It kind of varies. The upper tier universities- especially the Ivy- will generally expect a little more out of their students. They may cover the same concepts as anyone else, but then take them to the extreme on exams, etc.
It's true what you said also. A lot of students that matriculate into the Ivy schools were bred to be students, however that doesn't necessarily mean they're more intelligent. From their scholastic start, the parents shape them into little "class-setting thinkers". Generally enrolling them in private schools from the ground up. A lot- but not all- of these students are brilliant when it comes to book smarts, but when it comes to logic they're no better off than if they went to a public school in the inner city.
Whoa der, now you're getting on a slippery slope, i.e., how does one measure logic through the traditional means that college education has given us? How does book smart line up with this, if at all? This is inherently a subject of intense debate and controversy, if you'd ask me. What ends up happening on SDN especially is that the group judged to be the "same" or even "less than" the other group will lash out and claim BS, and then it all goes downhill.
As for the point about concepts and exams, no and yes. I know that our professors tend to cover a bit more material in more depth than do their counterparts at state schools, though I know UCs are a different beast in and of itself, so I can only speak for the state schools that my friends go to. On the exams, it's a whole other ball game lol. My problem with the way this is set up is that because of the research-intensive environment that the professors operate in, they tend to force this expectation on science students, especially when it comes exam time. Like, I get that experimental design is supposed to train us in logic a lot better than rote memorization techniques, and that logic is important in science and everything else. I wouldn't be so against it if they didn't take it to such extremes. There are intermediate ways of doing things. For example, there was a bizarre question on my cell bio final that asked you the steps you would take with full explanations to discover some crap in a cell that I don't remember. Someone found the answer online, and it was through a
Cell paper. Of course, we weren't expected for such detail as was disseminated in the paper, but the professor told us he was expecting at least something similar given what we were taught and expected to synthesize. Um...ok. Guess I deserved my B+ with an 88 on that final then?!?!??!!?!!?!??! (This was a special case; not all classes are like I described.)
We're also not all private schools trust-fund kiddies, just so you know. I believe the figure was 70% are still from public schools. Granted, some of them may be magnet or highly specialized in some way, but still publicly funded.
I've always been curious how different Ivy league schools are in comparison to state schools. I'm a transfer at one of the top UC's and in my head I thought learning Sn2 and Sn1 is the same no matter what school you go to. But I'm guessing that what makes an Ivy so much different is the environment. Are there more notable alumni from Ivy's because they simply graduated from their or because they were bred at the school to be better thinkers? I can't even imagine how competitive everything must feel. Like when I found out my brilliant psychology professor was from Columbia. I thought did they really see all this potential in him out of high school or did Columbia transform him into the person he is today?
What do you think?
Learning SN1/SN2 may be the same, but they present it and expect mastery demonstrated back in very different ways, because I've seen my friend's orgo exams at SUNY. Again, UCs are probably more intensive than NYS lol.
The environment is actually very friendly. Grades are assigned competitively, and everyone's high-achieving, but that doesn't mean we gun against each other. People have said this before, and I used to think it's bull****, but we're really gunning against our own expectations, nothing else. If you want to collaborate, people will probably say yes, beside the one or two socially awkward dudes you find at every college. Giving notes for missed classes and discussing psets also falls under this category.
As for your second point, I believe it's a mix of both.
Here's a disclaimer: I am only speaking for the Ivy I go to, and am not saying that the attributes I'm about to discuss don't exist at other schools. I'm sure they do, but I am just giving a portrait of where I go. Just wanted to clarify that because I've been called elitist/arrogant/condescending before while giving a similar perspective.
I don't know what it means to breed a thinker lol, so I'll stay away from that point. The name of the alma mater definitely factors into why we have more notable alumni than elsewhere. The whole "the adcom did the selecting for us already, these are pretty smart kids on average, etc." attitude. I don't think our school makes us what we were. I think it helps expand potential in us that we never thought existed or possible to unlock. Beyond that, the most notable thing I found about college is the sheer intellectual curiosity, drive, and ambition that most of my peers have. (Yeah, most; some of the football players definitely do not count, but they're still able.) Again, not saying this doesn't exist elsewhere, but coming from a large public high school in New York City where most kids complained about school and classes and disliked most things academic, it was really exciting and a great change of fresh air. The downside of this is that I really think some of my classmates don't know how to relax and take some time off for themselves because of all the things they're involved in and constantly wishing they were involved in (David Brooks once wrote about this 8 years ago in NYT regarding Princeton; not much has changed since then). A classic campus tradition is that of picking/selecting classes (we actually have a special term for this, but it'd give my institution away) every semester. The way people get so excited about what new course offerings are available and how sad they are to discover a time conflict between two things they don't need to take for anything other than curiosity is a very curious phenomenon, and really fun to both watch and partake in. Granted, that only has to do with academics, but extracurricularly, it's very much the same. I don't know how much of this is bull****, résumé-building, corporate ladder climbing training, or something of the like (probably a large percentage though lol), but it exists and it's scary what some of them do. Do we have slackers and those who work the system? Yeah, of course; every college does. But on average, that's not the case. However, it's important to note the resources from the University that we have available to us that not everyone else has, so who knows what might happen if others who were not in our shoes were suddenly here?
I think it is a combination of this characteristic that I've done a very poor job in portraying and the name of our alma maters that promotes our alumni. Is this deserved? I don't know, but it is what it is, and I ain't getting into another debate about the "meritocracy" our country supposedly has, because that's bull****. In the case of your professor at Columbia, he had to have been able before his Columbia name did anything for him. Idiots graduate from Ivies all the time, and hell, they ain't gonna get nowhere any time soon.
That's my two cents. Very unrefined, biased, and frog-in-a-well type view, but that's all I know and how I see it.
