Has anyone here gone to a REALLY good school?

[SmoothTalker]

Hey,

I'm just curious if anyone here has gone to a really good school, like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford, etc.

I'm just curious what it's like? What program did you do and how damn smart did you need to be to get in? Was the workload insane or is it the same as anywhere, just with a better image? Has it helped you after graduating?

I'm going to a decent school, (always ranked top 3 in Canada, usually first) and graduates are generally well respected in industry. But I'm curious because it's not the kind of school who's name instantly generates respect - not the kind of place future presidents are made.

Just share your experiences.

 

[Hockey Playa]

where u going in canada?

 

[djtdot]

Going to UofToronto engineering, ranked No7 in North America and 11th in the world.

Its fun!

 

[Mr. Wolf]

I feel jealous, guys. I couldn't go to university because I didn't pass SAT. I had to go to community college, which gave me the best training that I think there is out there.. Then I wanted to go to university and couldn't.. For various reasons.. I end up in fasttrain, school for MCSE, etc..

You guys that go to those high end schools and know the seduction kraft have no end to your potential..

 

[Rhoto]

I am going to Berkeley and majoring in Economics of Environmental Policy making.

I'll be attending Santa Clara School of Law in fall 08.

However, school isn't necessarily about the education, but the connections you make.

If I could've I'd goto USC from Freshman through Graduate School.

 

[SmoothTalker]

Mr. Wolf, I guess we have it a bit easier up here in terms of getting in. There is no standardized exam, admission to undergrad is based on high school marks for the vast majority of programs, and for the less intense programs, they aren't even looking for very high averages.

Rhoto, yeah that's what I mean, in terms of education quality I think I'm getting a pretty good one, but we don't have the prestige of producing world leaders or anything.

And hockey playa, where are you going?


So no Ivy Leaguers here?

 

[Rhoto]

Rhoto, yeah that's what I mean, in terms of education quality I think I'm getting a pretty good one, but we don't have the prestige of producing world leaders or anything.

Quality is all you need. It comes down to the student man. I know guys who work with Tesla Motors, and are helping usher in the new age of automobiles. The only thing that makes em special? Their drive.

 

[spesmilitis]

Hey,

I'm just curious if anyone here has gone to a really good school, like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford, etc.

I'm just curious what it's like? What program did you do and how damn smart did you need to be to get in? Was the workload insane or is it the same as anywhere, just with a better image? Has it helped you after graduating?

I'm going to a decent school, (always ranked top 3 in Canada, usually first) and graduates are generally well respected in industry. But I'm curious because it's not the kind of school who's name instantly generates respect - not the kind of place future presidents are made.

Just share your experiences.

Yeah, I went to a top engineering school. The majority of the chemical engineering students who started out seemed sharp, but there were a few people who weren't that smart. So I would guess the requirements to get in didn't match the school's prestige. However, to stay in you had to be diligent. Over half of the initial ChE majors dropped out by my junior year. Work load was ridiculously insane.

It was hard, but I'm glad I did it. I developed not only really sharp scientific skills, but I can learn just about anything. Even for people who want to end up doing more business type stuff, I would still recommend engineering because of the refinement you go through.

 

[Suicide]

Columbia. I went for a year. Workload isn't much different than the medium sized private university I'm at now.

 

[Hockey Playa]

And hockey playa, where are you going?


So no Ivy Leaguers here?

Waterloo u?

 

[Potbelly]

err....Columbia is an Ivy League school

and duke..is where I go

Yeah I go to Duke, the liberal racist school :\

 

[Kidfabulous]

UBC here... Nice to see I'm not the only Canadian attending university

 

[Potbelly]

lol, I go to McGill, the "Harvard of the North"...(j/k, I know how silly that statement is). But like U of T, UBC, Waterloo, Berklee (which is better) it's a top public Uni.

BTW, Duke isn't an Ivy, but it's a top school, especially in business.

Only Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Columbia and Yale are Ivy.

true true...ur right. and UPenn.

 

[MrStabAHo]

lol, I go to McGill, the "Harvard of the North"...(j/k, I know how silly that statement is). But like U of T, UBC, Waterloo, Berklee (which is better) it's a top public Uni.

BTW, Duke isn't an Ivy, but it's a top school, especially in business.

Only Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Columbia and Yale are Ivy.

You forgot U Penn in Philly... My older brother is in the process of getting his doctorate there. I don't know how him nor other people do it...

I'm barely making it through undergrad at a medium sized public school...

 

[no_longer_afc]

It's a bit different in the UK. My high school was very poor but with hard work I'm at one of the best universities in the country. I have a few American friends and they say bad schools in the states are really bad and most people who go to top unis are from prestigious schools.

 

[azanon]

I went to the Air Force Academy for about 4 months before dropping out. My 21 semester hours (an average load there) was kicking my ass. The thing that's definitely true about a top tier school is that they aren't just hard to get into, they're also hard to make it through too. Just an common course like General Psychology is insane there (to me anyway)! I signed up for it again the following semester at a small private college in AR, and it was a breeze.

So, my advise in hindsight is to pick a school where your standardized test scores are roughly near the average for the school you attend. Getting into a school where your scores are considerably lower than average is just asking for trouble, because classes are graded on a curve usually, and you'll be the most disadvantaged compared to your peers.

 

[elmnick]

I just had interviews to get in to Oxford on Sunday and Monday for medicine, so I might have some insight. I get the impression the work is hard but there is time to have a bit of a life as well "work hard play hard". The type of people there for interview were fairly normal, they weren't incredibly geeky (though some were) and there were people from many backgrounds, though there were of course a lot of people from the top schools in the country. Girls wise I was presently surprised with the talent coming for interview, and they all seemed pretty fun as well. Intelligence wise I know people who have done loads of stuff and got top grades and got rejected, but most people who got interviews had mostly A* at GCSE and A's at A level which are the top grades (but there were no super geniuses child prodigies), I applied not expecting to get in, 1 in 2.5 people for interview get in and to be honest they were all got intelligent people, I think assuming you've got good grades and are competent at interview a large proportion of getting in is down to luck.

 

[Heart Break Kid]

Oxford one year... it's rather hard, especially if you want honours. Depending on what program you are in the people can be really friendly or super competitive (this guy would not let me borrow a pencil on a test because "we are in competition." I'm at St. George UofT now which is by far the highest ranked and hardest to get into university in Canada. I find I have a lot more time for a social life than oxford though and the work is not THAT time consuming... However I should be studying at the moment.

Here are the top 20 globally:
1. Harvard University
2. Stanford University
3. Yale University
4. California Institute of Technology
5. University of California at Berkeley
6. University of Cambridge
7. Massachusetts Institute Technology
8. Oxford University
9. University of California at San Francisco
10. Columbia University
11. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
12. University of California at Los Angeles
13. University of Pennsylvania
14. Duke University
15. Princeton University
16. Tokyo University
17. Imperial College London
18. University of Toronto
19. Cornell University
20. University of Chicago
Doing a quick google search I found you can see the rest here: http://chrisuggen.blogspot.com/2006/08/newsweek-top-100-global-universities.html
Enjoy, pm if you want to know anything specific about oxford.

 

[SmoothTalker]

U of T being highest ranked and hardest to get into is debatable. No doubt it depends on the program, and what level. I'm sure it's quite good for medicine, but for undergrad I disagree. I have a couple of friends that got into U of T for undergrad no sweat, and they were smart, but nothing amazing.

Most Canadian rankings also put a few other schools above U of T for non-medical universities.

 

[djtdot]

I agree that getting into UofT for undergrad is quite easy. I had like 85% in my high school and no EC and got into engineering. Getting in is easy.Staying there is the hard part, atleast for engineering.

I think UofT is ranked high probably because of the vast amounts of research and maybe faculty reputation as well.

I was looking around some of the books for electrical engineering(dunno about others), quite a few those "standard" textbooks used were written by profs here.