This is an incomplete thought, but I hope to work through it. I want to talk through honors programs at public unis. I feel like they can be Ivy-League-like. It seems as if to have a significant chance of securing postgrad admission at elite programs, you have to go through (1/4)

a proto-elite school. And think of the putative benefits of such programs. They are small and exclusive, so students have much more reliable access to professors (and thus recs). There are other benefits as well; be it scholarships, research/internship opportunities, etc...(2/4)

Eg: CCNY has 16k students, but I was in an honors program w/ a cohort of ~30 w/ dedicated profs/scholarships. Even in CC, similar ratios. My read is: honors programs are as reliable as it gets when it comes to social mobility thru higher ed, esp w/r/t working class ppl. (3/4)

Anyway, I wonder what people who do work in education/social mobility think of this. Does it track? To distill: to what extent do honors programs at public units serve as cottage Ivies? Is that what we want them to be?

More tomorrow. Until then, sleep.

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