1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,040 I mean, I really don't like to curse too much. 2 00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:06,160 I'm going to try to avoid it as much as I can. 3 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:17,920 But the way people be using these rankings, man, all carbon. 4 00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:28,080 Hello, hello, hello. 5 00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:31,560 This is the pop out and I am your host, Albert Shin. 6 00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:33,840 I am very excited for today's episode. 7 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:36,560 We're going to be talking about college rankings. 8 00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:41,840 It was one of my favorite topics, but specifically I'm going to talk about why they're pretty 9 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:50,780 much garbage, garbage, trash, useful in some very small ways. 10 00:00:50,780 --> 00:00:55,080 And for the most part, teach to take it with a grain of salt. 11 00:00:55,080 --> 00:00:59,400 And I'm going to do this in a real surgical way, which means we're going to be looking 12 00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:05,140 at the actual methodology of one particular ranking that is used heavily across the United 13 00:01:05,140 --> 00:01:06,140 States. 14 00:01:06,140 --> 00:01:08,480 And that's the US news ranking. 15 00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:13,000 And we're going to talk about exactly how they come up with these rankings and why I 16 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:18,440 think these rankings can often be quite misleading. 17 00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:21,640 So here's the first thing I want to get out of the way. 18 00:01:21,640 --> 00:01:22,640 OK. 19 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:30,040 There's no way that you could actually rank a college on some simple score that you place 20 00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:32,760 one where you place one college over another. 21 00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:33,760 Right. 22 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,920 And what I mean by that is there's no way to just get an overall score and think that 23 00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:41,880 you have any understanding of what college is like the right college to kind of apply 24 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:42,880 to. 25 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:43,880 OK. 26 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:50,200 It's really what it does is it feeds into a kind of reputation that these colleges want 27 00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:51,200 to build up. 28 00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:52,200 Right. 29 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:55,920 And I think a lot of these universities feel by being higher up on the ranking. 30 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:56,920 OK. 31 00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:01,560 It might actually improve their odds of garnering interest from students who are just looking 32 00:02:01,560 --> 00:02:05,640 at these rankings and then using this as a guideline for which college is, quote unquote, 33 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:06,640 the better one. 34 00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:07,640 Right. 35 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:13,320 But these rankings, they're not actually showing you what college is better or worse than the 36 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:14,520 other. 37 00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:15,520 They're not. 38 00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:20,120 They're giving you a kind of overall assessment of the college, attaching a score to it and 39 00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:23,160 then putting it in a ranking because I don't know what the deal is. 40 00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:26,520 Like, I don't know if there's like a U.S. thing or like just all over the world. 41 00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:28,360 People just love rankings. 42 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:35,880 The rankings themselves tell you absolutely nothing except that maybe this college is 43 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:36,880 reputable. 44 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:37,880 Right. 45 00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:41,680 That people look to this college, see the name of the college and they go, oh, yeah, 46 00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:42,680 I know that one. 47 00:02:42,680 --> 00:02:43,960 Oh, yeah, I know that one. 48 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:45,680 Oh, I know somebody who went there. 49 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:46,680 Right. 50 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:49,080 Like, maybe that's what it gives you. 51 00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:50,560 OK. 52 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:56,040 And maybe the overall score reflects generally whether or not it is a quality college or 53 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:57,040 not. 54 00:02:57,040 --> 00:02:58,040 Right. 55 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:00,180 But I think you don't need an actual ranking to do this. 56 00:03:00,180 --> 00:03:01,360 You could do this in tiers. 57 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:02,360 Right. 58 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:06,520 And this is what I like about some of the other ranking systems, not U.S. News, but 59 00:03:06,520 --> 00:03:11,880 some of the other ones that I could share with you in a link. 60 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:15,880 You know, tiers are more helpful because, you know, there might be certain schools that 61 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:23,080 are heads above all the others in terms of overall range of programs, opportunities, 62 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:29,560 alumni networking, offering of scholarships, the number of students in debt after, like, 63 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:31,040 let's say, five years out of college. 64 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:32,040 Right. 65 00:03:32,040 --> 00:03:36,520 Like whatever metric you want to use that you think is a positive metric for evaluating 66 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:42,400 college, maybe the top tiers are the ones that kind of hit the nail on the head across 67 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:45,160 the board in all of these areas. 68 00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:48,880 And then you get the maybe the second tiers where it's like they're pretty good in all 69 00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:51,760 of these things, but not quite as good as the first tiers. 70 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:52,760 OK. 71 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:59,280 If we do this sort of tier system, what you'll realize is probably like the top 20, 30 universities 72 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:01,960 could be grouped into one tier. 73 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,520 Maybe the next like 40 can be grouped into the second tier. 74 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:09,400 I mean, like what I'm pointing out is like if we do this tier system, you'll realize 75 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:14,940 like there's not too significant difference between a lot of these colleges as the ranking 76 00:04:14,940 --> 00:04:15,940 might suggest. 77 00:04:15,940 --> 00:04:16,940 Right. 78 00:04:16,940 --> 00:04:19,920 There's not a huge difference between the number one spot and the number like 15 spot 79 00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:23,160 other than the pride of saying you're number one. 80 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:24,160 OK. 81 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:27,260 But I think more importantly, and this is really what I want to get into. 82 00:04:27,260 --> 00:04:32,560 We need to think more carefully about how these rankings are made and whether or not 83 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:38,680 the ranking methodology maps on to what it is that a you care about. 84 00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:39,920 OK. 85 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:45,480 And B, what matters in terms of the kinds of things that you actually care about in 86 00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:47,160 terms of future prospects and things like that. 87 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:48,160 OK. 88 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:52,480 So I want to actually break it down because some of these factors might actually be important 89 00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:53,480 for you to consider. 90 00:04:53,480 --> 00:04:59,320 What I'm pointing out is that the overall rankings don't tell you shit. 91 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:01,680 It doesn't tell you shit about that. 92 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:03,300 OK. 93 00:05:03,300 --> 00:05:04,300 So let's just get into it. 94 00:05:04,300 --> 00:05:05,300 OK. 95 00:05:05,300 --> 00:05:06,300 Here's the US News ranking. 96 00:05:06,300 --> 00:05:07,720 I'm looking at the list right now. 97 00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:08,720 Let's see. 98 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:14,180 I'm going to focus on just the national university ranking. 99 00:05:14,180 --> 00:05:20,220 We could talk about liberal arts in a whole nother like episode and some of the other 100 00:05:20,220 --> 00:05:24,720 breakdowns of some of the other listings here in another in another episode, because there's 101 00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:25,880 just too much to talk about. 102 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:29,920 But let me let me just use the national university ranking as an example. 103 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:30,920 OK. 104 00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:35,640 So this is as of this podcast, this is 2005, 2025. 105 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:36,640 My apologies. 106 00:05:36,640 --> 00:05:38,320 2025 rankings. 107 00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:44,480 We have Princeton at number one, MIT at number two, Harvard at number three, Stanford at 108 00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:51,680 number four, the usual suspects, Caltech, Duke, John Hopkins, Northwestern, yada yada 109 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:53,960 yada, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 110 00:05:53,960 --> 00:05:54,960 OK. 111 00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:58,440 So if you were just blindly looking at the list and saying, I want to get into the best 112 00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:02,040 college, you would just go down the list and say, I want to try to get into the one that's 113 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:04,040 ranked the highest. 114 00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:06,920 OK. 115 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:11,480 But when you look into the methodology and I'm looking at the methodology list here, 116 00:06:11,480 --> 00:06:13,240 I'm glad that they're being open about it. 117 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:15,080 This is not always necessarily the case. 118 00:06:15,080 --> 00:06:18,800 They're honest about the kind of breakdown of the criteria. 119 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:22,520 Let's look at the different criteria as in weights they use to decide which of these 120 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,320 colleges are, quote unquote, better than the others. 121 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:26,320 OK. 122 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:29,080 So one, you got graduation rates. 123 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:31,920 They weighted at 16 percent of their overall score. 124 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:32,920 We'll talk. 125 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:35,240 Come back to that. 126 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:40,440 We got first year retention rates at five percent. 127 00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:44,720 Graduation rate performance at 10 percent of the consideration. 128 00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:46,080 Let's see. 129 00:06:46,080 --> 00:06:50,160 Some of these considerations used to be a part of it, I think, in 2004, but not anymore. 130 00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:54,340 Like first generation graduation rates, first generation being first generation college 131 00:06:54,340 --> 00:06:55,340 students. 132 00:06:55,340 --> 00:06:56,340 Right. 133 00:06:56,340 --> 00:06:59,480 So like you don't have like parents or grandparents who went to college. 134 00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:01,880 College grads earning more than a high school grad. 135 00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:03,480 Five percent of the consideration. 136 00:07:03,480 --> 00:07:06,840 Their debt, five percent of the consideration. 137 00:07:06,840 --> 00:07:07,840 Peer assessment. 138 00:07:07,840 --> 00:07:14,840 So this is like fellow peers judging at 20 percent. 139 00:07:14,840 --> 00:07:16,920 Financial resources per student, eight percent. 140 00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:18,880 Faculty salary at six percent. 141 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:20,440 First time faculty, two percent. 142 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:21,440 So yada yada. 143 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:24,440 Like, OK, so here's the first thing I'm going to point out. 144 00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:25,440 OK. 145 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:28,360 Speaking strictly to the high school students who are applying directly to some of these 146 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:29,360 colleges. 147 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:30,360 OK. 148 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:33,600 You might not care about any of these things. 149 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:36,720 You might not care about any of these things. 150 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:38,320 OK. 151 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:43,720 It depends on exactly what it is that you're interested in with regards to your time in 152 00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:46,000 college. 153 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,160 OK. 154 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:49,920 It depends. 155 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:52,360 What are you trying to get out of your time in college? 156 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:53,360 OK. 157 00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:56,960 Are you looking for a degree that will open up doors for you? 158 00:07:56,960 --> 00:07:59,300 Then some of these factors will matter. 159 00:07:59,300 --> 00:08:04,020 Are you looking for the ones with the best reputations? 160 00:08:04,020 --> 00:08:06,280 Are you looking for the ones with the best connections? 161 00:08:06,280 --> 00:08:10,000 Are you looking for the ones with the best programs for your tailored needs? 162 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:11,000 Right. 163 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:12,740 Tailored to your needs. 164 00:08:12,740 --> 00:08:15,920 Are you looking for a certain kind of college experience? 165 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:17,020 OK. 166 00:08:17,020 --> 00:08:19,160 These are all going to kind of change. 167 00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:20,160 Right. 168 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:21,240 So like, first thing I want you to note is this. 169 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:24,840 The methodology has its own way of doing the ranking. 170 00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:26,080 OK. 171 00:08:26,080 --> 00:08:29,860 You yourself might have a different way to rank these schools in terms of your preferences 172 00:08:29,860 --> 00:08:33,400 based off of the way that you might weight these different considerations. 173 00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:34,400 OK. 174 00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:37,280 Some of the considerations might not matter to you at all. 175 00:08:37,280 --> 00:08:38,400 Right. 176 00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:40,200 Let me give you one example. 177 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:41,200 Right. 178 00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:43,320 You might wonder, right, like the first year. 179 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:46,920 Sorry, not the first year. 180 00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:56,320 The weight that is now no longer given to the to the was it? 181 00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:57,320 Sorry. 182 00:08:57,320 --> 00:08:59,320 Hold on one second. 183 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:00,640 Oh, yeah. 184 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:06,080 The weight that was originally given to to the first generation graduate rates. 185 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:07,160 Right. 186 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:11,200 It might matter a little bit more to you if you are a first generation student. 187 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:12,200 Right. 188 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:13,720 It might matter a little bit more to you. 189 00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:15,000 And why is that? 190 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:22,520 Because if the rankings actually cared about first generation graduate rates, what that 191 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:27,200 would probably reflect in the graduate rate performance, what that would reflect is probably 192 00:09:27,200 --> 00:09:35,400 that the college is actually invested in whether or not somebody who doesn't have family members 193 00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:41,400 and the social resources to help them through college, whether they are given the resources 194 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:43,480 in college to ensure that they succeed. 195 00:09:43,480 --> 00:09:44,480 Right. 196 00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:47,800 I mean, you wouldn't want to go to college and find out that, oh, yeah, the first generation 197 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,800 students all tend to just like drop out after the first year. 198 00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:55,640 That would not be a good sign for the college versus a college where the first generation 199 00:09:55,640 --> 00:10:01,880 grad students graduation is first generation college students tend to, for the most part, 200 00:10:01,880 --> 00:10:05,440 be successful and make it all the way through their four years because they have programs 201 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:09,400 that are there to kind of support them along the way to fill in the gaps of the resources 202 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:11,520 that other students might receive elsewhere. 203 00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:12,520 OK. 204 00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:14,880 Does this make sense? 205 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:16,240 OK. 206 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:17,880 Debt might be a bigger concern for you. 207 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:22,560 I know it is for a lot of students nowadays, right, given the ballooning costs of college, 208 00:10:22,560 --> 00:10:23,560 right? 209 00:10:23,560 --> 00:10:30,960 The debt that you end with in college, right, might matter to you, for instance, if you 210 00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:37,120 have no money and you're trying to enter a career and you know that entering into it 211 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,880 with a lot of debt is going to put you in a very tough spot. 212 00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:40,880 Right. 213 00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:44,440 So there are some careers that you might be pursuing where, you know, there's a high risk, 214 00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:47,760 maybe not a particularly high reward. 215 00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:52,640 So having a debt might not be the best situation for you going out of college. 216 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:53,640 OK. 217 00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:59,480 Knowing that students leave a university with a significant amount of debt might be particularly 218 00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:04,720 concerning for you, but it might not be concerning if you come from a wealthy family and they're 219 00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:06,040 like, who cares? 220 00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:08,400 Who cares how much debt you're in? 221 00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:12,760 You got parents, grandparents, a trust fund, I don't know, something that is going to pay 222 00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:15,240 whatever the cost is going to be of the college. 223 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:16,560 And so debt doesn't matter. 224 00:11:16,560 --> 00:11:18,200 It's not going to apply to you. 225 00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:19,200 OK. 226 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:24,680 Similarly, right, financial resources that students receive matters more for students 227 00:11:24,680 --> 00:11:28,640 who might be struggling and will need that financial assistance, whether it's like people 228 00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:34,080 in the middle class or lower class who are trying to avoid heavy borrowing, who don't 229 00:11:34,080 --> 00:11:37,560 have the opportunity to borrow at good rates. 230 00:11:37,560 --> 00:11:44,360 You know, the financial resource factor criteria might be more important to you. 231 00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:45,920 OK. 232 00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:48,040 Another factor, right, student faculty ratio, right? 233 00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:52,400 Like it matters if you care about whether or not you have access to faculty, right? 234 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:56,360 If you there's less students in a class and you might have a better chance, assuming that 235 00:11:56,360 --> 00:12:00,520 you actually make an effort to have more one on one time with the faculty member and to 236 00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:06,080 have that more personalized, more tailored education for you might matter for you. 237 00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:09,380 But it might not matter for somebody who is looking for like a big city experience where 238 00:12:09,380 --> 00:12:14,000 they don't mind being in a classroom like a fly in the wall of a lecture hall with like 239 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:15,840 400 other students. 240 00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:23,120 Again, the criteria and the way that it's given, it depends on your personal preferences, 241 00:12:23,120 --> 00:12:26,720 desires, what you're looking for from the college. 242 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:28,960 OK. 243 00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:34,560 So first thing I want you to kind of think about as you are figuring out your own personal 244 00:12:34,560 --> 00:12:40,440 ranking and one of stresses your own personal ranking is what actually matters to you. 245 00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:42,320 And I want you to think both short term and long term. 246 00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:47,560 I want you to think both what I want my college experience to look like and what I want my 247 00:12:47,560 --> 00:12:51,720 long term college life to look like after college. 248 00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:52,720 Right. 249 00:12:52,720 --> 00:12:54,920 What is it that I'm most interested in? 250 00:12:54,920 --> 00:12:55,920 Right. 251 00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:59,120 What is it I'm most interested in getting out of college? 252 00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:04,080 And when you think about it, both in the short term and in the long term, OK, you'll realize 253 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:07,800 that you might weight some of these factors differently. 254 00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:09,880 You might weight some of these very differently. 255 00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:10,880 OK. 256 00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:14,640 So we got a couple of things already on the table, right, which is there's probably not 257 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:19,400 a huge difference in the rankings, at least with regards to like, you know, five plus 258 00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,120 or minus five, ten spots up and down these rankings. 259 00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:26,840 It could be even more again, depending on the tier that we're talking about. 260 00:13:26,840 --> 00:13:31,860 But second of all, your personal ranking of these colleges, your preferences could vary 261 00:13:31,860 --> 00:13:36,680 significantly based off of the way that you value some of these factors that go into the 262 00:13:36,680 --> 00:13:39,600 way that these schools are weighted. 263 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:40,600 Right. 264 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:41,600 OK. 265 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:44,880 Now, that said, right. 266 00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:49,200 So I've so far I've talked about how the college rankings like the rankings in and of themselves 267 00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:51,520 not particularly helpful. 268 00:13:51,520 --> 00:13:54,680 I told you, you might want to look at the specific methodology used on any of these 269 00:13:54,680 --> 00:13:59,200 rankings and then decide whether or not it maps on with your own personal interests. 270 00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:00,200 OK. 271 00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:04,280 And the way that you do you would do the rankings, you know, would be nice. 272 00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:07,360 I wonder if somebody can tell me if this is a possible right. 273 00:14:07,360 --> 00:14:09,800 But it would be cool if you could play around with the rankings. 274 00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:15,320 I mean, like the weight of the different criteria and then come and then there's like a program 275 00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:19,120 that will just automatically generate a new list that is personalized to you. 276 00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:21,200 That would be that would be pretty amazing. 277 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:26,360 If we had that, I would be so excited because that would probably be a lot more useful. 278 00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:27,360 OK. 279 00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:33,320 So, however, I say this and I want to stress there are some criteria here that I think 280 00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:37,040 high school students might not be thinking about that it's actually going to be important 281 00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:38,760 for you to consider in the long term. 282 00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:39,760 OK. 283 00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:45,320 So I want to break down which of these criteria's might matter for what specific purpose. 284 00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:50,720 And that way, I'm hoping that you will have more targeted questions when you're visiting 285 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:52,480 the different colleges you're considering. 286 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:53,480 Right. 287 00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:56,440 So if you're going to different colleges and you're like, OK, I'm more interested in this. 288 00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:58,280 I'm more interested in this. 289 00:14:58,280 --> 00:14:59,280 Right. 290 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:04,520 If you could generate the kinds of questions that could elicit more details about what 291 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:09,800 the colleges will offer you specifically for the things that you're looking for, you're 292 00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:14,800 going to make a much better, much more informed decision about what college is a better fit 293 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:16,160 for you. 294 00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:17,320 OK. 295 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:20,280 So we do need to talk about some of these criteria because some of these criteria's 296 00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:23,920 do matter in ways that I think a lot of people don't think about. 297 00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:24,920 OK. 298 00:15:24,920 --> 00:15:25,920 All right. 299 00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:30,600 So first off, peer assessment. 300 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:32,600 OK. 301 00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:37,880 Peer assessment is one that I have a love-hate relationship with. 302 00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:38,960 OK. 303 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:45,080 Peer assessment is an evaluation of the university based off of peers. 304 00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:47,960 And this is not talking about fellow undergraduate students. 305 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:48,960 Right. 306 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:51,200 So if you're looking at the U.S. Newsroom, here's what they describe the peer assessment 307 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:52,200 to be. 308 00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:56,640 Academic reputation matters because it factors things that cannot easily be captured elsewhere. 309 00:15:56,640 --> 00:16:01,600 For example, an institution known for innovative approaches to teaching may perform especially 310 00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:06,080 well in this indicator, whereas a school struggling to keep its accreditation will likely perform 311 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:07,080 poorly. 312 00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:08,080 Right. 313 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:12,540 So who is actually the ones rating it? 314 00:16:12,540 --> 00:16:16,540 Each year, top academics, presidents, provosts and deans of admissions rate the academic 315 00:16:16,540 --> 00:16:17,880 quality of peer institutions. 316 00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:18,880 OK. 317 00:16:18,880 --> 00:16:19,880 Here we go. 318 00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:22,080 We need to pause and stop here for a lot of different reasons. 319 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:23,440 All right. 320 00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:27,960 So peer assessment by labeling a peer assessment is not particularly helpful. 321 00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:29,300 Why? 322 00:16:29,300 --> 00:16:32,760 Because who are the quote unquote peers that are doing the evaluating? 323 00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:36,160 It's going to be presidents, provosts, deans of admission. 324 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:37,520 I have an issue with that. 325 00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:38,520 OK. 326 00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:40,760 I have an issue with that for the for one. 327 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:47,720 It feels like if you want to do a complete peer assessment, you'll also want undergraduates 328 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:48,720 in this discussion. 329 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:50,640 You want faculty in this discussion. 330 00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:55,720 You'll want tenured and non tenured lecturers, right? 331 00:16:55,720 --> 00:17:01,940 Contract workers in this discussion as well in terms of the talk about the academic quality 332 00:17:01,940 --> 00:17:04,720 or teaching quality of any of these universities. 333 00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:05,720 Right. 334 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:12,760 So the peer assessment that I would personally want would include more voices. 335 00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:14,500 That's just me. 336 00:17:14,500 --> 00:17:19,760 In part because presidents, provosts, deans of admissions is a very selective group and 337 00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:23,960 you have no idea what kind of biases exist within this group. 338 00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:24,960 OK. 339 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:27,160 Here's the other issue I have with it. 340 00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:28,160 Right. 341 00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:34,800 A lot of these are based off of reputation, not so much whether these schools actually 342 00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:37,040 perform well on any metric. 343 00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:38,840 Does that make sense? 344 00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:41,640 Like look, let me be honest with you. 345 00:17:41,640 --> 00:17:48,840 As a president of a university, I probably would not know how well like 90 percent of 346 00:17:48,840 --> 00:17:51,720 the universities across the country are being run. 347 00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:57,460 I would be terrible at it in part because that's just a lot of things that I would need 348 00:17:57,460 --> 00:18:01,120 to like if I was going to make an informed decision, I would have to visit these schools. 349 00:18:01,120 --> 00:18:06,600 I would have to learn more about what they're doing, about like how the faculty are performing, 350 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:10,280 what kind of things are publishing, et cetera, et cetera. 351 00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:11,280 OK. 352 00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:19,360 So this assessment gets 20 percent and it is nothing more than just a lot of people, 353 00:18:19,360 --> 00:18:24,960 not completely, but in a large part basing their judgment off of reputation, which comes 354 00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:26,560 down to name. 355 00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:27,920 And here's one of the things that happens, right? 356 00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:31,400 It's like a self-fulfilling sort of prophecy, right? 357 00:18:31,400 --> 00:18:35,480 If you have a better reputation because you have a big name and you're higher up on the 358 00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:41,260 ranking, you might tend to get a better assessment from fellow peers just because they're not 359 00:18:41,260 --> 00:18:45,440 actually digging in through data in some detailed way. 360 00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:47,000 OK. 361 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:54,280 Which means I don't know exactly how helpful this peer assessment is, and yet it gets 20 362 00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:57,320 percent, 20 percent of the weight. 363 00:18:57,320 --> 00:19:01,440 That's a huge chunk of the overall ranking. 364 00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:03,720 Right. 365 00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:06,340 At the same time, this is why I say it's a love-hate relationship. 366 00:19:06,340 --> 00:19:16,080 At the same time, the academic reputation to some degree matters if you care about what 367 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:19,400 might open doors for you after college. 368 00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:20,400 Right. 369 00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:25,920 Because I'm not going to lie, a lot of people that in the workforce, right, the people who 370 00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:31,440 are hiring might look at a college, look at a resume and then see that you graduated from 371 00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:37,520 a big name university and they associate that with having this reputation and then associate 372 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:43,760 it with being a good university and therefore will look positively upon you as opposed to 373 00:19:43,760 --> 00:19:47,960 your coming out of a school that is very small, doesn't have big name recognition. 374 00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:53,000 And so as a result, might not have the kind of reputation that one of these big schools 375 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:54,120 do. 376 00:19:54,120 --> 00:19:56,000 In which case you're at a slight disadvantage. 377 00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:01,600 Now it's not a be all end all, but it does mean they might be asking you like, wait, 378 00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:02,600 what college is this? 379 00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:05,120 Like, is this something they might have to look it up? 380 00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:06,160 Right. 381 00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:10,440 Not that it's going to necessarily, you know, leave you out of opportunities, but it might 382 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:12,600 it could serve as a hindrance. 383 00:20:12,600 --> 00:20:13,600 Right. 384 00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:19,120 I personally, ideally, I would want the reputation to matter less. 385 00:20:19,120 --> 00:20:20,120 Right. 386 00:20:20,120 --> 00:20:22,720 The school name to matter less. 387 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:24,240 I generally would like it to matter less. 388 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:27,840 This is part of my love, hate relationship with rankings of any kind. 389 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:28,840 Right. 390 00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:31,440 What matters, what should matter in my opinion, right. 391 00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:39,080 This is just my opinion, is that it is a accredited university that has a reputation for not cheating 392 00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:45,560 at students and actually doing some work in preparing students for life, for learning, 393 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:49,360 for a range of different things that I personally care about. 394 00:20:49,360 --> 00:20:50,360 OK. 395 00:20:50,360 --> 00:20:53,020 That's where to actually reflect. 396 00:20:53,020 --> 00:20:55,880 The reputation to actually reflect what the college does. 397 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,960 That's what I would honestly prefer. 398 00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:01,840 But it does not always the case. 399 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:02,840 OK. 400 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:09,680 But unfortunately, we live in a world where reputation does make a difference. 401 00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:11,160 It does make a difference. 402 00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:12,160 OK. 403 00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:13,240 It'll make a difference. 404 00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:18,320 It made a difference for me when I was trying to look for some just summer work teaching 405 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:20,880 SATs at these summer academies. 406 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:21,880 Right. 407 00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:26,840 And it mattered what school you went to, because for some reason, parents felt a certain way 408 00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:33,120 about getting, you know, some kind of teaching from somebody who went to like a second tier 409 00:21:33,120 --> 00:21:34,640 university. 410 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:37,880 For some reason, they think that it matters a whole lot. 411 00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:40,080 We'll talk about it in the future in more detail. 412 00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:42,400 It honestly does not matter. 413 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:43,760 But people think it does. 414 00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:45,280 And it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 415 00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:46,280 Right. 416 00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:47,280 So people think that it matters. 417 00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:51,400 And so it matters for actual real world consequences. 418 00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:59,640 And so then people care about the reputation, which means that people who like this, this 419 00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:03,360 whole this whole system, I just absolutely frustrating. 420 00:22:03,360 --> 00:22:05,800 But unfortunately, it is a part of it. 421 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:06,800 OK. 422 00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:07,800 All right. 423 00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:09,600 Other considerations on this criteria list. 424 00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:10,600 OK. 425 00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:11,600 All right. 426 00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:12,600 Student faculty ratio. 427 00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,600 I want to couple up with publication. 428 00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:17,100 OK. 429 00:22:17,100 --> 00:22:22,840 Those of you who are interested in going into research, into professional schools, into 430 00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:28,240 doing more cutting edge stuff as an undergrad, it might not matter at all. 431 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:36,440 But if you are open to, interested in, have some inclination, maybe want to leave the 432 00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:45,380 door open to getting a Ph.D. or getting an MBA or getting a law degree or getting going 433 00:22:45,380 --> 00:22:48,080 into med school or things like that. 434 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:49,660 OK. 435 00:22:49,660 --> 00:22:57,420 What actually matters for these areas is that you are going to a university that is known 436 00:22:57,420 --> 00:22:58,420 for research. 437 00:22:58,420 --> 00:23:00,920 This is why the publication part is important. 438 00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:02,360 Right. 439 00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:06,200 Is the work being is a work that is being generated at that school? 440 00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:08,600 One that is on the cutting edge of things. 441 00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,920 Is it something that people actually read and is respected? 442 00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:18,680 This is why citations per publications, full weighted citation impact, publication share 443 00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,720 in the top five percent of journals by site score. 444 00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:28,560 These factors should have some weight for you if you are interested in seeking education 445 00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:30,080 after a bachelor's degree. 446 00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:31,080 Right. 447 00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:34,080 If you're going to stop at a bachelor's degree, none of this matters. 448 00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,640 If you're not planning on doing any research for yourself, right, like you want to you 449 00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:38,960 don't want to do any research projects. 450 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:40,440 You're not interested in any of that. 451 00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:44,560 Like that side of academics like just does not interest you at all. 452 00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,200 This should not matter to you at all. 453 00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:48,500 Right. 454 00:23:48,500 --> 00:23:52,880 If you want quality teaching, you're not necessarily interested in the research side of things, 455 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:56,200 but you want just quality teaching. 456 00:23:56,200 --> 00:24:00,720 The research criteria's are not going to be particularly helpful for you. 457 00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:01,720 OK. 458 00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:03,240 But if you are, this does matter. 459 00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:06,040 And this matters coupled with other criteria. 460 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,480 So a lot of these criteria's kind of you should think of it in tandem with one another. 461 00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:10,480 OK. 462 00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:17,360 Student faculty ratio matters if you are interested in seeking a further degree later on. 463 00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:18,720 Why? 464 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:23,880 Because the name of the specific faculty faculty members who will be writing your letters of 465 00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:30,160 rec will matter if you're trying to get into a much more specialized school. 466 00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:32,040 It matters a lot. 467 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:33,040 OK. 468 00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:34,040 It matters a lot. 469 00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:35,040 OK. 470 00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:36,580 I got a PhD in philosophy. 471 00:24:36,580 --> 00:24:43,360 The letters of recommendation that I receive, if they were from a big name hotshot professor 472 00:24:43,360 --> 00:24:47,160 that is really well known in the research circles, it's going to help me get into a 473 00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:48,760 PhD program if it's a positive. 474 00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,440 It's a really good positive letter of recommendation. 475 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:52,440 Why? 476 00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:56,680 Because a letter from somebody who's well known at all of these other research institutions, 477 00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,840 which is what you'll be doing essentially if you're going for a PhD, they care about 478 00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:04,160 the research side of it, your potential for research. 479 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:10,800 You know, name from a fellow peer faculty member who knows you really well, but is also 480 00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:11,920 really well respected. 481 00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:16,200 That's going to hold a lot more weight than a letter of recommendation from somebody who, 482 00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,080 you know, they just never even heard of. 483 00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,880 No matter how great a teacher they are, they just don't really know very well. 484 00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:22,880 OK. 485 00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:29,020 And the student faculty ratio matters in part because if you are in smaller classes and 486 00:25:29,020 --> 00:25:33,160 you're more intimate settings, you have a much better chance of getting connected with 487 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,720 faculty members and developing a relationship with them. 488 00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:42,360 And those relationships, a deeper relationship will help you get a much better letter of 489 00:25:42,360 --> 00:25:43,360 recommendation. 490 00:25:43,360 --> 00:25:47,800 By the way, this also goes hand in hand with the full time faculty, right? 491 00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:52,120 So a lot of students don't know this, but a lot of the classes you'll be taking in college, 492 00:25:52,120 --> 00:25:54,040 they're not going to be taught by full time faculty members. 493 00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:59,200 They might be taught by contract lecturers who are there for a year, maybe just for that 494 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:00,680 semester, maybe just for that class. 495 00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:01,680 Right. 496 00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,880 So there are some universities that are now using adjuncts, which are part time workers 497 00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,980 to teach some of their classes. 498 00:26:08,980 --> 00:26:12,920 If you have more full time faculty members at a research institution, there's a greater 499 00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:17,720 chance that those full time faculty members are the ones that are, you know, doing the 500 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:22,720 citations or getting the start publishing those things that are getting cited. 501 00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:23,720 Right. 502 00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:25,120 They're right. 503 00:26:25,120 --> 00:26:29,880 These are all kind of, again, these criteria might be connected in an important way. 504 00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:35,220 And so if you have more of these full time faculty there and the student faculty ratio 505 00:26:35,220 --> 00:26:41,240 is good, then coupled together, your chances of getting in contact with a full time faculty 506 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:46,960 member that is more likely to have name recognition in the smaller circle for things like law 507 00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:50,920 school or med school and things like that, your chances will be a little bit better. 508 00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:54,280 Now, no guarantee, but your chances might be a little bit better. 509 00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,600 OK, it matters for that purpose. 510 00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:58,600 OK. 511 00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:02,800 So what I'm pointing out is this, right, as you start going through the criteria, you'll 512 00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:09,880 realize that there's a lot of these criteria's might not necessarily be significant for you, 513 00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,120 whereas others might be more significant. 514 00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:19,100 OK, now I can break it down, you know, maybe in another podcast with or in a live stream. 515 00:27:19,100 --> 00:27:22,600 If you're curious about why these criteria is even considered, like, for instance, like 516 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:24,000 standardized tests, right? 517 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:28,840 You might be asking, like, why are we done with like SAT and ACT scores? 518 00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:30,560 You know, who cares about standardized tests? 519 00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:32,520 Why should one test matter? 520 00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:38,880 It matters for a lot of reasons, because standardized tests do indicate to some degree there's some 521 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:44,060 correlation between standardized test scores and your first semester, I think, if not your 522 00:27:44,060 --> 00:27:49,180 first year success at a college. 523 00:27:49,180 --> 00:27:54,880 And so it is to some small degree useful, might not be as useful as a GPA. 524 00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,840 Usually standardized tests coupled with GPA are a good indicator. 525 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:05,540 And that's because standardized tests in some some in some ways control for great inflation. 526 00:28:05,540 --> 00:28:10,200 So if your GPA is extremely high, but you didn't really learn all the basics, standardized 527 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,800 tests could indicate kind of like an offset between those two. 528 00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:16,960 So if you have a low standardized test score, but then you have high GPA, that might indicate 529 00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:22,520 that your GPA is not worth as much as you might think it is compared to the same GPA 530 00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,720 from a student with from a different school. 531 00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:30,040 OK, so, you know, we could talk about how I go through all of these different criteria. 532 00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:34,720 But I also want to point out one additional thing, which is there might be criteria here 533 00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:41,720 that isn't included in this particular list for the U.S. news, but might matter for you 534 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:43,120 personally. 535 00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:51,600 OK, considerations like location, considerations like specific types of internship programs, 536 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,280 considerations like the specific program you're interested in. 537 00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:56,280 And this is especially true. 538 00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,760 And this is part of the reason that U.S. news probably did a separate list for things like 539 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:04,680 engineering and some of these other more specific specialized programs. 540 00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:10,040 For instance, if you're into fine arts, right, the U.S. news overall news ranking is not 541 00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,440 the overall ranking is not going to be particularly helpful. 542 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:18,160 What you need is to know specifically for art, right, which one's going to be better. 543 00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:19,160 Right. 544 00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,880 Similarly, when it comes to things like acting, right, like being in a specific city will 545 00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:27,600 matter for your opportunities to get your feet wet when it comes to acting or music. 546 00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:28,760 Right. 547 00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:33,000 Some of these bigger cities might offer more opportunities than you might get at a small 548 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,920 college out in the middle of nowhere, no matter how good the reputation is. 549 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:37,920 OK. 550 00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:44,200 So the the culture at the college might matter a lot to you. 551 00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:45,600 It might. 552 00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,600 You might not like a particular quote unquote scene. 553 00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:49,600 Right. 554 00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:53,120 A lot of colleges will have, you know, variation. 555 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:57,760 So especially with the larger universities, you might be able to find your own pocket. 556 00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:03,440 But you know, certain colleges have an overall kind of culture that you might not be particularly 557 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:05,760 excited about, like a sports culture. 558 00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,360 Or maybe there's certain things that you are excited about. 559 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:09,360 Right. 560 00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:13,120 Like you have a lot of people coming out of a university that are encouraged to do creative 561 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,080 things outside of the classroom. 562 00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:16,080 Right. 563 00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:20,440 Because colleges, I'll be honest with you, it's not just about your time in the classroom. 564 00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,760 It's about things that you want to accomplish outside of it. 565 00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,160 And so you might not like location might matter. 566 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,760 Look, whether I hate to say it, but whether it might matter for a lot of you. 567 00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:30,760 Right. 568 00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:36,840 There are students I know that suffer from, you know, seasonal affect disorder. 569 00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:42,280 As a result, being in like rainy weather, like, you know, nine months out of the year 570 00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:45,280 will impact their ability to succeed. 571 00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:49,680 It will actually impact their ability to succeed because they're going to have to really battle 572 00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,640 through whatever, you know, they're going through personally because they're surrounded 573 00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:55,640 by a particular weather. 574 00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:56,640 OK. 575 00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,200 It might sound, you might not think, you might think, you might think like it's not a big 576 00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:01,200 deal. 577 00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:02,200 It's a big deal for some. 578 00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,200 Right. 579 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:04,200 And that's what I'm saying. 580 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:05,920 For you, you need to figure out what matters for you. 581 00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:10,040 And then you need to go with that as your guide for figuring out exactly which of these 582 00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,860 criteria should be primary consideration. 583 00:31:12,860 --> 00:31:17,320 And then here's what you can do. 584 00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,320 It requires a little bit more work. 585 00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:24,040 But what you can do is you can do a little research on some of the universities that 586 00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,000 so so let's let's bring it down one step at a time. 587 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:28,000 Right. 588 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:33,040 So you want to go to a university that has some name recognition, unfortunately, because 589 00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,520 graduating with a degree from a college and no one's ever heard of is not going to be 590 00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:43,040 particularly helpful if you're thinking about like opportunities after after college. 591 00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:45,200 OK. 592 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,600 So yes, reputation matters to some degree. 593 00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:50,880 So you want to at least find college that has some name recognition. 594 00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:56,680 Now, I want to point out, like probably the top 100 universities in the United States 595 00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,240 all have this more or less. 596 00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:00,240 OK. 597 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,160 Even the state colleges have this. 598 00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:03,160 Right. 599 00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:07,600 So, you know, it's not a big like it's not like a crazy standard. 600 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:08,600 Right. 601 00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:10,560 So we're not already applying to like the top 20. 602 00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:12,320 Any of these are going to be fine. 603 00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,920 Beyond that, you need to figure out what works best for you, like what it is that you really 604 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:16,920 want. 605 00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:21,340 And again, you'll want to take kind of like a poll for yourself of the things that matter 606 00:32:21,340 --> 00:32:23,840 and in the order that it matters. 607 00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:30,880 Once you have that, you can actually do much more detailed research on those specific criteria. 608 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:31,880 Right. 609 00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:37,000 And that's in part because a lot of these universities will try to sell themselves with 610 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,960 regards to some of these criteria that they feel they're better at or worse. 611 00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:43,440 They'll try to avoid talking about the ones that are worse. 612 00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,440 But the ones that they're better at, they're going to try to talk about it. 613 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:46,440 OK. 614 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:51,520 Like I said, the top tier universities, most likely not all, but most likely they're going 615 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:59,520 to hit most, if not all the criteria, at least within the academic and research sphere sphere. 616 00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:00,520 OK. 617 00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:08,200 So the top like 20 to 30 universities, they're just big enough universities with enough resources, 618 00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:13,720 you know, with enough faculty that it probably hits many, if not most of these, the ones 619 00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:18,720 that you particularly might care about within the classroom and in terms of opportunities 620 00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:19,720 outside. 621 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:20,720 OK. 622 00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:26,800 But again, the specific college you might be interested in and the specific ranking 623 00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,040 you have for yourself should vary. 624 00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,680 You should not be relying on the list that's given by US News. 625 00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:39,440 The way that you should be using the US News ranking, honestly, should be, hey, which schools 626 00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,880 are recognized nationally? 627 00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:43,880 Maybe you might not care. 628 00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:44,880 Right. 629 00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,080 The regional universities are not a bad option. 630 00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:52,280 If you're thinking specifically about, hey, I want to stay in this region for the rest 631 00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,440 of my life, I'm not interested in moving to, you know, or have looking for opportunities 632 00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:56,720 across the country. 633 00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,160 I want to stay in X, Y and Z. 634 00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:00,160 OK. 635 00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:04,720 Then you might not care about reputation outside of that regional area. 636 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:11,120 If that's the case, then usually a regional university might be sufficient and you might 637 00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:14,760 be looking at a different list and you might be looking at what opportunities available 638 00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:20,480 on the regional college list. 639 00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:25,080 OK. 640 00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:30,840 One thing I do want to add about the regional universities, regional colleges, is that they 641 00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:35,560 tend to be smaller and so they're able to give a lot more attention to individual students 642 00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,720 in ways that I think larger universities are not able to. 643 00:34:38,720 --> 00:34:39,720 OK. 644 00:34:39,720 --> 00:34:43,000 So this is the one thing that's actually quite nice about the regional colleges. 645 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:48,960 If you know that you work best in smaller group settings, if you learn best when you 646 00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:55,200 are able to have engaging conversations where you're able to have that discourse with faculty 647 00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,200 members, then this might actually be a better option for you. 648 00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:02,000 You might get a lot more out of your education, more bang for your buck than some of the larger 649 00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:03,000 universities. 650 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:09,140 So again, the point here is that the goal of college is of applying to college anyways 651 00:35:09,140 --> 00:35:14,200 is to find the right fit, it's not necessarily to go to the one that has the best reputation, 652 00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:19,040 which essentially these rankings are trying to get really maybe intentionally or not gets 653 00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:20,040 you to focus on. 654 00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:21,040 Right. 655 00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:24,320 So I want I want to focus on the rankings to kind of stop for this reason, because you 656 00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:28,440 could go to the highest ranked university you get into, but you might absolutely be 657 00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,280 miserable there because it doesn't fit you. 658 00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:32,280 OK. 659 00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:33,280 OK. 660 00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:38,600 I'm going to pause real quick because I want to shift a little bit to quickly mention. 661 00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:45,520 Something that I think needs mentioning that is not discussed enough, and that is the HBCUs, 662 00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:47,960 the historically black colleges and universities. 663 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:48,960 OK. 664 00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:55,040 There's a couple of misconceptions that I've heard, seen out there, and I wanted to kind 665 00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,000 of just stop because it's just it's just lies. 666 00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:58,120 It's just not true. 667 00:35:58,120 --> 00:35:59,120 OK. 668 00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:00,120 All right. 669 00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:01,840 So first thing anybody can apply to HBCUs. 670 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:02,840 OK. 671 00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:06,680 You do not need to be a black American to apply to HBCUs. 672 00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:07,840 It's not an exclusive thing. 673 00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,240 No, that's not exactly that's not what it is at all. 674 00:36:10,240 --> 00:36:11,240 OK. 675 00:36:11,240 --> 00:36:13,840 These are universities and colleges that people apply to like any other. 676 00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:14,840 OK. 677 00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:16,840 Like any other. 678 00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:18,240 All right. 679 00:36:18,240 --> 00:36:22,040 The demographics of the student body might differ at these universities. 680 00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:23,040 Right. 681 00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,960 But that might actually be a big benefit, depending on your personal circumstance, situation, 682 00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:28,760 needs, etc, etc. 683 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:29,760 OK. 684 00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:31,840 So first things first, anybody can apply. 685 00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:32,840 OK. 686 00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:36,160 And so I want to encourage everybody to look at them as options. 687 00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,880 If you feel like it is a good fit for you. 688 00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:39,880 OK. 689 00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:40,880 All right. 690 00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:44,440 The second thing, and this is actually the thing that bothers me the most. 691 00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:49,880 HBCUs, you know, I know that U.S. News has a separate ranking list on, you know, on their 692 00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:50,880 website. 693 00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:51,880 OK. 694 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:58,440 They're not somehow worse or second class to all the other national and regional universities 695 00:36:58,440 --> 00:36:59,440 and colleges. 696 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:00,440 OK. 697 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:04,120 These are, in fact, the the top notch HBCUs are among the best. 698 00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:05,120 Right. 699 00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,880 They're in the same category as all the others that are, you know, doing all kinds of research 700 00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:11,800 and publishing and teaching really well. 701 00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,980 And, you know, there's they're good on a lot of metrics. 702 00:37:14,980 --> 00:37:17,200 Some of them are actually great on other metrics. 703 00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:18,200 Right. 704 00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:23,320 So I just want to say, like, look, whether you're a student, whether you are a parent 705 00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:28,080 or whether you are somebody in the workforce that are hiring people out of college. 706 00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:29,080 OK. 707 00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:37,680 I do not want you to look down or treat HBCUs as somehow less than because they're not. 708 00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:38,680 OK. 709 00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:44,080 They are quality, in some cases, extremely competitive universities and colleges and 710 00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:45,960 should be given due respect. 711 00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:47,000 OK. 712 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:48,000 They're doing a lot of great things. 713 00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:54,920 So again, the rankings, I think, often get us to focus on some of these like top, like 714 00:37:54,920 --> 00:38:01,440 top 10, top 15, top 20 schools, when the reality is that there's actually hundreds of great 715 00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:06,880 schools and some of them may or may not be a good fit for you. 716 00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,960 And that question will be boiled down to something that has nothing to do with the rankings. 717 00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:11,960 Right. 718 00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:15,320 Which is why I find the rankings to be utterly useless. 719 00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:16,320 Right. 720 00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:22,560 It seems to be honestly personal opinion seems like a bunch of, you know, jockeying for ego 721 00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:27,640 right among these universities, and it just is I don't know what other purpose is actually 722 00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:29,840 serving because it's not very informative. 723 00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:30,840 It's not. 724 00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:31,840 It really isn't. 725 00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:32,840 OK. 726 00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:39,320 But I say all of this because I do know and I encounter a lot of students along my work 727 00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:43,840 where it's like HBCUs would be a really good fit and you would get a great education and 728 00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:48,080 you're going to encounter a lot of great people and create great networks. 729 00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:54,160 If you just gave it a shot, but a lot of people tend to not give HBCUs consideration because 730 00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,320 of some implicit bias about that. 731 00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:57,320 It's not as good. 732 00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,060 It's not as respected. 733 00:38:59,060 --> 00:39:02,520 It's not going to help me get a job or all this other crap. 734 00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:09,760 That's a separate issue with society in the United States culture generally and what goes 735 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,480 on outside of the colleges themselves. 736 00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:14,480 OK. 737 00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:15,480 All right. 738 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:16,480 Unpause. 739 00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:21,120 I just wanted to make sure that we that I got to that. 740 00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:28,960 But I want to shift gears in a different direction now and then talk a little bit about Ivy League 741 00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,640 specifically, but also these Ivy League, what is it? 742 00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:36,600 What they call Ivy League Plus or whatever the other like, you know, the Stanford's and 743 00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:40,520 the, you know, the ones that are not technically in the Ivy League, but is treated as such. 744 00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:41,520 OK. 745 00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:43,520 These universities. 746 00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:45,160 OK. 747 00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:51,640 If we're judging a college by its merits and you care about what the college actually adds 748 00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:56,800 on to the students, their experiences, their opportunities and so on. 749 00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:57,800 OK. 750 00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:01,020 The reason the the reason the rankings are a little bit muddied and there's a reason 751 00:40:01,020 --> 00:40:04,840 that you're seeing all the same universities that usually end up in the top, you know, 752 00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:06,480 top 20, top 30 list. 753 00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:07,480 OK. 754 00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:08,480 There's a reason for it. 755 00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:09,480 OK. 756 00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:10,480 It's not. 757 00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:16,880 I'm going to stress this is not because the students are somehow better of higher quality. 758 00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,920 I want to stress that first because I'm going to tell you from my experience, I've taught 759 00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:21,920 at a lot of different universities. 760 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:24,920 Well, I should say a lot of different years. 761 00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:29,600 I've taught at three different universities, but I've also encountered and tutored and 762 00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:34,400 worked in the Previdensary with students from many other universities. 763 00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:35,400 Right. 764 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:36,400 And here's what I learned. 765 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:37,400 Right. 766 00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:39,000 And I think the data actually bears it out. 767 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:40,600 I'll have to take a look again. 768 00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:47,800 But you'll get maybe some of the more exceptional students that, you know, are in a it's a completely 769 00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:48,800 different league. 770 00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:49,800 This is very small percentage. 771 00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:50,800 Right. 772 00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,520 I mean, I don't I don't know the actual number, but it's probably close to like single digits. 773 00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:55,520 Right. 774 00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:59,600 It's not going to be very many students who are in a very different league of their own. 775 00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:05,800 And you're going to get maybe a small, small number more of these students at some of these 776 00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:09,200 top ranked universities than others. 777 00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:10,720 Right. 778 00:41:10,720 --> 00:41:14,400 But there's kind of like it's not like because the university did anything. 779 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,720 It's just because the university attracted those particular students because they either 780 00:41:18,720 --> 00:41:25,760 offered something more or, you know, they I'm not sure what like, right. 781 00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:27,440 Like they were attracted by the rankings. 782 00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:28,860 I'm not sure. 783 00:41:28,860 --> 00:41:33,600 But what ends up happening is that there's a lot of these students who have who are in 784 00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:37,520 this category that end up more of the top ranked universities. 785 00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:38,520 Right. 786 00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:43,680 However, and this is the important part, a majority of the students are more or less 787 00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:44,680 the same. 788 00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:45,680 OK. 789 00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:50,680 Like if you take a look at the data on things like SATs and their predictable, how good 790 00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:55,520 they are at predicting success for students, it only usually only applies to like the first 791 00:41:55,520 --> 00:42:00,720 year in college where you might see a significant better performance from students who did better 792 00:42:00,720 --> 00:42:01,720 on the SATs. 793 00:42:01,720 --> 00:42:02,720 OK. 794 00:42:02,720 --> 00:42:06,880 Which makes sense because they were a little bit more prepared if they're able to, let's 795 00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:11,280 say, have a better grasp of grammar or writing skills or some reading skill and so on. 796 00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:12,280 OK. 797 00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:13,280 But the learning curve is sharp. 798 00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:18,200 And especially for those students who might feel like, oh, you know, I'm not competing 799 00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:22,440 with the best of them at the university got into like what you'll find is after the first 800 00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,320 year, it all kind of evens out. 801 00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:25,320 Right. 802 00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:26,320 It all evens out. 803 00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,880 The learning curve is sharp and then everyone kind of sort of evens out from there on. 804 00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:30,880 OK. 805 00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,840 So what I'm pointing out is as a following, right, just because a college is more competitive 806 00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:36,680 doesn't mean that it has better students. 807 00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:37,680 Right. 808 00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:40,200 From my experience, an 18 year old is an 18 year old. 809 00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:47,000 It doesn't matter whether you're going to Harvard or Stanford or Cal State Fullerton 810 00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:51,080 or you're going to a University of Texas or it doesn't matter. 811 00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:52,080 It doesn't matter. 812 00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:53,080 An 18 year old is an 18 year old. 813 00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:55,000 They're going to do 18 year old shit. 814 00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:56,000 OK. 815 00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,320 Which means, you know, what do 18 year olds do? 816 00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,920 They're going to make bad decisions sometimes, right? 817 00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,880 They're not I mean, prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed. 818 00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:09,200 You know, some of them not going to lie seem like complete sociopaths to me. 819 00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:10,240 Personal opinion. 820 00:43:10,240 --> 00:43:11,240 Don't hate me for it. 821 00:43:11,240 --> 00:43:12,240 OK. 822 00:43:12,240 --> 00:43:14,720 But look, this is just the reality. 823 00:43:14,720 --> 00:43:15,720 Right. 824 00:43:15,720 --> 00:43:19,720 When you get a bunch of 18 to 21, 22 year olds together, they're going to do 18 to 22 825 00:43:19,720 --> 00:43:20,720 year old shit. 826 00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:21,720 Right. 827 00:43:21,720 --> 00:43:22,720 Like that's the reality. 828 00:43:22,720 --> 00:43:23,720 And it doesn't matter what college you go to. 829 00:43:23,720 --> 00:43:24,720 OK. 830 00:43:24,720 --> 00:43:27,680 You'll find that some students, right, might have done extremely well in high school and 831 00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:28,880 just do terrible in college. 832 00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:33,400 And that's because, again, for a lot of different reasons, it could be because of their own 833 00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:35,680 personal demons they're struggling with. 834 00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:40,840 You know, things like alcoholism is a serious concern with I think with college students 835 00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:41,840 or lack of motivation. 836 00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:46,400 First time having freedom, learning to adjust to college life, learning to adjust to be 837 00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:47,720 on their own. 838 00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:51,320 You know, relationship issues, family issues like who knows. 839 00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:52,360 OK. 840 00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:56,920 Whatever it is, people are going to have, you know, like people are people. 841 00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:57,920 OK. 842 00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:04,560 So I say this because one of the things I actually despise seeing is, you know, when 843 00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:07,080 people hear, oh, you're going to this college. 844 00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:10,680 Oh, I feel like you must be like so smart and yada yada. 845 00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:11,680 It's like, OK. 846 00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:12,680 To each their own. 847 00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:13,680 Right. 848 00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,680 Like you can say whatever you want, you can think whatever you want. 849 00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:17,680 But I'm going to tell you this. 850 00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:18,680 Right. 851 00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:19,680 It's not very accurate. 852 00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,680 In fact, most of the time, they're going to be on par with one another. 853 00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:23,680 Right. 854 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:24,680 They're going to be on par with them. 855 00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:26,680 There's not going to be a significant difference. 856 00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:27,680 OK. 857 00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:31,880 There'll be some significant difference with the tier that I talked about. 858 00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,320 It's very small subset of students. 859 00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:35,320 Right. 860 00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,680 But for the majority of students, there's not going to be much of a difference at all. 861 00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:39,680 Right. 862 00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:47,720 If I'm teaching philosophy at a UC, like, say, UC Irvine versus like, you know, at Harvard, 863 00:44:47,720 --> 00:44:50,360 you know, the class size might be the only thing that's different. 864 00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:52,080 The content is going to be more or less the same. 865 00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:54,800 The expectations on the papers are going to be the same. 866 00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:59,200 There's not going to be a big difference, if any, at all. 867 00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:00,200 OK. 868 00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:05,040 Now, faculty might tell me at these different universities might tell me otherwise. 869 00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,840 You know, if you disagree, come talk to me. 870 00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,600 We can have a conversation about it. 871 00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:14,680 But I think if you actually have to go around teaching at a lot of these universities, what 872 00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:19,120 you'll find is that the student body is more or less outside of that first year. 873 00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:23,600 Like I said, it's going to be more or less going to be the same in terms of quality of 874 00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:24,600 students. 875 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:29,280 So what that means is that if you're thinking about what it is that the university is adding 876 00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:36,920 to the value of your degree, right, there's a lot of noise in all this data that you're 877 00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:41,200 getting about how successful students are after college and what kind of jobs they end 878 00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:44,680 up getting and how much money they end up making and yada yada and so on and so forth. 879 00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:45,680 OK. 880 00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,400 I think nowadays a lot of people kind of think of colleges in a consumer mentality. 881 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,840 They're like, OK, it's an investment and how much return will I get? 882 00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:52,840 Yada yada. 883 00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:57,880 The way I've heard a lot of students kind of talk about it in more recent years, a lot 884 00:45:57,880 --> 00:45:58,880 more anyways. 885 00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,720 OK, here's the thing. 886 00:46:01,720 --> 00:46:08,040 OK, you probably I mean, again, the exceptions will always be kind of exceptions to this, 887 00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:09,040 right? 888 00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:11,680 But the general rule of thumb is that, right, I think most of these colleges, like I said, 889 00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,800 especially in the top 50 research universities, are going to provide and the larger ones are 890 00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,360 going to provide more or less the same things, similar types of opportunities. 891 00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:25,440 It just might be different with different companies, let's say, or with different specifics 892 00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:26,440 of a program. 893 00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:28,800 But they provide more or less similar opportunities. 894 00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:32,800 And if you don't have the opportunities readily available, you could often create those opportunities 895 00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:36,400 for yourself wherever it is you go. 896 00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:40,280 OK, so what exactly is the value that's being added? 897 00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:43,600 I'm going to point something out that I think a lot of people know that they don't maybe 898 00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,640 want to say, right, which is the reputation. 899 00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,680 And again, it's like some self-fulfilling prophecy, right? 900 00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:57,320 The reputation will help carry, you know, added added weight to your degree, even though 901 00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:02,680 it's not reflective of you having learned more or having gone through a more rigorous 902 00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,400 process to get the grade you wanted in college. 903 00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:07,320 It doesn't mean you were exposed to better teachers. 904 00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:12,040 It doesn't mean that you, you know, took advantage of the research opportunities that were available. 905 00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:16,720 It doesn't mean that the researchers in the particular field that you specialized in were 906 00:47:16,720 --> 00:47:17,720 particularly better. 907 00:47:17,720 --> 00:47:18,720 Right. 908 00:47:18,720 --> 00:47:19,720 Because here's the truth. 909 00:47:19,720 --> 00:47:24,360 There are universities where, you know, the university is really, really good at a particular 910 00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:25,360 department. 911 00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:31,080 But because the university doesn't carry the same reputation, it doesn't really translate 912 00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:33,080 when you go out into the workforce. 913 00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:34,280 Right. 914 00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,600 Which is, like I said, absolutely unfortunate. 915 00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:37,600 Right. 916 00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:45,960 The reality is this, right, one of the primary things that happens in college is you develop 917 00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:50,480 a certain reputation because of the name that you're associated with. 918 00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:51,480 Okay. 919 00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:58,160 You also are connected to an alumni network that sometimes are kind of helping each other 920 00:47:58,160 --> 00:47:59,160 out. 921 00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:00,160 Right. 922 00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:01,720 So these are, like I said, kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 923 00:48:01,720 --> 00:48:02,720 Right. 924 00:48:02,720 --> 00:48:05,920 It's not that they're necessarily doing anything to make sure that the students are of higher 925 00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:07,840 quality when they graduate. 926 00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:13,880 It's just more that, you know, there's all this extra stuff that comes in to kind of 927 00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,040 boost you up if you happen to go to a particular university. 928 00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:18,040 Right. 929 00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:19,480 This is the alumni network. 930 00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:21,600 This is the social networking. 931 00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:26,320 Here's one thing that I think a lot of people already know, right, which is a lot of the 932 00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:31,280 top-notch universities, the most competitive ones, right, tend to have more students that 933 00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:32,560 are wealthier. 934 00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:34,240 And that shouldn't be a surprise. 935 00:48:34,240 --> 00:48:39,880 If you come from a family that has all the means to provide you all the support you need 936 00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:47,320 to help you get the best essay writers to help you with your personal statement, to 937 00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:53,400 cater your high school career and send you to schools where there's the proper amount 938 00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:54,400 of great inflation. 939 00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,200 I mean, a lot of students, like a lot of my friends didn't know this. 940 00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:00,480 I've known this for a while, but there are feeder schools to Harvard, right? 941 00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:04,840 I mean, we're talking like these expensive boarding schools that a very select number 942 00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:06,480 of students can actually attend, right? 943 00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:13,240 Out in Massachusetts, out in, you know, New York, really, really expensive. 944 00:49:13,240 --> 00:49:17,440 And they have a disproportionate number of students who get into places like Ivy Leagues. 945 00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:19,120 And that's not by accident, right? 946 00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:22,720 Money breeds, right, opportunity. 947 00:49:22,720 --> 00:49:24,720 That's what it does. 948 00:49:24,720 --> 00:49:25,720 Right. 949 00:49:25,720 --> 00:49:30,360 And then what this means is that when you get to college, right, like what exactly is 950 00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,720 the thing that's helping you get a better job? 951 00:49:32,720 --> 00:49:34,760 Is it because you got a better education? 952 00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:35,760 Probably not. 953 00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:39,240 From my experience, most of the time you get jobs because of connections. 954 00:49:39,240 --> 00:49:40,240 Right. 955 00:49:40,240 --> 00:49:41,240 That's the reality. 956 00:49:41,240 --> 00:49:44,480 All these people who are talking about merit and I deserve to get that job, that's bullshit. 957 00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:45,480 Okay. 958 00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:46,920 That doesn't that's not how the job market works. 959 00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:47,920 Okay. 960 00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:51,120 Doors open for you, not because you worked hard. 961 00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:52,120 Okay. 962 00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:55,820 The reality is that doors open for you because you know the right people, right? 963 00:49:55,820 --> 00:49:59,920 Now hard work is necessary to maintain a lot of this. 964 00:49:59,920 --> 00:50:03,680 And it's hard work is required to actually get into connection with the right kind of 965 00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:04,680 people. 966 00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:09,040 But it's not the hard work and the skills that are really doing it, like giving you 967 00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:10,040 these opportunities. 968 00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:13,360 It's a lot of the work is being done by social network, right? 969 00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:18,200 And going to a big name university gives you some of that social network you get in connection 970 00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:21,520 with richer people, come from a lot of money. 971 00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:25,680 If you could schmooze with them, they like you, maybe some opportunities will open up. 972 00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:27,140 I don't know. 973 00:50:27,140 --> 00:50:34,240 What I do know is that a lot of the data you see that feed into the rankings, it's not 974 00:50:34,240 --> 00:50:42,000 because of anything that the college is doing that is deserving of a higher ranking, I think. 975 00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:43,540 Right. 976 00:50:43,540 --> 00:50:47,120 And so we do need to be very, very careful when we're looking at the rankings. 977 00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:53,100 We can't treat it as some sort of sacred text for figuring out what's a good college to 978 00:50:53,100 --> 00:50:54,100 go to. 979 00:50:54,100 --> 00:51:01,400 I suggested all along that the primary thing that you should be concerned with is fit. 980 00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:06,100 And the reason the fit part is important is the following, okay? 981 00:51:06,100 --> 00:51:13,140 Students who tend to be happy and love where they're at, who feel like it's a good fit, 982 00:51:13,140 --> 00:51:16,420 they tend to make the most of their opportunities. 983 00:51:16,420 --> 00:51:23,720 And when you make the most of your opportunities, then those, right, that investment there, 984 00:51:23,720 --> 00:51:26,480 that's what's going to carry through after you graduate college, right? 985 00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:32,560 If you're thinking about being innovative or having a vision for your own future, how 986 00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:40,140 you conduct yourself in the workplace, how you start up new ideas and who you get into 987 00:51:40,140 --> 00:51:45,480 connections with and how you build those connections, those business relationships or networks. 988 00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:47,120 All right. 989 00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:53,200 All those happen, you know, best when you are motivated to do those things, because 990 00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:57,620 it's going to require you to get yourself out there and to take advantage of these opportunities. 991 00:51:57,620 --> 00:52:01,800 But you're only willing to do that if you find yourself in a place where you're not 992 00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:02,800 miserable, okay? 993 00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:06,240 Where you're not absolutely miserable. 994 00:52:06,240 --> 00:52:07,360 Okay. 995 00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:11,880 Now you might just grit your teeth and then push your way through it, but it won't be 996 00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,260 a particularly pleasant experience. 997 00:52:15,260 --> 00:52:20,400 And on top of that, it's going to, it's in some sense you're cheating yourself of the 998 00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,320 most that you could get from a college because college is not strictly about what you get 999 00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:25,320 in the classroom. 1000 00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:26,520 It's actually all these other stuff. 1001 00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:30,640 That's actually why colleges are so expensive is because they provide services outside of 1002 00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:32,320 just teaching, right? 1003 00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:35,440 They invest a lot of money in the administrative side, okay? 1004 00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:41,360 So look, if you find the right fit, I guarantee you will never regret going to that university. 1005 00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:44,800 You will never feel like less than for going to that university. 1006 00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:49,120 You would have gotten all the opportunities you need to, okay? 1007 00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:54,000 And again, it depends heavily on what direction you want to take your personal life. 1008 00:52:54,000 --> 00:53:02,060 So take any ranking you see with a grain of salt, with a grain of salt, okay? 1009 00:53:02,060 --> 00:53:08,840 With that said, let's stop, let's stop with this narrative that somehow these colleges 1010 00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:15,160 are better, the students are better, the faculty are better at the top ranked universities 1011 00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:16,840 as opposed to the others. 1012 00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:22,840 I can tell you from experience and from just looking at the actual data, there's not a 1013 00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:25,040 huge significant difference in them. 1014 00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:30,920 And majority of us are going to be, actually all of us are going to be more than fine getting 1015 00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:37,720 into any reputable university, getting a degree, and then kind of finding our own path in life, 1016 00:53:37,720 --> 00:53:38,720 okay? 1017 00:53:38,720 --> 00:53:40,800 What matters here is that life is a marathon. 1018 00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:44,800 It's a journey and college is just one part of it. 1019 00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:50,400 It's one small experience within the larger scope that is life. 1020 00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:58,080 And if we start overvaluing colleges, then you're just setting yourself up. 1021 00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:02,720 It's almost like you're scamming yourself by thinking something that just is not true, 1022 00:54:02,720 --> 00:54:04,720 it just is not true. 1023 00:54:04,720 --> 00:54:11,280 And I hope that this also gives some assurance to students who go to, let's say like a state 1024 00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:12,280 university, right? 1025 00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:17,440 Like Penn State, Cal State, you know, a lot of these students think like, oh, I didn't 1026 00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:21,480 go to one of the more competitive universities, my degree is worth less. 1027 00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:24,800 I think we need to stop that narrative as well, okay? 1028 00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:28,760 These universities, if you don't know, a lot of these universities have some of the best 1029 00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:36,520 teaching and you're going to gain a lot of great teaching, you're going to get to experience 1030 00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:41,800 a lot of great teaching in these kind of circles in ways that you might not at a research university. 1031 00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:47,320 So you actually bring value to the table in ways that students who went to the top ranked 1032 00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:50,360 universities just did not, okay? 1033 00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:54,800 And that does not make you better, doesn't make you worse, it just means it's different. 1034 00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:59,600 And we need to all kind of honor and respect the fact that there are these different experiences 1035 00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:04,320 and we're all going to be contributing to the larger community just in different ways, 1036 00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:05,320 right? 1037 00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:09,880 But it doesn't mean that the education should in any way be valued less. 1038 00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:12,160 So I hope you could carry that with you. 1039 00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:16,100 And for those of you who get into some of the more competitive universities, don't be 1040 00:55:16,100 --> 00:55:17,680 a jackass, okay? 1041 00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:20,000 You're not better than anyone else, all right? 1042 00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:21,940 You just have a degree like anyone else. 1043 00:55:21,940 --> 00:55:27,000 So don't buy into, especially if other people are kind of feeding you this shit, don't buy 1044 00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:29,080 into it, all right? 1045 00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:31,680 For my sake, because it's going to piss the shit out of me. 1046 00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:32,680 All right. 1047 00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:53,080 I'll see you next time.