When I was in the Navy I had a chief petty officer from Connecticut whose nickname for me was "Midwest Puke," because I was from Ohio. I'm not saying that's a typical East Coast attitude, but I will say this kind of attitude toward people on the other side of the Alleghenies does represent the feelings of a portion of the East Coast population.

Earmuffs

The funny thing about the "Coastal Elite" terminology is that it exists in many western countries just in different forms. For example, greater London still can't figure out why so many in northern and eastern England were for Brexit (both Conservative and Labour party voters.) The solution to these elites; the other people are ignorant or even bigoted.

The same is true in Germany; the powers that be in Berlin will never figure out people from Bavaria and the Rhineland. Once again they must be ignorant or bigoted not to vote the same way as does Berlin. I have family and friends who live in Germany and England and the parallels are amazing.

I don't have family in France, but history tells us that the people of Vendee stood up to the horrific guillotine happy forces of the Reign of Terror shortly after the storming of the Bastille. They valued their religious faith and died defending it. Naturally today it is France's most conservative region who doesn't vote Socialist and of course is labeled by the French press as ignorant and bigoted.

There was a time in the western world that if you lived in a rural area or small town, the powers that be viewed you as quaint and with a certain amount of affection. I remember working in our nation's capital after graduate school and almost everyone I met seem to have a warm fuzzy feeling about Ohio. Many subtly thought they were smarter and more worldly than those in the Heartland, but they held Ohio and the rest of the Midwest with a certain amount of affection. Sadly it isn't as it once was and it is not limited to the Heartland. I was talking to someone recently who said a relative in Staten Island felt they might as well have been from Mississippi by the way some treated them at work in Manhattan. Perhaps this will soon pass from our midst; I certainly hope so for it's end can't come soon enough.

Yea, it seems like the only elitist here is Optimist.

The better analogy would have been between Firestone and East. Copley is a suburban school.

Depends on how you define "overwhelmingly."

How is that an elitist statement? You obviously have no idea what being an elitist means. Way to completely twist his words and take him out of context to disprove his point.

All the Optimist said was he had exposure that other people in his area didn't. That's not an elitist. To me an elitist is someone who has that exposure and somehow it makes them think they're better then everyone else.

If you don't like that definition we can use googles which says "relating or supporting the view that society should be run by elites. Which goes exactly with optimist point earlier and why he is using the term elitist I think. By raising the requirement of test score emissions, yes you're getting kids who do better in high school. The thing is though doing better in high school doesn't make you smarter than someone who doesn't do as well as you. In many cases all it means is that you tried harder. There are millions of kids out there who are super smart but just don't apply themselves in school. This could be for a number of reasons. Maybe they weren't interested in the subjects, maybe they were lazy, maybe they just wanted to socialize more or focus on sports, whatever, but the idea that beacaue they don't meet a high GPA or testing standard makes them any less smart is ridiculous. These kids who score less bring there own knowledge and expertise on many areas of life or a specialized field. By raising emissions standard you're spreading the elitist idea that only these elite people who do well in school should get a chance at college and by doing so you're ensuring that society is run by these intellectual elites. Also by doing this you're eliminating a population from the Ohio student body which bring there own unique expertise to our school. In my view this would be detrimental to the culture of our school.

In summary there are many different ways to be elite. Let's not just select those who are intellectually elite.

I'm all for raising emissions standards.

Boy, I sure helped turn this into a "I know you are but what am I" type thread....

I can think of at least two - SBH and myself and we're far from elitist.

Where does he say that makes his opinion more valid? You're adding that in.

Agree with the never want to be like Miami sentiment, nor I would I ever want to see Ohio people adopt such a comically pretentious attempt to make the school sound more elite than it ever could hope to be in real life. The kids who love everything about Miami (and buy into its self-aggrandizing myths) are going there no matter what. Even OSU isn't going to lure them away (doubt OSU wants them either). That being said, there is a percentage of kids who consider Miami every year who would fit in just fine at Ohio. Does anyone know the percentage of cross-applications between the two schools?

Output is important. And the brighter, more accomplished and more disciplined the students going in, the better your output is going to be and the more respected Ohio becomes to recruiters and graduate schools. Like it or not, but these days, a university's reputation is driven to a large degree by how hard it is to get into. It influences prospective students, parents as well as businesses and graduate schools. Ohio needs to play that game, or it needs to accept that people around Ohio are increasingly going to lump it in with Toledo, UC and KSU.