UW-madison or ivy league

blahblahblah wrote:

Big Secret: Undergrad is not about what you learn, its about who you meet and the opportunities presented. Will you learn just as much at UW-Madison? Yes, but so what. Go Ivy, you won't regret it.

you won't learn as much at Madison though. The courses are much easier and unless he's very self-motivated, it will be easy to just get the 'A' and not much more. At UW he'll probably be one of the strongest students, which would not be the case at Harvard, Princeton etc. The quality of the people around you I think is a strong consideration when deciding where you want to go to school (of course UW will probably be more fun)

I was at an ivy and UW for grad school(s), but interacted decently with undergrads at both places. I knew people who were just getting by at both, and the truth is, the ivy slackers did have a better chance of getting a job through connections or reputation. But I knew folks who were equally smart and motivated at both, as well. The opportunities were there at both universities, but they can be harder to find at the bigger school. And, some of the first two years of classes can have pretty large class sizes at UW.

So, if you're a motivated student, you'll get a lot out of either, but you'll probably have to work harder to find undergrad research projects, etc. at UW. Good Luck! Check out the Wisconsin Track Club - I had a lot of fun with that group.

Research?

Big news, UW Madison had more patents in 2008 than (gulp) Harvard. And more the year before that. In fact, UW consistently averages more research patents than Harvard.

http://www.iptoday.com/articles/2008-9-oldach2.asp

Go West Coast; more dynamic, more patents (UC Berkeley, Stanford, and CalTech). The East Coast is staid and stodgy. People are so fixated on the Ivies (Euro-centric). The West interfaces with Pacific Rim countries (China, Japan, Korea, Latin America, etc.). Think of the future. It's nice to speak French, but Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Spanish are excellent second languages to know in just about any major.

if you want to be an i-banker or philosophy professor, you may have made a poor choice. If you want to be a scientist (particularly a chemist) or engineer, you made a great choice. Regardless, you made a great financial choice and there are a lot of ivy grads out there right now who are having just as hard a time finding a job as anyone else. You'll be fine. Good luck, have a great time next year.

you will be kicking yourself for the rest of your life for not having gone to Harvard or Princeton.

This must be a troll thread.

idealist wrote:

Check out the Wisconsin Track Club - I had a lot of fun with that group.

Yes! If you're at Madison and want to run with the WTC shoot me an email.

If you're into Math or Physics, you shit the bed by not going to Princeton. If you're into business you shit the bed by not going to Penn. If you're into living in crappy cities you shit the bed by not going to Yale. If you're into getting easy A's and having big name recognition, you should have gone to Harvard. If you want to get easy A's and slam hot, dumb state-school girls for four years, you made an excellent choice.

Also pretty sure Madison tied Harvard for most CEO's in the country. Just sayin...

Don't be some snobby ass loser. Come to Madison, try hard, get a great education, and meet some great people.

apply yourself at madison and go to an ivy league grad school if it still sounds alluring. ivy-league undergraduate diplomas may look smart, but 100k+ in student loans do not.

perceptive wrote:

apply yourself at madison and go to an ivy league grad school if it still sounds alluring. ivy-league undergraduate diplomas may look smart, but 100k+ in student loans do not.

Assuming you are going into a field where there are jobs, you can easily pay off those loans over time. Student loans are a wise investment.

n wrote:

Everyone is saying i should have went [sic] to harvard because it is so much better. I just feel at the undergrad level the difference in academics between [sic] all of these schools are [sic] really small.

I've never rated anything on the trollmeter (or whatever it's called), but this one was tempting (although the OP did spell "Johns Hopkins" correctly).

University of Wisconsin and Harvard are tied for most common undergraduate college attended by Fortune 500 CEOs

Former Badger wrote:

http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=67AC7CCDD5A84E16B193F1D3CF25463A

University of Wisconsin and Harvard are tied for most common undergraduate college attended by Fortune 500 CEOs

Well, since Harvard has an undergrad population of around 6,700 and UW-Madison has 29,000+ undergrads, then I guess Harvard produces CEOs at roughly 4 times the rate of UW-Madison. Even better than I would have guessed.

To bypass HYPS for any state school is utter lunacy. I believe that the most important aspect of undergraduate education is the intellectual curiosity of the student body, at least in the humanities. I can't imagine a poetry class at UW-Madison with 80 students is just as worthwhile as a seminar at Harvard or Yale led by Heaney or Bloom. It is the mediocre that perpetuate the myth that it doesn't matter where one attends college. Hanging out with frat dudes for four years as opposed to intelligent, interesting people certainly affects the type of person one becomes.

Prestige - hate to admit it, but that is exactly what went through our minds as we are sending our kid to Princeton.

It was her choice entirely - and she got into two state schools higher ranked than UW with no tuition to pay at all plus some extra as a national merit finalist - but in the end she is an out of this world student and just wants to see if she can play at that level.

Of course, it costs $$ - but one of the great things that running imprinted on me was that there are things in this world far more important than $$.

By the way, let's not make too much of this. A young friend of the family is a UW grad and Princeton Phd candidate in physics, no less. He has done all right.

I went to an ivy for undergrad and am attending UW for grad school - both have surprisingly similar undergrad populations.

I'd say spend some time at both - I personally hate boston but could have seen myself in Princeton NJ, Ithaca NY, or New Haven CT.

Yes, you should have went to Harvard to learn how to talk good.