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Comment by Thriptic | Hacker News Reader

> Education is getting more decentralized and so the only real value of these institutions is brand recognition and network.

This is simply not true. I went to what I would call a tier 3 school for undergrad and then ended up at MIT for graduate work. The difference between the two institutions was really night and day. Not only are the classes more rigorous and the instructors objectively better at MIT, but the students just think differently: they have much more ambition and are far less constrained by the status quo / what their parents did. Being around that totally changed my outlook of what is possible and what I should expect from myself, and really pushed me to make huge career and self-education strides.

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I agree. I studied at Cambridge, then did my Master's elsewhere, and there is a qualitative difference between the two. The difference in the amount of work you are expected to do is vast (Cambridge was more than double the workload, on average), and the instructors drive you forward, even if it means going beyond the strict confines of what you need to know.

There's also a difference in mindset - there's an appreciation of knowledge for knowledge's sake, and there's a presumption that you can get up to speed with the basics of things quickly even if it is outside of your subject. I distinctly remember discussing calcium channels with the medical students (at an event where there was also a lot of drinking), and discussing economics with the economists.

I generally agree with this, but here is a counterpoint regarding graduate studies.

From my first hand experience as a graduate student at MIT, a lot of the research produced at MIT generates a disproportionate amount of buzz - essentially identical work (in terms of quality) produced by a student in a "tier 3" school will not generate the same kind of recognition. The reasons for this lie in the network effects; people read and cite people who they can attest to with less effort and scrutiny.

The points regarding the instructors and student body are definitely valid and should not be ignored.

Agree 100x

Example from my field: silicon photonics project which got a lot of press and all of them mentioned MIT, usually in the headlines. U boulder contributed to the project and got e near zero recognition.

I have not gone to graduate school at a place like MIT or Harvard, but I have done graduate work at both a top 30 and a top 60 school. There was absolutely a difference in quality of research, professors, and coursework at both schools (STEM subjects, and the top 30 school being higher quality).

Hear, hear. Having experienced a similar transition, the improved quality of instruction and the impressive caliber of my cohort was shockingly apparent in my very first class. I liken the transition to switching from the minor leagues to the pros.

I've had a similar experience, but I would also say that MIT has its own blind spot: it's more commercial-minded, more applications- and engineering-focused, than truly zeroed in on the radical seeking of scientific truth.

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