Viewer

We live in a very middle class town. The high school is average or slightly above. My two older children both went to Ivy League schools. My daughter went to Dartmouth and my son went to Brown. My daughter is working at Google and my son is a start up tech company. Most of their friends from our town are not doing as well. I really believe Ivy League schools open doors.

warblersrule

On the surface, maybe. After thinking it through, does it really make sense?

People making such statements frequently contrast a go-getter at U Nebraska with a lazy, unmotivated student at Harvard. The reality is that few get into Harvard by being lazy and unmotivated, and few become that way while there. The question becomes...how well do motivated students at top colleges stack up against motivated students elsewhere?

For a motivated student, you simply can't beat the resources and opportunities of a top university. For example, let's take someone interested in museum work or art conservation -- you get way more out of working at Harvard's Fogg or the Penn Museum than at a generic college art museum.

Anchser

I'm not trying to say that the "brand name" schools lead to success. What I'm trying to say is that the smartest kids tend to matriculate to the best schools. It is the classic "cause vs. effect" argument, but either way the elite schools have smart/better students than non-elite schools.

We obviously disagree on what makes a job elite. However, I highly doubt that the same companies that recruit at HYPSM are recruiting at PSU. I could be wrong, however. I do have an open mind, and if the PSU supporter showed me otherwise, I wouldn't deny it.

Nowhere have I said that the Ivies are "inherently superior".

Also, please do not criticize me for "sweeping generalizations", after you posted:

"...most employers do not care where you got your degree. They care how you present yourself on your resume and in interviews. They care about your skill set and your work ethic. And the fact is, most employers have not heard of 99% of the colleges that get the most discussion on this site, nor would they be impressed by them--particularly if they do not share an "elite" educational background themselves."

If anything shouts "sweeping generalization", it is that paragraph.

Also, thank you very much. I chose to apply ED to Wesleyan.

beyphy

I don't think either of these points is true. Many of the universities discussed on this site are world famous. This includes many of the ivies, Duke, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, etc.

In regards to your second point, people are impressed by name brand, whether its clothes, cars, or universities. This is independent of whether they went to an elite school themselves or not. Now, whether they consider a university to be a name brand is likely subjective. UCLA has a strong pull in its home region and internationally, a good pull in the east coast, but probably a weak pull in the Midwest and Southern regions.

Andrew Luck was co-valedictorian at his high school. But i'd say this is broader than just jocks. I never met one girl at UCLA who i thought was very attractive who wasn't also very intelligent.

I think that GPA should be taken in context of the undergraduate institution and major. If i was a hiring manager, and i saw someone with a 4.0 from UCR, i'd think that the person was probably very intelligent and couldn't go to a better school due to personal commitments, affordability, etc. If i saw someone with a 2.5 from UCR, i'd think that this person didn't take his academics seriously throughout his schooling. (This can further be clarified through transcripts to see whether a person had an upward trend and simply made mistakes in their first or second years.)

I wouldn't change this for elite universities either. If i saw someone with a 2.5 from UCLA, i'd think that this person probably either didn't take his academics seriously or probably wasn't prepared to go there. Either way, i wouldn't i wouldn't be impressed. I might be impressed with a 3.5 from engineering, or a 3.8 in a humanities major.

I've also read that hiring managers don't care about GPA, which i consider to be a mistake. I'd be suspicious of someone who graduated from an elite institution and didn't include their overall GPA.

Those jobs are a small handful of the total jobs in the U.S., as are those who are able to attend and graduate from those elite universities. Ironically enough, the nepotism that allows many into those universities (legacies) probably also plays a strong role in determining whether someone gets a job or not. A Brown graduate whose overall less qualified than a Princeton graduate might get the job over him due to his father or mother being an executive within the company, while the Princeton grad. has no similar connection.

Going to an elite school may make you a member of an exclusive club, but it's simply a larger club which includes many smaller, more exclusive clubs. If companies distinguish between how they treat schools, what makes you think they don't do the same thing with regard to how they treat applicants?

Anchser

It is impossible to deny that there are many factors in both the hiring and admissions of prospective employees/students. But why not give yourself every advantage that you can?

zapfino

^^^^"For a motivated student, you simply can't beat the resources and opportunities of a top university. For example, let's take someone interested in museum work or art conservation -- you get way more out of working at Harvard's Fogg or the Penn Museum than at a generic college art museum."

True enough if your basis of comparison is just the generic college art museum. On the other hand, someone interested in museum work or art conservation could fare better at the University of Delaware than Harvard or Penn.

sally305

OK, maybe "99%" was an exaggeration, given how much attention is paid to Ivies and a few other schools on this site. But apart from the "top three" Ivies and a handful of other major universities such as Stanford, MIT, Cornell and Duke (which people more likely know for its basketball team), people in general (including many people who run companies or hire people) do not have the same brand awareness that parents of college-bound students (and the students themselves) have. And of course, brand awareness is only meaningful if the brand has positive equity among the people discussing it.

In my experience--apart from the schools listed above--most people are not familiar with institutions outside their immediate region unless they have notable sports programs, have been featured in a TV show (i.e., St. Olaf on the Golden Girls), or have famous people attending (i.e., the Olsen twins or Anne Hathaway at NYU).

warblersrule

Cherry picking programs doesn't really disprove my point. The US has only four conservation programs, two at elite schools (UCLA, NYU) and two at non-elite schools (Delaware, Buffalo). Compare the difference in museum offerings at the average top university and Average Podunk U, and the differences are pretty stark. For one, you simply can't get museum collections like that these days -- universities like Hopkins and Chicago were in the game before other countries cracked down on exporting art and antiquities. (Before many colleges were even founded, in fact.) For another, museums are extremely expensive things to run, and only very wealthy universities have enough money to properly house, care for, and expand their collections.

Sure, you have isolated gems at average or even mediocre universities. Zoology at Oklahoma State, Egyptology at U Memphis, oceanography at URI, astronomy at Hawaii, classics at Cincinnati, take your pick. I'm sure if you dig deep enough, most universities can muster up at least one good program.

When comparing overall strength and resources, however -- faculty reputation, funding for undergraduates, quality of facilities, size of collection holdings, etc. -- the top schools almost always come out ahead.


I don't believe that a student who doesn't attend any Ivy is doomed to failure. I do believe that students who attend top colleges generally have access to more and better resources that will allow them to succeed. It's really the same as high school -- how many would choose to attend the average, underfunded inner city school over Groton or Andover?

sally305

Anchser, I'm pretty sure the Penn State poster could give you ample evidence of top companies coming to campus. For sure they come to UW-Madison (including all the major finance firms, Google, oil companies, etc.).

You might find this interesting (from last year):

Anchser

^I don't think a quick assessment of the general population is relevant to anything. Most people in the US don't know the first thing about politics, history, or basically anything that doesn't directly affect their daily lives.

However, people that run companies certainly do know the elite schools. Obviously this depends on the company, as the people at your local supermarket or shopping mall probably won't know the first thing about colleges. But to think that employers don't know elite institutions is pretty ridiculous.

Also, being a CEO of a company has almost nothing to do with undergrad institutions for many reasons.

1. CEOs often have family connections within the company. For example, at my Dad's company, the CEO and CFO dropped out of college because it was so unnecessary - they "inherited" the company and make 8+ figures a year... without a college degree.

2. Almost no one gets hired out of college to become a CEO. It often takes decades of working your way up (which is 100% about your success within the company).

That isn't really relevant.

BenFranklin0

the above statement is blatantly false

BenFranklin0

fully agree

sally305

A lot of them don't, apart from the few institutions I mentioned. (Or they "know" them by name but that status does not influence their hiring decisions.) You can believe it or not. Either way, you'll find out in a few years when you enter the job market. Don't be surprised if a kid who beats you out for a job comes from a "lesser" institution than Wesleyan, or if the hiring manager for the position you apply to (who won't be the CEO, in case you were wondering) hasn't even heard of it. I am not trying to be harsh, and in fact would give my own kids the same advice. (Your experience as a recruited athlete is opening doors for you already. I don't think you have anything to worry about.)

Anchser

Not to mention, there is something to be said for what position a company is looking for. Google has over 20,000 employees, with a huge range of salaries. Their most desired positions are being filled mostly by people at elite schools.

Anchser

I'm not going to rely on Wesleyan to get me a job. But going to a school like Wesleyan (I don't want to brag by calling it elite; I don't even know whether it is or not) will certainly give me an advantage over going to a lesser school. Will it be huge? Probably not directly.

But having better professors, successful alumni, and overall a smarter student body to interact with on a daily basis will certainly make a difference in who I am when I graduate, and apply for jobs or business school. That's where the advantage comes.