I went to an elite private college. I know how good my education was compared to what my peers at public colleges and universities got. No one cancelled a class because fewer than 20 students had enrolled (some classes were actually capped at 3 or 5 students). The biggest class I ever took had 50 students in it. There was never any stress about overcrowding and the possibility of waiting a year to take a class. I never took a multiple choice test. Ever. Everything I did was graded by a human, usually the professor who was teaching the class. And the standards were pretty high. Etc.
But... but...
I have heard this from many people who went to elite/highly selective colleges.
Here's the thing, though--
all of that was also true for me-- and to an only slightly less true extent, for my DH. My general chemistry labs were taught by PROFESSORS, not grad students. There were fewer than 25 students in my O-chem class, and only two of us in the spring quarter of Biochem.
We did NOT attend private schools, nor particularly elite public ones, either, for that matter. I attended a small REGIONAL state university. I would happily send my DD there if she wanted to go. It was a GREAT education, and it was at a bargain basement price-- then, and even now, it's quite affordable.
Seriously. My tuition was ~1300 a year when I started, and the ONLY reason it took me five years to finish was that, frankly, I was dirt poor and had to work full time. When I finished, tuition rates had risen to a shocking 1800 a year. LOL. They are still under 10K, nearly three decades later.
So I
do question what I'd have gotten at, say... Stanford. My classmates and I were accepted at VERY prestigious graduate/professional schools (Caltech, MIT, Johns Hopkins, etc), in spite of coming from a program that graduated just 3-8 majors annually. We've all done fairly well for ourselves, given the field and all. The program was/is
solid, but more importantly, it was
aimed at teaching UNDERGRADUATES. I think that is actually the key, myself. It leads to all of the rest that Val mentions (which I agree are important benchmarks to look at in determining the overall quality of an undergraduate program).
I also knew (in graduate school) people who did come from an elite institution as undergraduates, and those who came directly from those programs that had PhD students... tended to be the ones that suffered from the problems Val hints at. They tended to be shy of 'hands-on' work, and not particularly independent either in or out of the lab. But it was both not-so-elite public schools
and elite private ones.
I can see the value in a selective college which teaches only/mostly undergraduate students. I can. I'm just not convinced that it's worth the premium when it can be had at places that don't want BOTH arms and legs for the experience.
