<p>The most selective, most prestigious universities generally do not exist for the purpose of career training. They are knowledge factories. They exist to discover and transmit knowledge about everything under the sun from art history to zoology. Placing their undergraduates into top law schools or MBA programs is an incidental, collateral effect.</p>
<p>It is true that, in the student bodies of top professional and grad schools, there is an unequal distribution of students from various undergraduate institutions. Generally, students from more selective undergraduate institutions are over-represented on a per capita basis at these graduate institutions. However, there is not enough good data, or transparency into the graduate admission processes, to know for sure why these patterns occur. Do students from certain colleges earn PhDs at a relatively high rate because (a) their courses prepare students relatively well to succeed in grad school, or (b) their admission processes cherry-pick applicants who are smart, academically motivated, and more frequently inclined to enroll in PhD programs? We don’t exactly know. We really don’t know, either, how perceptions of undergraduate programs play out in the grad school admission process. </p>
<p>Two studies by Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger do suggest that, for most students admitted to both super-selective (Ivies etc) and less selective schools, the choice to attend one or another has little long-term impact on earnings. ([Study:</a> Ivy League Colleges Aren?t Worth It | Education Planning | Money/Investing | Mainstreet](<a href=“http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/education-planning/study-ivy-league-colleges-aren-t-worth-it]Study:”>http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/education-planning/study-ivy-league-colleges-aren-t-worth-it))</p>
<p>In my opinion, if you have the choice, you should choose a more selective more prestigious college only if you are keen to experience (and actively engage in) academic and extracurricular life there, on its own terms. If you want to do the least amount of work necessary to get a job (or get into grad school), or if you have a hard time getting interested in more than one potential major, then you probably are not a good candidate for these schools. Choose someplace cheaper and less demanding.</p>