For parents who have equally smart children who attend colleges of different levels of prestige, do you witness issues between the children because of the discrepancy? If so, how do you address the issues?
I went to Harvard. Decades ago. A sibling of mine always got the same grades and test scores that I did but went to a local state university (it offered a good specific program). Decades later, I’m working my tail off, and my sibling is independently wealthy and retired young due to having made so much money. So where we went to school didn’t result in one doing much better than the other based on the school–the reverse, actually.
My sibling visited this weekend (we see each other once a year). Throughout the weekend, I heard odd remarks:
The sibling was in Boston on vacation and “wanted to go be around the smartest people in the world” so spent the day in Cambridge.
I took the sibling to the Harvard Club of NYC. The sibling mentioned that perhaps he could talk about things like astrophysics while he was there and again mentioned being around smart people. Huh?
I found the comments about Harvard = brains totally odd, particularly as the sibling could have gone there if desired and has done amazingly well in life. Plus, the local state school is a fine school- not Berkeley, but still in the top 50-ish, and the program that the sibling did there is excellent.
Do your children who attend (or attended) schools of different prestige levels between them have issues due to the difference in prestige?
Your sibling was looking to be around smartest people in Cambridge and didn’t visit MIT ?
What was yours and your sibling’s area of study? I believe major is more important then school attended. One of my children graduated from very low prestige state university and it didn’t stop him. DD is attending the number one school in her major and it’s too early to tell.
This is not our situation, but in the families where I have seen problems, its been because of the parents. One family in particular always speaks glowingly of the accomplishments of the high prestige kid and outright denigrates the school of the other sibling. Its painful to watch. In this case its obvious, but I think parents can do it in less obvious ways and its something to watch for.
Or that the state school sibling could be genuine in some boredom with his peer group as an early retire from a business environment. He may be craving some intellectual stimulation. (I went to state school and lots of smart and intellectual people, the comment is more aimed at his current circle which may have shrunk recently.)
The categories “state school” and Harvard are too broad to tell you anything of interest, even if you are talking about siblings with the same grades. It really depends on who the kids are, their personalities and what they do in college and afterward. I think at least 90% (if not 99%) of educational outcomes reflect the student, not the institution.
For purposes of this discussion, I was one of four siblings. We all had different levels of academic success, both before college and in college. I was always a top student (in high school THE top student). I went to an ultraprestigious college and an equally prestigious law school, where I continued to do extremely well academically. My career has, frankly, been “eh” (very comfortable, but significantly underperforming reasonable expectations based on my resume) because I wasn’t that driven to make money for its own sake and was very family focused. My brother was mainly an athlete who struggled in school. He barely got by as a geography major at a local quality public university, got a one-year business masters, and turned out to be a natural trader, making millions for himself using skills he had by the time he was 12. My first sister was someone who worked her butt off to be a B+/A- student in high school honors classes. She went to a top prestige college and had a tough time there, washing out of geology and graduating in Spanish with a B average that included some As and some Cs. A part-time job during her 9th semester turned into a career in investment management, where she also made a lot of money and got to be a regular talking head on cable investment shows. My other sister had an IQ and academic ability like mine, but she refused to push herself at all, never taking honors classes in high school. She went to a distant state flagship, where she mainly majored in sorority. Ten years later, she had an intense midlife crisis and decided she had always wanted to be a doctor (but had somehow forgotten to take any science class after 10th grade). She went through a post-bac pre-med program with no safety net, given the absolute absence of anything science-y in her background, her B+ college GPA, and her relatively advanced age, and she killed it. Then she killed medical school. She’s an emergency medicine specialist – perfect for her personality – who, in her mid-50s, lives a perfectly nice life working 2 or 3 shifts per week (but she worked a lot more than that until she paid off her medical school loans).
My point with all of this is that our careers have reflected our personalities (and to some extent luck) much more than where we went to college, our academic record there, or our natural academic abilities. My youngest sister – in her 20s, before she went through the whole medical school process – did have something of a chip on her shoulder about not having gone to a superprestigious private university. But that faded out with the experience of actually working hard at something for the first time in her life, and having some achievements that drew respect and admiration from others. Also therapy. My brother never cared at all – he wasn’t remotely a candidate for a top college and never wanted that. He had exponentially more sex in college than the rest of us put together. That was a measure of success he cared about, and he was very content on that score.
Thinking of a pair of siblings my kids’ age: Both super-smart; their father is a high-prestige academic who is one of the most interesting people I know.
Kid #1 went to a top private high school, where her brilliance was acknowledged but her transcript was spotty because she refused to work on things that didn’t interest her. She went to a high-quality flagship public and did sensationally well – she no longer had to take courses that didn’t interest her – then directly into a top-5 philosophy PhD program. She was disappointed to be rejected from a number of prestigious private universities, but she loved her college experience, and she certainly hasn’t suffered because of it. She’s a post-doc at a single-initial university now.
Kid #2 hated the private school and switched to a (very high quality) public for high school. He was very competitive, and near the top of his class. He went to Wharton, where he focused on becoming a high-paid investment banker, and succeeded. Then, over a series of years and jobs, he decided there were things in life more important and more rewarding than being a high-paid investment banker, so he stepped back into being a high-paid private equity analyst and he’s getting married. There’s little question that the Wharton brand helped him achieve his initial goal. In retrospect, he’s critical of Wharton culture for herding him in that direction. But I think he acknowledges that he was as responsible as anyone for creating that kind of culture there, and that he wasn’t listening to the many people (including his parents) telling him that he didn’t have to be so focused on money.
No. Older son graduated from an average “good” private school, younger daughter is a senior at an ivy. DS works for Apple, DD has had great internships and contacts from her ivy experience, but has no direction. But everyone gets along, without judgement or tumult. It truly depends on the person, much more than the school.
“What was yours and your sibling’s area of study? I believe major is more important then school attended.”
In my observations and experience, even major doesn’t necessarily have a huge impact on who becomes successful if we are defining it in a purely monetary way.
I agree with @JHS’s comment, and I’d definitely include some luck in there as well as focus and grit.
“It really depends on who the kids are, their personalities and what they do in college and afterward.
My point with all of this is that our careers have reflected our personalities (and to some extent luck) much more than where we went to college, our academic record there, or our natural academic abilities.”
“He had exponentially more sex in college than the rest of us put together. That was a measure of success he cared about, and he was very content on that score.”
even your sibling are successful, wealthy. I could be preordained. say if he works corp A instead of corp B his fate was changing. The people he met are different, his fate will be different. He broke up with her girl friends or not,this year or next month. Who knows! If there is take 2, can he be as successful? This is unknown. My point is prestige of school may lead some ppl better. but not necessary nor sufficient to make every graduates successful.
@lemonlulu, so true that there are many factors! Not siblings, or Ivy’s for that matter, but one of my nephews (making big $$) is very “high on himself”. He went from college to a 2-year 80±hr/week investment banking position. S spent a year with Americorps, tutoring inner-city math students. Night and day.
Everyone has different level of motivation and desires towards financial success. One of my friends who is one of the smartest persons I know and who killed it academically at MIT (both undergraduate and graduate) and who could have gone to any school he wanted told me that it takes him 50% of effort to do the same amount of work, and he wants to have a relaxed life style of decent financial success than great financial success. He could have made a lot more money if he was more motivated in that area. He even graduated top 5% from a top 15 law schools (night school) just to find out what this lawyering was about, and he told me he was not impressed with “the paper pushing”. He doesn’t practice law but runs his own small company and lives an easy, comfortable life.
I also know one person who went to a school that is on par with let’s say University of Pittsburgh and he made over 150 millions dollars and is still making a lot of money and could retire right now and travel around the world but still keeps on working because of various psychological reasons.
My own definition of success is that if those who truly knew you, such as your spouse, kids and very close friends, actually shed genuine tears of sadness at your funeral and will truly miss your presence, then you lived a successful life. Much of what we humans fight to acquire are “vanities, vanities, all is vanities”. We often acquire what we don’t need as a replacement of what we really need. Although not a Christian, I agree with many perspectives expressed in the Bible.
By the way, I graduated probably bottom 5% of the schools I went to but made more money than my friend who graduated top 5%.
Happened in my partner’s family. 3 boys- 1 state school English major, 1 tip top STEM major, 1 (same) state school humanities major. Order of income is probably us (state school), middle brother (tip top), oldest brother (state school). We’re probably the happiest followed by oldest brother and middle brother. Middle brother is the extrovert of the bunch though and has by far the widest circle of friends and associates.
We’re all doing fine and happy though- and that’s all that really matters. We all get along really well. No one cares who went where- at least until it comes time for college sports
It has been my experience that students at state flagships in the Midwest, South, and West do not spend much time envying students at elite private schools. They are busy having a good time.
In the Northeast, the college culture is different. Public universities are less loved and elite private schools more venerated, so I can imagine that causing tension. But for the most part, students at Indiana, LSU, Oregon etc. are not worrying about their sibling who went to Cornell.
@websensation , Steve Job is successful , 1000s of my friend put RIP in their FB but for Hawkins, I saw none.
I give you RIP in advance. Road to success starts here
:))
@Hanna this another post of yours that makes me and a lot of others unwelcome and uncomfortable. It is extremely condescending. Students in broad swaths of the country are too busy “having a good time” to care about academics, and only in the Northeast do they care?
To the contrary, plenty of high performers turn down Northeastern private schools for places like UNC, UVA and even Clemson for specific programs or other reasons that are valid and still are very academically committed.
As you know, one family member of mine turned down Columbia for a flagship state school in the South and has had a very good career in academia, remaining very driven, so your post was a personal affront.
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