (college, Americans, non-Americans, work, employability, really really broad socioeconomic categories), then you must treat of some different value systems and spheres. Even and especially the "dumber" ones, or the ones that you find boring or don't personally "like".

>>8577196
Possibly long winded, but exactly the answer you're looking for with depth and insight...

https://newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-send-your-kids-elsewhere

>>8579858

TL;DR marketing

In america, universities are businesses first and foremost.

>>8578868
>t. cis white straight middle class male
And this is where you fucked up. My ex got a full ride to yale out of highschool with 1600 sat and 5s. 10 points isn't much of a difference but having a vagina is. My essay to hopkins was about the struggles of being a homosexual in modern society. To this day I'm convinced I got in for pretending to be gay.

>>8579881
Ap exams. In highschool in the US we have accelerated programs that are basically entry level college courses in highschool, at the end of the year you take an exam given by the state with 5 being the highest score. I think graduate programs are easier to get into than undergrad because you have more opportunities to distinguish yourself from your peers but I'm talking entirely out of my ass so what do I know.

>>8579685

Missing Vandy, Georgetown and CMU at tier 3

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>>8577196
>Yale
>That shield

>>8577677
Endowment matters as long as it is actually spent on student(')s (activities).
And then $/student would matter more than raw endowment per university - and THEN it would be really important to know which major and under-/grad students would be invested in how much moneyz.
but hey big moneyz = good school, 90% of harvard grads get summa cum in my face laudae, they so gud!

>>8577810
What's actually nice with/in those "elite" universities is the ratio of students/tutor.
In Germany - at least STEM at TUM, LMU, Bonn, and some minor universities in Bavaria I know it for sure - that ratio often ist more than 20/1 in undergrads, sometimes even 30/1.
In Cambridge math tripos it is like 3/1 to 1/1, this is the DREAM for studentes that actually wanna achieve something and not just study with a lot of hate for a degree becasue *big money*.
Lecture in those "prestigiouse" German universities are HUGE, speaking 500-1k and more students in one lecture hall; it is absurdly insane.
The HUmbold idea(l) of university and teaching is garbage in today's time in my opinion, esepcially with kids going to university 17-19 years old and not a clue what they really wanna do in their lifes. The approach of strict attendance and multiple forms of testing (homework, sit in, take hom tests, quizzes) makes sure that everyone who is willing to suffer for his major is really learning something other than for a test and instantly forgetting everything.

>>8577882
damn, I'll finish my CS major (trololol) this year and want to do a maths major (living in Germany, age 25 right now).
Sadly mathematics ain't really big here, and the ETHZ doesn't have the courses I'd be interested in, so I stranded on cambridge.
But esepcially as a 26 years old (since I missed October 15th deadline) in 2018, I think it might be extremly difficult to get accepted into an undergraduate program over there? I've read an ama that some interviewer in Oxford was very reluctant accepting students above the average age of like 17-19 years because "old people are not teachable anymore" and "young and old students don't work well together".
Partially I can understand his points but then, I'd argue that I worked pretty well with those 17 year old kids when I've been 24 years old, so...
Anyway, maybe the tripos diesn't really mean shit since the courses are pretty much the same, the few "bigger" mathe departments in Germany offer (namely LMU, Boon, TU/HM Berlin, Heidelberg and Göttingen).
Failing for the prestige-meme or is it worth a shot?

>>8580409
Mach dir keinen Kopf wegen des Alters. Der Rest ergibt sich eh von selbst mit der Zeit. Viel Erfolg dennoch. Dieses "zu alt zum lernen"/"jung/alt lernen nicht gut miteinander"...-meme ist totaler Schwachsinn.

Notfalls irgendwie quer rein.

>>8579896
Yeah AP exams are meant to be a college course lite version, if you get a 5 (which is legitimately very difficult as a high school student) then it indicates you would be able to pass the same course in college, and colleges recognize that and allow you to use it to skip core requirements, as well as it helping a lot in admissions. Sometimes they also accept 4s. As an example I got 5's on AP European History and AP US History (I took much more APs just examples) so I am pretty much able to just skip most college history requirements at most colleges that require them.

>>8577196
>muh Cambridge

>tfw born in tacoshithole
>tfw my best college is still shit in regards to american colleges
how do I emigrate /sic/?

I'm conservative and have 130IQ even if brown.

>>8578868
What school did you end up going to?

>>8580446
Apply to an American College and get a student visa. You're welcome to learn here, the only problem people have is if you stay here and don't use your knowledge gains to fix your homeland.

>>8580459
you can't solve tacolandia without first making drugs legal.
drug dealers have even more money than what the police guys have and many times is a fucking hydra that you can't kill.

not possible to win that war by keeping drugs illegal.

>>8580446
Honestly, just start studying at whatever is available in your country and then try to work yourself to other universities via connections at some point. Also the differences regarding quality of education are not as big as people make them out to be. Especially for undergrads the differences are mostly irrelevant. It's not hard to switch to another university later on either.

>>8580440
Ja, ich würde/werde es eh als ein "schauen wir mal obs klappt" Versuch ansehen, ansonsten Bonn oder LMU; am Ende kommts mir nur darauf an, dass ich Spaß und Herausforderung hab.

>>8580499
Warum machst du deinen CS master nicht erst einmal?

>>8580394
Sorry, strongly disagree: a university shouldn't be judged by it's floor (i.e., how easily somebody can make it through with a degree). Rather, a university should be judged by its ceiling. A motivated undergraduate capitalizing on all of the opportunities afforded to them will benefit proportionally to the resources available to them (minds, instruments, etc.).

>>8580503
CS hat mich nicht sonderlich vom Hocker gehauen; werd mich für n Data analysis Master an der TUM bewerben, aber je nachdem, ob ich innerhalb dieses Jahres eine Zukunft dort sehe, annehmen oder eben nicht; Mathe hat mich einfach hart vom Hocker gehauen - bin früher leider in der Suppe "Mathe ist schwer, suckt, 4 gewinnt" geschwommen, das war dümmlich meinerseits - aber die Berufsaussichten sind halt scheisse, vorallem in der Forschung in DE und CS ist mein zweites Interesse, also sicher kein Hass Studium gewesen, aber eben nicht das, wonach ich das letzte Jahr lechze

>>8580560
Die ganzen Spezialisierungen sind alle nicht so wichtig, da die HR Tussis sowieso nur Schwänze lutschen können und die alten Männer vom Schlag " zu meiner Zeit gabs noch den guten Diplomingenieur" sind. Ach und ohne Doktor bist du automatisch eine Hierarchiestufe geriger, und das für immer. Mach was in Regelstudienzeit und such dir etwas, was halbwegs spannend ist und gut bezahlt wird.

T. Experde.

>>8577222
>>8577462
>>8577500
These guys are mostly right.

For example take Indian institute of technology. The top 5 IITs require a rank of 1-5000/100,000. They have the best placements and these send the pajeets going to google, Oracle, windows and shit. My friends at IIT say it's absolute shit quality and study wise but that's not why IIT is famous. It's because it has become a brand. A brand sold to companies

Also you create a lot of contacts with hard-working people which can be useful

>>8577196
Because they fell for the meme that somehow paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same information you get at any state school for four years means that you're smarter than everyone else.

>>8580656
>shit quality and study wise
>A brand solid to companies

You don't see the discrepancy between these statements immediately? Businesses are fundamentally driven by profits, and incompetent labor will absolutely kill your bottom line. Companies tend to hire from brand name schools because it's an assurance of *quality*.

Look, you want more proof? Go to any academic department website and look at where the professors did their PhD's and where they did their postdocs if applicable. You'll notice that one (if not both) of those two will be affiliated with a big boy program in some capacity -- that's because they can trust the quality of the applicant. You won't see a lot of people doing PhD's at Bob Jones University and postdocs at Old Dominion or whatever shit.

>>8580834
My mistake should've clarified that it was only undergrad. Postgraduate programs aren't good here at all but these have the solid undergrad brand

>>8578887
>I was a spic
then what happened

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>>8577810
>But in terms of education the US is really lacking and most likely none of them are near the education level of a regular German state university.

>The most well known and prestigious universities in the world don't hold up compared to the average German school

This is one of the greatest shitposts I've ever seen. My god.

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>>8581947
And I've seen this kind of comment three times on this board so it's either the most delusional Kraut in the world or just some sort of general retarded opinion that continental Europeans have to make up for the insecurity they possess for having 1 school in the world ranking top ten and 2 schools in the world ranking top 30.

Fact of the matter is that unless you're Swiss or British, there's no chance that you'll attend a school as great as an above average American.*

I saw above average because an above average American should be able to easily attend a public Ivy or Ivy/top 30.

German schools are probably comparable to middle tier American state colleges (below Cal but above say Riverside for my Cali friends).

>>8577196
Why are Americans obsessed with hitting fat dabs all day long?

>>8578922

/sci/ would fall for this bait

Anyone here go to Purdue?

>>8582020
>t. yuropoor

Why some unis, like Ivy League (?) are expensive as hell?
Young students doesn't mind to have a debt even before working?

I'm not from US.

>>8581482
Still doesn't explain why businesses recruit undergrads from said institutions for labor, when the reality is subpar education and lower output will hurt their bottom line.

Plus, again, we're not interested in the "coasters" who just take classes and take a diploma. A motivated undergraduate who can take graduate courses, pursue research, and utilize all of the resources of a big-money research university can better themselves infinitely over "muh state school is the same education but cheaper!"

As people said, it's about connections and renown.
Do you honestly expect american education to be top tier if Obama's daughter gets into Harvard and you have courses like Women's Studies or other liberal shit.

It's shame that people have to pay off huge debts for things like these.

>>8582091
>It's shame that people have to pay off huge debts for things like these.
No it isn't. If you decide to major in womens studies and buy ad space in newspapers to let everyone know you are a board certified patriarchy investigator you deserve the debt.

>>8582086
They do it because these are the smartest and hard-working people. Literally top 5k of the country out of 100k
These guys are hired not for graduating from these institutions but for getting admission into them

>>8580834
>incompetent labor
They aren't incompetent if they made it through the university program though. They just didn't have as high of a SAT score coming in.

>>8582086
Because a university doesn't have to concern itself with the needs of dropouts, they still collect the check anyway. Also, there will always be students from all walks of life who show up and work their ass off to get an education. Those students are turned around and used as success stories upon graduation and their getting a job. Lastly, companies don't look hard at things like a person's SAT score from 4 years ago in great depth, if at all when evaluating a prospective employee. They want to know if the worker is knowledgeable of the work they will be doing, competent enough to follow instruction and provide useful insight, and not going to be a distraction or cause trouble. Having a diploma and a successful internship or working record shows that. They don't need or want to know your raw intelligence, because it's not a concern or even going to help business operation as much as you think it will, unless you're signing up to be part of a group which allows no access to computers.

>>8582091
She may have gotten in legitimately though. As president's daughter she definitely had access to top tier education these past 8 years of school (and probably before that too), so it's unlikely for her to not be smart.

>>8582184
All of those things are correct, but if an employer knows that a high percentage of people from an elite school fit the bill, why wouldn't they look there first? Elite schools put out quality candidates: it's not just a matter of "muh trust fund" or other bullshit, because that simply wouldn't stand market scrutiny.

>>8582146
Definitely wrong, because if MIT put out shitty electrical engineers (they don't), no firm would ever want to hire an MIT engineer. Simple as that. Businesses can't afford to hire chuckleheads.

>>8582068
They are expensive because the unis constantly spend retarded amounts of money on:
New shit to use for research and other resources
A completely useless but overpaid buercracy (Dean of Diversity, Dean of Student Relations, and their related underlings that also cost a lot)

If you go to an Ivy you can almost always be pretty confident that you will be able to get a job somewhere and pay off your debt. It is similar for other elite tier schools (Stanford, MIT), top tier schools (U Michigan, UVA, NYU, BC, UCLA) and also schools that are very good at getting their grads a job (RPI and Northeastern are the schools that come to mind but they are also ranked nearly as highly as the schools I mentioned last)

Ivies also will pretty much pay for your education if you are below 80k family household income and will make it far easier if you are above because they all sit on monsterous amounts of cash. If you are above the range that they will take the edge off the cost then your family can almost always just pay for it with little worry anyway. State Colleges are far cheaper, especially if in state. Most students only emerge with an average of 30k debt which is fairly manageable unless you fall behind in payments.

This doesn't mean that I believe the cost of colleges here is ok. It is far too expensive for previously mentioned reasons and something needs to happen that will seriously cut down the cost. The easiest method is destroying the useless portions of their bureaucracies.

>>8582091
The Ivies do give top tier education, they can capture the best professors and sit on monumental bags of cash.

Obama's daughter probably could have gotten in regardless of her dad because from what I've read her grades and scores fit the bill and she had a bunch of crazy EC's, and of course is a black girl.

If not Harvard she probably could have easily gone to Princeton because she is legacy as well as all of the shit mentioned before. (Michelle went there and is an active alumni)

>>8577196
Even shit subjects are meaningful at a top-tier uni.

Every subject is trash at a bottom/mid-tier uni.

>>8582091

>Do you honestly expect american education to be top tier if Obama's daughter gets into Harvard

Is this bait or are you just retarded? She is the daughter of two fucking harvard lawyers, did you not think she wasn't going to get into Harvard or a good school in general?

Seriously think before you post anon.

>>8577196

For potential threadbrowsers:

I had a 3.1 GPA back in high school and wound up doing graduate research at a Ivy that is top 5 in my field. Don't lose hope boys.

>>8583053
My hope is being Hispanic.
How did you do well in undergrad?

>>8583053
thanks mang

>>8583070
This is how I also plan on getting into LiberaLand(TM).

Stay mad white boi

>>8581496
then he went back

>>8578887
what if I'm a pooinloo with a 35 and a 4.3 gpa

do I get colored person points or not

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>>8578922
>(((Ivy League)))
>quality education

>>8579727
brainlet here

what does 'legacy' mean in this context?

>>8583053
This. In the US, it matters only a little where you go to undergrad, unless you're a completely braindead fuck who went to a community college or some bottom of the barrel school like, I dunno, Elon or Juniata, off the top of my head, and got less than a 3.0 in high school.

>>8580656
>google, Oracle, windows and shit
I'm sorry, did you just say windows? Stopped reading after that

>>8583171
It means a relative went to that college but in all contexts that matters it means one of your parents went to that college, because thats usually all that matters. Being a legacy at elite colleges (except MIT and Caltech) helps your chances of getting in drastically (its like being a minority for all intents and purposes, maybe better if your parent is a good alumni.

Its purpose is:
- Legacy students are usually better than others for reasons that escape my mind, possibly because of their parents
- A college admitting an alumni's child drastically increases the chance that alumni will do shit for and at the college
- If the alum has done a lot for the college, its a way of saying thank you
- if the alum hasn't, its a good way of trapping a family into a college so the college can get consistent money that grows over time as the trapped family gains from being trapped (as they can consistently get the education and degree from that college)

As an example, as a legacy at Cornell my chances of being admitted skyrocket from the admission rate of ~14% to I think its around 35% or 40%. At Harvard its really influential and goes from 5.4% to 30%. PLEASE NOTE despite this help it doesn't mean you can not work hard in highschool and still get in except in the most extreme cases. Legacy can cure the sick but it cannot raise the dead. Students that get admitted because they are legacy are almost always up to the standards of the school.

I personally have little issue with it, doesn't really hurt anybody, helps the colleges, and only in extreme cases do people who are truly unqualified get into the elite schools.

>>8583167
Be pacific!

>>8583337
>as a legacy at Cornell
>I personally have little issue with it

Come on bruv

>>8583357
I'm not in Cornell bruv

>>8583070
>>8583173

The most important thing for doing well is to know how to do the mental gymnastics to motivate yourself with what you're doing. A lot of people say "do what you love", but I think it's much more important to "find what you love in what you do" since you're never going to be doing EXACTLY what you always wanted to do.

For example, I used to be someone who loved physics but went into mechanical engineering because I had no money and knew it was a bad bet to assume I'd get into grad school/get a job with a bachelor's in physics.

But I learned to find the physics-y things in mechanical engineering (that, as it turns out, lots of physicists don't traditionally do): stability/perturbation problems in hydrodynamics, chaotic systems, etc. Eventually wound my way into an interdisciplinary theory field that focuses on that. So yeah.

Also get internships for the love of Christ.

>old
>boys
>club

It's evidence of how much money their family has.

>>8583173
Where you go undergrad only starts to matter less if you go to grad school which barely anybody does or even needs to.

>>8583377
Doesn't change the fact that you have "little issue" with something that "doesn't really hurt anybody" when you have the potential to benefit from it. Does it not hurt some asian kid with a 1600 that gets passed for a legacy kid?

>>8583452
I have absolutely 0 potential to benefit from it and don't benefit from it.

Also I said that legacy can cure the sick but not raise the dead. If the Asian kid has a 1600 as well as the other bullshit (ECs) then (ignoring the fact that Ivies discriminate against Asians) he would get in over a legacy he completely outmatches. If it was a 34 guy v. a 35 guy and the former had legacy assuming nothing else they probably will take the legacy. If its a 1600 v. a 1480 ignoring all else then it would be the 1600

>ITT: brainlets who identified as misunderstood geniuses had their reality shattered when they didn't get into an Ivy Leage school who are being salty about it on a siamese shadowpuppet imageboard

>>8583452
>>8583765
Also I do recognize the argument for legacies is weak, the arguments against it also assume that colleges are an idealized version of themselves, some mix of democracy and meritocracy despite most not being as such.

Either way its not like they are going anywhere, the people that would need to agree to getting rid of them are all encrusted with the benefits of legacy.

>>8577810
You might be retarded.

>>8583355
just fuck my shit up

>>8577196
Instead of making erroneous shitposts, lets rank them

Which Ivy is the worst Ivy /sci/? I say its Brown, they are kinda just a jack of all trades master of none matched with being extremely liberal.

>>8583934
>>8583765
I suppose so, the same arguments can be made for affirmative action in many cases

>>8584222
Except that affirmative action works to benefit those who are disadvantaged and legacy works to the opposite degree

>>8584222
The difference in my eyes is that the arguement against affirmative action are stronger, mainly because it actively discriminates against a race (Asians) and to use the example of the 1600 Asian, the real reason he wouldn't get in is to admit a 1480 Black student. The average stats for legacies are usually near average, affirmative action actually provides legitimately unqualified people.
I think that steps should be taken to help other races out of poverty but actively discriminating against an overly successful race (Asians) is not the way to go imo.

>>8584258

Not him but I honestly think Affirmative Action is being used as a scapegoat for this situation by both parties.

For instance say Affirmative Action is gotten rid off, do you really think these universities would be accepting Asians to such a high amount once it's gone? Do you not think it's strange that suddenly experience and publishing matters more now when Asians and East Asian countries are now at the top of charts in terms of grades/ test scores/IQ pushing out Whites? It's just a convenient way of deciding who to allow in without explicitly being discrimate. Yeah some underqualified minorities are getting in but have you seen the statistics past the undergrad level? They're low, too low for it really threaten anyone, I think for instance like African Americans consist of around 3 to 4% of Doctorates for the past several years.

I mean you already have news articles questioning the constant and growing influx of foreign students enrolling in American universities. Stating that they're pushing out native born students.

>>8584176
Brown has open enrolment. UCSC doesn’t have grades

>>8584459
Its not really feasible to have an effective ban, neither is legacy due to "holistic admissions"

I was just stating I believe the argument against AA is strong

>>8577196
Because most people don't decide major until they are in college

>>8577196
Prestige obviously.

The difference between Ivy League and a state school is the Ivy League students in all your classes will be forming multi-million dollar startups and will ask you to join them. It's all about networking, so when Zuckercuck needed a CTO for his new startup Facebook, he just asked his bro down the hall to help out. That 'bro' is now a multi millionaire.

Normally to get into high executive positions you have to work and climb the ladder but at Ivy League you just parachute into any position you want. Another not known fact is almost all students who grad Ivy do not have any debt, because the schools pay for all their tuition through generous grants even giving them $2k a month "living allowance".

>>8584768
There is some hyperbole here but its mostly true. Ivies do offer superior education to almost anywhere else though due to aformentioned prestige and money

>>8584768
multi-billionaire*

>>8577196
because there is a big meme about the college experience, and most people don't know what each college is good at nor what they want to study.

Also sports

>>8584768
>$2k a month "living allowance"
this doesnt happen at any school

>>8586274
Ivy League does
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9283802
>Harvard was the most generous, fully funded tuition + room/board + clothing stipend (presumably to keep up with the lifestyles of what would have been my wealthier classmates) + transportation stipend to fly back home for holidays.

You also get various "stipends" (pocket money) for gradschool at Harvard/Princeton/Cornell ect if you are one of the top researchers. They don't want you to work they want you to make them money through research patents

Ivy League is the way to go, no debt, full grants, living allowance, plane tickets. Meanwhile Joe Smith who goes to a state school leaves with 100k+ in debt

>>8586356
Yeah you get a stipend which is common. Its like $1.5k a semester. Its not $2k a month. Graduate students get payed for teaching but they need to be teaching, they dont just get it by existing.

>>8577196
Because the people who make these threads are all freshmen who all have to take the same "general education" courses, so they haven't actually begun studying their degrees yet and can't circle jerk about it.
Stay cucked Americlaps.

>>8586503
Cambridge/Oxford pay 700GBP per month after room+board for things like "off campus food and transportation" plus 300GBP or so for other expenses, working out to a salary of 1200 USD per month in pocket money during the school year (not summer obv) since everything else is taken care of. Lot's of top universities do this it's pretty common though if you work on campus they deduct that money.

>>8577196
It boosts self esteem

>>8586532
Yeah they dont give you that much per semester in the US. I know for a fact.

>>8577866
I think their entrance exams are more tailored to what they want to major in. SAT and ACT are quite broad. I don't think many students here in the US who go into STEM majors have mastered Calculus well enough to take an entrance exam and ace it

>>8586920
I think less than 500 students have probably mastered calculus by the end of highschool considering the calc taught in bearly every highschool is chicken shit easy compared to college

>>8582091
She could be legitimately smart. Her parents are both Ivy league grads and she has been provided some of the best education in the world.

>>8586929
Obama's one daughter is actually pretty smart the other is a total ho with zero motivation or direction which is why you always have an extra kid just in case one turns out like shit.

The Ivy League courses are mainly open for the most part, it's not at all tougher than other schools really (Except Cambridge Math Tripos) but you go there for the networking with other elites, to get plum research grants working with other top profs in the field, and for resume prestige.

>>8586920
truly you are delusional beyond belef

>>8577196
It's not just America. In Britain there's a huge prestige factor associated with what university you went to (for those in the know). If you went to Cambridge or Oxford you're literally a god, and the Russell Group (LSE, UCL, Imperial in particular) also gets you respect.

I suspect it's the same all over the world. You get it in Japan with Todai, and in Singapore with NUS.

There is also prestige associated with particular degree subjects. Medicine, Law, and STEM mostly gets respect, and that respect dwindles as you approach subjects like Journalism and Literature.

However, degree subjects don't get as much respect as institutions because the quality of the teaching of that particular subject varies massively by institution.

>>8578868
>>8578887
>>8578940
>>8578944
Is this some sort of bullshit combo post or just samefag? You have the scores and we just started the year--you have plenty of time to know your result before making sweeping claims like this (thought mr. near-perfect scores would have better judgement than this). Either way, super-fucking-cool-story-3-the-shitposting-boogaloo.

Usually attending a prestigious university signifies high intelligence and the potential for massive wealth since they are extremely selective and tend to leave their graduates with six figure salaries.

I used to want to go to Carnegie Mellon University for similar reasons. Although it isn't a ivy league it has a similar reputation in regards to engineering and computer science, however after realizing the high stress nature of the university and the incredibly high cost even after aid, I decided on going to my state's premier land grant school for electrical engineering.

>>8577868
>Chicago = Ivy League
No it isn't you fucking statetard.
I get irrationally angry when people don't know all 8 Ivy League schools
>(because I go to one of the lesser known ones)

looking at this thread reading about "making connections" in college. are there any books that delve in this? or can any of you elaborate?

>>8587174
If you need a book to do it, you'll never be able to do it.

Just get to know people so you can sponge off of their success later.

Dartmouth sounds like a tryhard hippie university. Is it hot on liberal arts?

>>8577222
If this is true, I fucked up big time in uni.

>>8587174
art of war

If you are a white male and not a legacy or have some other connections you are not getting into an Ivy as an undergrad.

>>8588158
objectively incorrect

>>8588136
Thats Brown although Dartmouth is very liberal arts

>>8587020
its the same guy

>>8588338
>>8588136
to clarify I mean that Brown is the tryhard hippie uni, although if any of the Ivies were to be a NESCAC/Patriot League instead of Ivy it would definitely be Dartmouth.

for reference:
Cornell is the closest to a state school or polytech
Dartmouth is closest to LAC
Harvard/Princeton/Yale/Columbia are all very traditional unis,
Brown is closest to an experimental uni
Penn is a party school

Which school has the coolest motto?

>>8588457
I think its Penn's, but for your to judge for yourself:
>Cornell
>I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study. (its only in English, Cornell was founded well after the revolution)

>Dartmouth
>Vox clamantis in deserto, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness”

>Harvard
>Veritas, “Truth”

>Brown
>In Deo Speramus, “In God We Hope”

>Yale
>Urim and Thummim/Lux et veritas, “Light and truth” (Hebrew/Latin, "English" is the languages respectively)

>Columbia
>In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen, “In Thy light shall we see the light”

>Princeton
>Dei sub numine viget, “Under God’s power she flourishes”

>UPenn
>Leges sine moribus vanae, “Laws without morals are useless”

>>8588478
Thanks for your effort, I find Columbia's most poetic.

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>>8588644
The only one thats truly appropriate is Dartmouth's because its located in the middle of nowhere (pic related) and all they do is drink in the surrounding forest

>>8577196
Because employers and admissions committees care which means we have to care.

>>8586532

Did you just lie for the sake of making yurocucks mad=

>>8588644

Columbia grad here. Just thought I'd pop in to let you know that Columbia's motto actually comes directly from the Bible. Check the source for more poetry.

>>8588725
Cambridge pays their grad students to go there
https://www.turing.ac.uk/opportunities/studentships/
>includes a generous tax-free stipend of £20,500 per annum, a travel allowance and tuition fees for a period of up to 3.5 years.

Ivy League in the US does the same
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/audiences/prospective-graduates/funding
>This includes tuition, fees, and a cost-of living stipend ($2,936 per month before taxes in 2016-17).

>>8588772
Just like every latin university quote really.

>>8588792
That seems to be pretty even 2bh

>>8577196

Their education isn't necessarily better, but their reputations attract top-quality students, who eventually get great jobs and donate to their ridiculous endowments, resulting in better facilities, which leads to a better reputation and the cycle continues.

I applied to one for grad school even though I only have a 3.6 GPA just for shits and giggles, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be ecstatic if I got in though.

>>8589477
Their education is definitely superior to most universities although compared to other high quality ones its marginal

>>8579688
Cal undergrad is dogshit

UCLA is the best undergrad UC school

>>8590498
>t. rejected from Cal