I know this is a fun thread, but I can say share with your child my personal experience.
I graduated from Boston University when it was far less competitive than it is today.
I was a top student there, and had the SAT scores to go ivy, chose not to.
My first job was at a firm located near Harvard Square. Most of the young hires were Harvard grads,
but I got in the door and kicked their behinds. A coworker who was also a good friend, loved to make fun of his alma mater. One of the first questions you get as a young professional is “what college
did you attend”. His answer, with his best imitation of a Boston accept from a midwestern boy, was “Havahd, have you heard of it”. He was jokingly snooty…we had great laughs. Not knocking the big H, they get a great education, but no better than I got at Boston University…because i was paying attention in class, and working hard, learning from a bunch of PhDs who got their PhD at…Harvard and MIT.
And in my working life, I left major name brand employers to get a better job at a lesser known firm.
How is this any different? “I would rather be a king in hell than a servant in heaven”. My employers
would probably prefer I not refer to them as hell…but you get the point.
OP - Perhaps you are overthinkng the prestige angle. I am originally from NY, and I don’t really know the difference between Fairfield and Villanova. I remember that an excellent student from my hs went to Fairfield. I’ve heard of Villanova on CC in recent years - it sounds like a good school too.
" but I can’t afford it, because we make too much money" - Yea, college is expensive. But don’t assume that if you made little enough money to qualify for a lot of need based FA that you’d be able to afford pricey colleges (unless EFC=0, and even sometimes those families struggle for travel money). I do remember envying people where all college choices were same cost (EFC)… until I saw how much they were gonna need to struggle to make it work.
Probably three of the wealthiest people I know–all with enormous wealth–attended a public “directional” school, a non-flagship southern state university, and the 4th or 5th rated public university in our state. Two of the schools would not be ranked in any Top 400 ranking. All have terrific families as well. A fourth–similarly wealthy–attended a mid-ranked state flagship and went from there to a top ranked business school. They didn’t worry about prestige but just took care of business.
No. I once read a resume from someone who attended UCLA but made a point of mentioning that they were admitted to Harvard. I’ve laughed about it with friends ever since. Hilarious.
I’m in the 1%, as they say. I went to a school that doesn’t even have a page here on CC. My friends and frat brothers are so successful you’d be stunned. Fortune 500 officers, firm partners, business owners, etc. How’d that happen from a school nobody knows?
I attended a CUNY college and then a brand new law school which offered me a full ride. One year out of school, I was hired by an insurance defense firm which was well-regarded in the field. It was my second job in law - I got the first by typing my way out of a room of undone work, ala Rumpelstiltskin, utilizing my impressive secretarial skills. The first week I was there, one of the more senior attorneys asked me where I’d gone to school and said that he had a B.S. and Masters in engineering from an Ivy before attending a well-thought of but not tippy top law school. He started to make fun of my background in front of about a dozen of our colleagues. I looked at him and said “Wow, that is so impressive! I can not believe that I work here with you now!” The laughter of our co-workers shut him up. Thirty years later, he is one of my closest friends. Once you get your first job and prove yourself, nobody cares where you went to school for the most part. By the way, I used to work with an attorney who went to Villanova undergrad and now I work with one who went to Fairfield. Both went to HS at Chaminade and both say it was HS that made them the successes they are now.
Im sure Ivies have some clout in certain industries and career paths, but for normal careers its flat imo.
Ive worked for Nestle, P&G, Kimberly &Clark, and have worked with leadership and engineering with degrees from MIT to public state (not even flagship) the degree wasnt the key it was a entry necessity, but the person was the variable.
I just dont think it matters unless the end result is politics, marketing, or business where the prestige might get you in the right circle or exposure.
Normal medicine, engineering, etc its not worth the cost difference assuming there was one.
Wait–is this yet another proxy discussion of whether or not “prestigious” colleges are worthwhile or merit their reputations? Because that’s the same old circle we’ve wandered ad infinitum.
I know students currently at Villanova and at Fairfield. If you pressed me, I’d guess that Villanova is more selective, but that’s really marginal. OP should encourage his daughter to chose the school she likes and feels is the best fit (and is most affordable). This ten degrees of prestige is silly.
The OP’s original post about Williams and Xavier is kind of bizarre, so if he’s truly interested in the prestige hierarchy, he should do some research.
I’ve heard of Xavier because of March Madness. I’ve heard of Williams because I work with a doctor who attended Stanford Medical school on scholarship and did his undergrad at Williams
I’ll admit I’m confused why the examples are Fairfield vs Villanova. Channeling a poster no longer a member: “This must be a region-centric thing.” I get they’re both Catholic colleges less than 2 hours from NYC.
But it’s not like comparing F to the usual CC fixations.
USNews ranks Villanova at #50. Fairfield is not in their list of national universities. I think these are the examples because the student is accepted to both but has a significant award from Fairfield.
I’ve lived all my life in NJ, and I wouldn’t think “more prestigious” when thinking about V vs. F. V is more well-known because of basketball, but I would have guessed they’re both very good regional universities drawing from a similar pool of students. (Not that that’s necessarily true–but from a prestige point of view, it’s assumptions that 'matter.")
The solution to this prestige problem is to live outside of the DC-Boston corridor or Silicon Valley. These ticky-tack comparisons (talking about Marquette vs. St. Louis, not UChicago vs. Whoville State) have way less traction here, even in the big cities.
@TTG You say that you know students from some of the wealthiest families you know that went to public directional or mid-ranked state flagship. They didn’t care about prestige. My response to that is that wealthy kids don’t always need to care of prestige with respect to the college they attend. They know they have trust funds or can go into mommy or daddy’s family business --or they have great contacts and connections associated with their family wealth. So those kids never had to work their tails off in high school in order to try and get into highly ranked state or private colleges. This does not mean that as they mature in college they won’t do well on their own, but coming from family wealth has its advantages–many times lifelong.