Stanford Schmamford!!??

[winlots]

Alot (certainly not all) of the good folks on here have implied that a Stanford bid signals an automatic acceptance over a UCONN bid because of a supposedly better education. I've visited Stanford and have known intimately students who have matriculated and graduated there (not all top-level students, by the way, by ANY means).

A kid who is SERIOUS about getting an excellent education can certainly find that opportunity at UCONN (even though I've been a guest lecturer there ). Similarly, UCONN in NO way is an impediment to a fine career in numerous arenas of endeavor.....in fact, in can be one helluva boost.

I'm not sure how often someone can get the opportunity to play with the talent level AND personality level and chemistry level of " Our Girls" as constituted over the next several years....not to mention the level of coaching, which I am happy to go ahead and mention. ( Rackin up some national champ pennants is kinda appealing as well.....now THAT is something, vs. a Stanford education, which you WILL hold dear for a LIFETIME!!) Blowin smoke or makin sense?

 

[Vowelguy]

Simple fact: in most cases when the final list of schools has included Stanford and UConn, the kid has chosen Stanford.
Add in that this particular kid is from the west coast, and I consider her to be a heavy Stanford lean.

 

[UConnCat]

Simple fact: in most cases when the final list of schools has included Stanford and UConn, the kid has chosen Stanford.
Add in that this particular kid is from the west coast, and I consider her to be a heavy Stanford lean.

I agree, though I just started a thread noting that Stanford received commitment #4 from another guard today. Reports were that Stanford could take 4 commits from the 2013 class, which factors in Ruef not returning for a 5th year and another player being a walk-on.

 

[UCONNfan1]

I do not disagree that one can get an excellent education at UCONN. But having a Stanford degree is more impressive than a UCONN degree. On the flip side, the degree really only matters for your first job. Once you are in the work force, your advancement depends much much more on your abilities and much less on the school you matriculated from.

Sure a Harvard MBA will carry more weight than a MBA from the University of Phoenix, but unless you are applying for a job on Wall Street, or at some prestigious law firm, etc etc, your career advancement is much more due to how you actually perform.

 

[tomcat]

With all due respect to Winlots, you have to experience life out here in the West to understand the perceived value of a Stanford degree. I'm from New England and recognize that UConn is a fine place to go to college. I believe the value of a UConn degree has certainly grown in the past couple of decades as the university has bettered itself. And 'way back when, I taught a course at UConn for five years, so I have a sort of proprietary interest in the place, even though my degree is from elsewhere.

Disclaimer: I know that a person who works hard at an unknown school can learn as much or more than someone who attends a prestigious school.

That said, here in the West there are nowhere near the number of outstanding choices for a very bright kid to go to college. I's not like Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth are right down the street, or even 200 miles away. It's not as though there are colleges like Wesleyan, Tufts, Bates and Colby in the region, at least not many of them. And as for quality Catholic colleges like BC, Georgetown, Holy Cross, St. Michael's and the like, not so much, either. So what's a scholar who does not want to travel all the way across the country to do? On the Ivy league level, I would submit there is Stanford and very little else. Yes, there are the Claremont colleges and a couple of good colleges in Oregon, but not much else. In the entire region. This creates a real interest among smart kids in that one terrific school.

I saw this play out this year with the son of some friends, an immensely talented student with the gift of music. He applied to Stanford, Dartmouth, Wesleyan and, as a safety, the honors college at ASU. He was accepted at Stanford, Dartmouth and ASU, and may have at Wesleyan as well -- I just don't know. Point is, when the Stanford acceptance came in, it was basically all over but the shouting. Out here, everyone knows what a Stanford degree is worth, and you have a lot to overcome to get a kid who is accepted there to look anywhere else.

I would agree that job performance is ultimately what a career is all about, but a degree from Stanford, like a degree from an Ivy school, helps a lot with the first job and with networking for years after. And if you want to attend graduate school, law school or med school, all things being equal, an excellent student from Stanford is better thought of than an excellent student from UConn and most other places.

So if my kid were a wonderful basketball player and could get into both, I would think seriously about her attending Stanford, even feeling as strongly as I do about UConn.

 

[alexrgct]

You can go anywhere in the world and say you went to Stanford, and people will be duly impressed. The brand value is worth a ton professionally.

Their facilities, faculty, and other academic resources blow Uconn out of the water. Stanford's endowment is about $17 billion to UConn's $300 million.

They have a much broader range of academic studies you could choose to pursue.

I'm not disparaging Uconn, but Stanford is a really prestigious school. If my daughter had the opportunity to attend for free, I'd be very excited.

 

[easttexastrash]

If I were a parent who wanted to ensure my child's future after basketball I would lean heavily in Stanford's direction. IIRC, Kara Lawson's dad wanted her to go to Stanford and was so upset with her for going to Tennessee that he refused to go to one of her games for two or three years. Please feel free to correct if I totally hosed the recollection of that story.

 

[Tonyc]

The two best jobs in the world coming out of college. For men being a plumber. Your paid in cash, people will pay you right away when disaster strikes and you can work when you want and take off when you want because your working for yourself. The best job for a women is a Greenwich Housewife. LOL

 

[alexrgct]

The two best jobs in the world coming out of college. For men being a plumber. Your paid in cash, people will pay you right away when disaster strikes and you can work when you want and take off when you want because your working for yourself. The best job for a women is a Greenwich Housewife. LOL

You could say the same thing about being a drug dealer.

 

[slimmer56]

Stop the presses !
Winlots just gave Coach Geno a complement. Hear, hear !

You can't go wrong with either institution. Although a Stanford degree is probably more prestigious.
Since Geno came along to make UCONN the WORLD POWER it has become, a UCONN scholarship or degree HAS become more prestigious.

What if UCONN has become a wcbb factory, they are great girls, recruited the right way, and will use their UCONN degree after basketball.
GO UCONN !

 

[bruinbball]

I have an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan...anyone have a good Accounting job up north? Milford - can I borrow your job when you officially hang it up?

 

[meyers7]

You could say the same thing about being a drug dealer.

Yea, but the likelihood of being shot in a "business deal" or being raped in prison is a lot less for a plumber (although with that crack....)

Or did you mean the Greenwich Housewife??? (however I think they take the valium, not so much deal it )

 

[cohenzone]

I'm UConn through and through. 4 years undergrad, 3 law. Student Senate, marching band and other involvement. Share seasons tickets in several sports. I have 3 sons, all excellent students (well past college now). They all applied to UConn and all got in. The first one chose Cornell, the second Michigan and the third Northwestern. The reality is that the only one who could have had the same major at UConn was the one who went to Michigan. He went on to Columbia Law School. Could he have gotten into Columbia if he'd gone to UConn? Big who knows, and the Columbia degree, to the point of absurdity, helped land a job he never would have gotten from any but the most prestigious law schools. I understand that none of my kids were college level athletes, but man, from a parental point of view it is hard to dispute the initial value of a Stanford degree versus UConn, and certainly not from a west coast perspective. Frankly, I'm borderline blown away when I see that a scholarship athlete in any sport picks UConn over a Harvard or Yale. Kid better be pro material.

By the way, when my kids were picking schools and kind of turning their noses up about UConn, I told them not to go around thinking that there aren't many really brilliant kids at UConn and at most schools, and that they might well get better class room learning from UConn profs. Clearly the broad average level of high school achievement from Ivy level matriculants is higher than the average level at UConn, but having gone to a very competitive high school with many Ivy kids, there was no shortage of very impressive students I encountered during my UConn days (also a golden era of excellence at UConn under Homer Babbidge.)

 

[Icebear]

You could say the same thing about being a drug dealer.

Yeah, but the mortality rate for drug dealers is a lot higher, although both often are accused of having a crack problem.

 

[UcMiami]

First - no question you can get a great education at almost any school if you are a highly motivated student. So much of education is what the student puts into it and not facilities or even teachers.
Second - environment matters - the more academically involved the majority of your peers are, the harder it is to be less academically involved. It is easy to be a slacker if you are surrounded by slackers, and easier to be motivated if you are surrounded by motivated people. (Also helps in terms of team chemistry - since this is a BB board.)
Third - no question that for first jobs (and really first five years of jobs) the college name on the degree does matter. When I was hiring even people with 20 years of experience, I still noticed where the degrees came from. The more work experience they had, the less important the degree became, but I still noticed.
Fourth (and most importantly) - college is probably the most intense and important networking time of a person's life. People often find their spouse, their first business contacts, their closest lifelong friends, and develop their career path during those four years.
So that fourth point is where the college choice can have the biggest impact, and while there are great students and people and connections to be made at any school, the percentages favor the better schools. I don't think students at Harvard actually get an appreciably better education than at Uconn and in many cases they may get a worse one (and certainly higher debts!) but the 'Harvard connections' are second to none.
On the west coast, Stanford also stands at the top. And the advantage that Stanford has over the Ivys is that many of its major sports programs are also nationally ranked so student athletes can get both the great athletics and the great 'connections.'
I grew up in Storrs, love Uconn, and think it is a really good school, but ...

The one thing that stands out for Uconn is that Geno is the best coach in WCBB, and the Uconn team has been consistently the best team in the country with great players and great fans. That is unique, and for a HSWBB athlete who has the talent to pursue the game as a career, that can trump a general ranking of the other benefits of different colleges.

 

[arty155]

I'm UConn through and through. 4 years undergrad, 3 law. Student Senate,..

We're practically kindred spirits! I wasn’t a real Senator, but frequently wore togas & sandals - basically the same thing, right? SPQR, man!!

 

[winlots]

I do not disagree that one can get an excellent education at UCONN. But having a Stanford degree is more impressive than a UCONN degree. On the flip side, the degree really only matters for your first job. Once you are in the work force, your advancement depends much much more on your abilities and much less on the school you matriculated from.

Sure a Harvard MBA will carry more weight than a MBA from the University of Phoenix, but unless you are applying for a job on Wall Street, or at some prestigious law firm, etc etc, your career advancement is much more due to how you actually perform.

U-FAN: Very well said. Agreed on all points (though I do believe that a "more impressive" degree does matter, early on especially).

 

[winlots]

If I were a parent who wanted to ensure my child's future after basketball I would lean heavily in Stanford's direction. IIRC, Kara Lawson's dad wanted her to go to Stanford and was so upset with her for going to Tennessee that he refused to go to one of her games for two or three years. Please feel free to correct if I totally hosed the recollection of that story.

EAST - always like your input on here. But wondering if maybe on this particular topic, it's possible that you don't want to see certains kids selecting UCONN and then giving your Baylor Bears fits?

 

[winlots]

Stop the presses !
Winlots just gave Coach Geno a complement. Hear, hear !

You can't go wrong with either institution. Although a Stanford degree is probably more prestigious.
Since Geno came along to make UCONN the WORLD POWER it has become, a UCONN scholarship or degree HAS become more prestigious.

What if UCONN has become a wcbb factory, they are great girls, recruited the right way, and will use their UCONN degree after basketball.
GO UCONN !

SLIM: hey, you old fool, I'll "press" you! I think you got yourself in one two many half nelsons back in your wrasslin days....or maybe one too many of those pulled pork sandwiches.....clearly, you aren't getting sufficient oxygen and blood to your brain.

(Agree with most all yu said, actually. 'Course, I'm a little short on the brain nutrients these days as well .)

 

[Joe6cats]

The two best jobs in the world coming out of college. For men being a plumber. Your paid in cash, people will pay you right away when disaster strikes and you can work when you want and take off when you want because your working for yourself. The best job for a women is a Greenwich Housewife. LOL

Tony, I love it! I just shared your remark with a young couple I know. The woman is a Greenwich Housewife currently applying for a big job at Yale. I told her not to sweat the little stuff, because she's already at the top!

 

[winlots]

First - no question you can get a great education at almost any school if you are a highly motivated student. So much of education is what the student puts into it and not facilities or even teachers.
Second - environment matters - the more academically involved the majority of your peers are, the harder it is to be less academically involved. It is easy to be a slacker if you are surrounded by slackers, and easier to be motivated if you are surrounded by motivated people. (Also helps in terms of team chemistry - since this is a BB board.)
Third - no question that for first jobs (and really first five years of jobs) the college name on the degree does matter. When I was hiring even people with 20 years of experience, I still noticed where the degrees came from. The more work experience they had, the less important the degree became, but I still noticed.
Fourth (and most importantly) - college is probably the most intense and important networking time of a person's life. People often find their spouse, their first business contacts, their closest lifelong friends, and develop their career path during those four years.
So that fourth point is where the college choice can have the biggest impact, and while there are great students and people and connections to be made at any school, the percentages favor the better schools. I don't think students at Harvard actually get an appreciably better education than at Uconn and in many cases they may get a worse one (and certainly higher debts!) but the 'Harvard connections' are second to none.
On the west coast, Stanford also stands at the top. And the advantage that Stanford has over the Ivys is that many of its major sports programs are also nationall
ranked so student athletes can get both the great athletics and the great
'connections.'
I grew up in Storrs, love Uconn, and think it is a really good school, but ...

The one thing that stands out for Uconn is that Geno is the best coach in WCBB, and the Uconn team has been consistently the best team in the country with great players and great fans. That is unique, and for a HSWBB athlete who has the talent to pursue the game as a career, that can trump a general ranking of the other benefits of different colleges.

UCM - Solid all the way thru. Would like to heavily underscore your first two sentences and your final paragraph, and I hope McCall et al are listening!!

 

[cohenzone]

We're practically kindred spirits! I wasn’t a real Senator, but frequently wore togas & sandals - basically the same thing, right? SPQR, man!!

You must be much younger, the Belushi set. In my day, even us actual senators wore lion skins and kept fake senators away with flint spears. And please, don't drag our kindreds into this mess, they are still trying to figure the value of a one room cave education vs. going to Stanford on a rock throwing scholarship, because most schools are after kids who can handle the rock.

 

[diggerfoot]

First - no question you can get a great education at almost any school if you are a highly motivated student. So much of education is what the student puts into it and not facilities or even teachers.
Second - environment matters - the more academically involved the majority of your peers are, the harder it is to be less academically involved. It is easy to be a slacker if you are surrounded by slackers, and easier to be motivated if you are surrounded by motivated people. (Also helps in terms of team chemistry - since this is a BB board.)
Third - no question that for first jobs (and really first five years of jobs) the college name on the degree does matter. When I was hiring even people with 20 years of experience, I still noticed where the degrees came from. The more work experience they had, the less important the degree became, but I still noticed.
Fourth (and most importantly) - college is probably the most intense and important networking time of a person's life. People often find their spouse, their first business contacts, their closest lifelong friends, and develop their career path during those four years.
So that fourth point is where the college choice can have the biggest impact, and while there are great students and people and connections to be made at any school, the percentages favor the better schools. I don't think students at Harvard actually get an appreciably better education than at Uconn and in many cases they may get a worse one (and certainly higher debts!) but the 'Harvard connections' are second to none.
On the west coast, Stanford also stands at the top. And the advantage that Stanford has over the Ivys is that many of its major sports programs are also nationally ranked so student athletes can get both the great athletics and the great 'connections.'
I grew up in Storrs, love Uconn, and think it is a really good school, but ...

The one thing that stands out for Uconn is that Geno is the best coach in WCBB, and the Uconn team has been consistently the best team in the country with great players and great fans. That is unique, and for a HSWBB athlete who has the talent to pursue the game as a career, that can trump a general ranking of the other benefits of different colleges.

I agree with everything, and with tomcat's as well. While for most students there are some built in benefits, I don't think either Kara Lawson or Sue Bird regret passing on Stanford for their respective schools. Generic name recognition is important, but not THE most important factor in facilitating one's career.

As I mentioned elsewhere, my experience as an educator suggests that a very good small academic school trumps a large one, even with the name recognition of Stanford, for students who need to feel their way a little bit. Getting to know the faculty intimately is at least as important as surrounding yourself with other motivated students and a school like Reed or even Evergreen out west offers both (though that goes beyond this particular discussion, unless Reed starts fielding a WBB powerhouse).

 

[UConnChapette]

There is SO much to be evaluated when choosing a school, but if you are strong enough academically to get in, it is tough to turn Stanford down.

That name on the diploma certainly opens more doors than those from your average to better-than-average state universities upon graduation, but there are ways to improve your options no matter where you go. Participation in internships and co-op programs also helps give kids a leg up at graduation because they have a work history in their field. I tell all my friends and acquaintances with students entering college to make sure the student takes full advantage of these opportunities if they are available. My son will graduate next May, and at present has two job offers - one of which would start his salary at six figures. He doesn't go to MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Carnegie Melon, Duke...he goes to a state university that has a great Computer Science program - though in fairness it does have a widely known name for the quality of its engineering and computer science programs. He has done two internships. The recruiters talk to each other so they hear about which kids have done what internships and how well they performed. Makes a difference, believe me. Sure, some employers are still fixated on the school name and GPAs (yeah, I'm talking about you Google and Facebook!), but my son's successful internship work record, academics, and campus activities along with the academic reputation of his school are good enough for Microsoft and at least one other well paying employer.

Student athletes, of course, have other factors to consider and cannot participate in the same internship and co-op opportunites because they simply don't have the time for it. So I completely understand the draw of a prestigious academic institution name. In many cases their entrance into the "real world of work" will be somewhat delayed. Without a real work history the school name on the resume might help get them in an employer's door when their playing days are over.

 

[magical2]

We're practically kindred spirits! I wasn’t a real Senator, but frequently wore togas & sandals - basically the same thing, right? SPQR, man!!

arty
LMAO arty I did also ahhh Re: Stanford! I love UCONN,Geno,the women's basketball team! I have been an avid fan from the beginning of the Geno/CD era.
Having said that if you are an ELITE basketball player, and want the "best" go to UCONN! If you have different goals and can get into Stanford then you go there! They also have a HOF Coach and a super BB program

Stanford is the West Coast Harvard,Yale etal A Stanford degree is incredibly prestigeous! I am surprised more do not seem to know, with all do respects to UCONN alum,students etc,!
Ira