Elite/Ivy grads really do earn more? (new study)

3girls3cats
Wed, 02 Nov 2016 00:54:36 +0000

I almost hate to wade into this because I don’t have an opinion on this issue but I just came across something in this discussion that bothered me.

A poster suggested early on in this discussion that the SAT stats for entering students for Harvard and University of Michigan were virtually indistinguishable. That didn’t sound quite right to me so I looked at it more carefully. I searched the common data sets for both schools and looked at the 2014-2015 cohort in order to avoid any inconsistencies between the old and new SAT scoring. (That being said, the data for 2015-2016 is not appreciably different.) Although the 25th and 75th percentiles showed differences between the two schools (M-620-720 CR 660-760 math and H 700-800 CR 710-800 math), what was really telling was the distribution. Where only 33% of incoming Michigan freshmen scored between 700-800 on CR and 60% did so on math, 78.47% of incoming Harvard freshmen scored at that rate on CR and 81% did so on math. That is a different group of students and no matter what conclusions we draw, I think it’s important to be honest that the cohort at one school is different from the cohort at the other.

I also want to be clear that I think it’s more than possible to get a wonderful education at a non-“elite” school, that there are exceptional students to be found at all schools, and that the non-elite school may well be a better experience and a better path into the future. From where I sit, it looks to me that success comes down to the drive, talent, personality, commitment, and willingness to work hard and the name of the school is much less important.