What Is Elite Education

Elite education: the real key to success

Students often hear that a decent education is attainable regardless of the institution. Education being the key to success, it may be better to continue your studies without worrying about the quality of your education, because a hardworking student can thrive anywhere. On the other hand, most of our parents today would do the impossible to give their kids access to an elite education. Although the latter is always praised, it can have its negative effects on students. According to William Deresiewicz, elite education discourages risk taking, makes us incapable of talking to people who aren’t like us and affects our perception of the real worth of other human beings (2008). Nonetheless,

When pursuing their degrees at prestigious universities, students get the chance to interact with eminently qualified professors. As an AUB student, I find myself surrounded by role models and ideals. The professors at AUB are nothing but a source of inspiration to their students, most of them having participated in numerous researches and having conducted some themselves. An elite education hands you the opportunity to collaborate with such individuals, listen to their advices and build life changing relationships. Besides having access to proficient advisors, tutors and instructors, elite institutions give students access to notable alumni. Some of the most prominent leaders, scientists, humanitarians, in short successful people have graduated from elite institutions and often these distinguished alumni return to their universities to give speeches, hold workshops and conduct research. When attending elite universities, students get the opportunity to meet and learn from these inspirational people. Furthermore, elite institutions frequently organize conferences, meetings, symposiums and invite experienced professionals to participate, thus paving the way for students to listen and learn from the very best. Just last month, the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies at AUB launched the special issue of Contemporary Levant entitled “Ethnography as

As described earlier elite universities offer more rigorous courses. On the other hand, graduate schools are interested in the difficulty of a student’s course load, which means graduates from elite institutions benefit from a preferential admission to graduate schools. Additionally, prestigious universities organize transformative exchange programs with other elite institutions. Every year, students at AUB have the chance to participate in study abroad and exchange programs. Looking at the list of selected universities, we notice the presence of some of the highest ranked colleges around the world such as Boston University (81st on QS World University Rankings 2018), University of California, Berkeley (27th), Université de Montréal (130th) and Lund University (78th). “While rankings are certainly not everything, we were quite pleased to learn that AUB was appropriately ranked as the finest university in the Arab world by the detailed and well-balanced QS ratings” announces AUB President Dr. Fadlo R. Khuri (2017) . Moreover, American University of Beirut breaks in the top 50 in the latest QS Employability rankings, announces the Editorial Team of Arabia Higher Ed (2017). Graduates from elite educational establishments have a higher chance to get hunted down by employers and typically have higher incomes than graduates from