This is the case for my kid. Berkeley and UCLA are excellent schools, but not great choices for my daughter. And, we’ve found some less small liberl arts private schools she is applying to (along with more selective ones) that will be much better fits for her, and that offer merit (sometimes making them less expensive).
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Appreciate the perspective. I might argue that I’ve seen enough anecdotal evidence to say that a degree from Yale doesn’t inoculate you from those who pull the “DEI hire” and “unqualified” card.
You really think people question a daughter’s bona fides if she came from Spellman? Or is that just the “prestige” card from another deck?
I also think “fit” itself is the challenge here. I’m reading many posts here that are conflating fit with desired attribute. I think of fit as experiential, and I’m not sure how one experiences being on a ranking.
Just saying the definition is unclear.
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I think I’ve lost the string. What is your point here, exactly? Because the article has a lot more nuance and complexity than the headline you posted at the end. This is @blossom point about two handfuls of firms in a self-reinforcing bubble. And yes, Blossom, there are articles talking about how folks who get into the fancy schools feel pressure to march blindly forth onto Bridgewater and BCG because they feel pressure to justify their admit survivor’s guilt.
But what is the blinding insight here? Distilled down to its core, it says the rich get richer. And?
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Also does not inoculate you from being incompetent or lazy. Some of the young associates that failed in my old firm (including summers) were from high prestige law schools like Harvard and Yale. For them, there was an air of entitlement which resulted in questionable work ethic. On the other hand there were some incredibly sharp and hard working associates from those schools.
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There have been multiple recent posts suggesting that valuing college brand/prestige/selectivity as important elements of fit is a fruitless pursuit, since it is all about the individual and nothing to do with the school they attend. Of course, individual effort matters a great deal, and we all know that not every Princeton grad becomes a zillionaire, but to suggest that there are no potential benefits to considering brand/prestige/selectivity as an important element of fit is overtly dishonest.
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MITChris was on this site and had a discussion about undergraduate admissions. I asked him this question about attending MIT as an undergraduate:
I thought MITChris’s response (that you include there) was pretty specific about which population groups this applies to / doesn’t apply to.
It’s not a blanket statement about all students.
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All due respect, but this seems a very simplistic take. The who, how and why are the relevant takeaways and I think the point the author was trying to convey. There’s a lot more to it, much of which involves closed systems and favored classes of applicants. I mean, you read the article, right? I assume after the recent Times articles on which it was attached?
It was a blanket statement for all students. It is true for all students, and especially true for URMs, meaning the impact is a larger for traditionally disadvantaged groups.
Of course I read the article. Of course there is nuance beyond my brief post. In fact, it is that nuance that makes my view even more accurate. The point remains the same. There are good reasons to value brand/prestige/selectivity as part of evaluating fit. To suggest there are no potential benefits to attending certain universities, and that it is only about the effort of the student, is empirically incorrect.
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I note my understanding is at least part of this is because of different next-best alternatives.
Like, if an advantaged kid who went to an advantaged HS and who has very competitive numbers is applying to very selective private colleges and universities, then if they don’t get admitted to an Ivy, T20, or so on, they will likely still go to SOME very selective private college or university, or perhaps a highly-regarded flagship.
Sidenote: the Chetty study did find an upper fat tail effect, meaning while kids like that could get things like top 1% outcomes from both the most selective privates and flagships, the rate was higher for the ones who went to the most selective privates. However, this was ONLY a tail effect, and the study reconfirmed prior findings that the vast majority of such kids were going to get equivalent outcomes either way (and I note most of the time for the non-top-1% advantaged kids, you are talking about top 2-15%-type upper-middle/professional class outcomes, which are not exactly tragic stories). It looked like it was about 5% of such kids were actually affected by this upper fat tail effect, meaning that was the fraction of graduates in the fatter part of the upper tail.
But I agree this was really specific to the high numbers advantaged kids, who were not likely to stray far away from the most selective private colleges, and who were basically always on track for at least solid upper-middle/professional class outcomes. What apparently happens with disadvantaged kids much more often is that if the don’t get admitted to one of the most famous few private colleges, they may end up attending a very different college, or sometimes no college at all (including because it is true in cases like that, the most famous few colleges to which they applied may be the only ones that would be sustainably affordable for them and their family).
Again my personal perspective on this is not to then say, “Well, disadvantaged kids, better get into one of those most famous few colleges or you are screwed for life.” That’s not a great answer, including because it is not mathematically possible for that to help more than a tiny fraction.
Instead, I think at least sometimes, they WOULD have other viable college options, they just don’t know as much about those options as some of the advantaged kids would know. And so to the extent we can actually help such kids learn more about those other options, that to me is potentially very important.
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Of course, when the parents are in the top 5%, it may seem like the kid ending up in the top 10-15% is “downward mobility” even though that is still doing quite well. Perhaps that leads to a self-imposed “elite or bust” focus among some of the full pay families.
I think we have a correlation and causality problem. You say the point remains the point, but the article you cited was actually making a different point. You skipped over the “why” part.
Who said there was no value in attending a fancy school?
Anyway, I’ll stop before I annoy people further.
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I think you are right, although I also still think that specific attitude is mostly concentrated in certain subpopulations.
Like, one of my S24’s best friends at WashU wants to be a teacher. His parents are both doctors. So I am pretty sure this kid is looking at “downward mobility” in that sense.
But his parents are supportive. His peers are supportive. Parents of peers like us are supportive. Because none of us actually think this is bad for this kid.
But I am aware there are some professional-class parents who actually would see it as bad if their kid became a teacher, that they would see it as a type of downward mobility that should be avoided at all costs. And I agree those specific parents might be more likely to have a similar attitude towards how “elite” their kids’ colleges should be.
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As I said, the last person fired from my son’s team was a MIT grad. They didn’t have the horsepower required.
I’m not saying brand has no value in fit, but brands do not guarantee great jobs. Most grads of even the most “elite” schools have regular careers.
Just as there are posters who claim brand has no value, there are those who believe, without evidence, that brand is so valuable that it’s worth massive debt. I strongly disagree with that. The possible exception is quantitative finance from MIT, which might indeed be the elusive golden ticket.
But did they get the job because their resume said MIT?
In the end, people need to stand on their own - but if the “prestige” is what got them in the door, it did its job.
That’s a big if it’s what got them in the door…
Not everyone who goes to an elite university is a huge success. We all know it isn’t a golden ticket. I am also not a fan of taking on any debt for an undergraduate education. However, for people wealthy enough where it isn’t a concern, or people who planned for the education of their children, or for students who are genuinely exceptional and can get a full ride to a highly selective institution, there are benefits from some highly selective schools that aren’t present in less selective schools. That should be a part of any honest assessment in the discussion of “fit.”
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The anti-DEI people you refer to in the first of the above sentences would probably oppose any recruiting at all from Spelman.
Also, the people who define “worthy” colleges in terms of things like SAT/ACT scores may not consider Spelman’s range to be high enough.
For sure. I think it should. There can be an assumption however that the opportunities are better. I’d posit that they are different. My son as an example wouldn’t have had the opportunity for his first job had he been at Cal, Stanford, MIT or CMU. Had he been at one of those however he certainly would have had other good opportunities, maybe some better. I view it as @blossom does, if the school is good at what the student wants to do, and it’s n the family budget, put it on the preliminary list. Cull from there based on the things the student and family value.
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