<p>Any time someone posts a message saying that he wishes he had been accepted to the school of his dreams, someone chimes in and claims that it doesn’t matter where you go to school because you can be successful with a degree from any university as long as you are smart and work hard.</p>
<p>That might be true, but what about the vast majority of us who are neither geniuses nor the most hardworking people on Earth? Are you saying that it doesn’t matter where we go to school?</p>
<p>I disagree. I believe that it makes a huge difference where we go to school and that most people who claim that it doesn’t matter where you go to school repeat that mantra because they don’t want to feel too badly about themselves because they don’t (or did not) attend a good school.</p>
<p>I think that your school is what you make of it. Every school has different attributes. Someone could say that they made a name for themselves even though they went to a tiny, not very prestigious state school, but that school had a large alumnae network that allowed the person to get a job. Every school has different resources, so it matters what school you go to as long as you can make the most of what it has to offer.</p>
<p>I think that the people you are talking about think that it doesn’t matter since some of the prestige associated with schools is overrated. People say it’s totally prestigious to get accepted into Harvard, whose acceptance rate is 7.9%. It is prestigious, but what about Rutgers University’s pharmacy school, whose acceptance rate is 6.25%??</p>
<p>I agree with you, it does matter where you go to school. But why would someone go to a HYPSM school to major in something that some other school excels in? The school matters based on how it will help you get a job/get into graduate school, which is the purpose of college.</p>
<p>Many people on here are older and know that for many of us, it does not matter where we went to school. No one cares. And if someone did go to a famous school and they ever do something stupid, we take great joy in making fun of them. Around our neighborhood, the school with the best football team reigns. That isn’t my alma mater either.</p>
<p>When you are young and full of yourself, it matters; when you are fat and fifty, it doesn’t.</p>
<p>Sometimes too much emphasis is placed on schools. I agree with the above poster that said a lot of it is what you make of it. My brother went to a state school, did well and worked hard, and got accepted into several good medical schools. Someone I know went to Cornell and is now working a minimum wage part time job.</p>
<p>I think other things are more important such as work ethic, social skills, goals, involvement, etc. My current college is okay. I’m totally fine with it being just okay, I don’t think my career would benefit much from going to an Ivy or very selective school.</p>
<p>as long as your school has decent connections to industry you are fine, in this respect i would say state schools are on par with ivies since they are for the most part located in a different area.</p>
<p>if you go to a school with excellent connections to industry but you choose not to show up to any potential opportunities then it doesn’t matter where you go to school you will still be at the bottom when you graduate.</p>
<p>look at the most successful people and almost all of them went to either an ivy or their state flagship.</p>
<p>the moral is to shoot for ivies and suck it up if you don’t get in instead of wasting tens of thousands of dollars on an inferior private school.</p>
i totally agree with this…I know i’m going to offend people here, but I don’t get why people shell out $200k to go to boston u when they could just go to state u and get the same education for way cheaper. most employers aren’t going to be impressed by BU, they look at it as no different from umass-amherst. there are exceptions of course, like if the college has an amazing program in what you want to study (communications at BU, for example) or if they give you a scholarship.</p>
<p>honestly, if my college (private and pricy) didn’t give me a great scholarship, I would never have gone there and paid full tuition. I can’t believe people waste so much money on schools like nyu (which most people haven’t heard of, or would assume is a state school). I don’t think any college is worth a ridiculous amount of debt, including ivies. But it boggles my mind why people go into serious debt for private colleges that aren’t even that good.</p>
<p>Yeah, I understand a small LAC would give you smaller classes and more one-on-one time with Profs, and if you have the money, thats great. What’s sad is when people take out major loans and put burdens on their families for it, thinking it’ll make a difference in the long run.</p>
<p>How many of those successful people were well-off BEFORE they went to an Ivy League school? I think the better correlations are that rich people are more likely to go to Ivies and rich people are more likely to succeed. Highly motivated people are more likely to go to Ivies and highly motivated people are more likely to succeed.</p>
<p>yeah but who is more likely to have amazing GPA and SAT scores? the rich. (im not generalizing)
in 2006 the average combined SAT score for students whose families earned less than 10,000 a year was 1313. The average score for students whose families earned more than 100,000 a year was 1656 (National Center for Fair and Open Testing, 2007.) <a href=“http://www.fairtest.org%5B/url%5D”>www.fairtest.org</a></p>
<p>Something is wrong there.
if you were fortunate to attend highschool in an affluent, upper-class neighborhood, chances are your school offered SAT pred courses, offered more AP courses, and prepared you for college better. My HS offered three AP classes!</p>
<p>Your school matters to the extent that some schools can provide you with opportunities that others can’t, but that’s far more related to how good they are at your major than how good they are overall. The overall ranking of a school is absolutely worthless if you have some sort of idea as to what you want to study. And many of the opportunities I’m talking about are just as available, if not more so, at a large state school as they are at the “name” schools people seem obsessed with.</p>
<p>it offers the kind of rigor that you want
it gives you a chance to be in the top 25% of students (= you can be a star)
it gives you the chance to work with people smarter than you (= you’re in the bottom 1/2)
it offers the kind of social scene you want
it lets you live in a part of the country that you want to live in
it has the size you want
it has the kind of living atmosphere you want
it has a wider set of disciplines than smaller schools
it specializes in the discipline that you already love
it has the kind of sports culture you want
it has the generalized prestige you or your parents want (e.g., HYPed schools)
it has the disipline-specific prestige you want for your discipline (e.g., Cal Sate SLO for engineering)</p>
<p>“That might be true, but what about the vast majority of us who are neither geniuses nor the most hardworking people on Earth? Are you saying that it doesn’t matter where we go to school?”</p>
<p>One’s personality and work ethic always matter more than does the college one attends. Of course, if you have a bad personality and work ethic, you won’t ever go to an excellent college. However, one can have a wonderful personality and strong work ethic and do well in life even if one goes to a mediocre college or to no college at all.</p>
<p>If you are an idiot, which is well the majority the population of this earth and this country, of course the university you attend does not matter.</p>
<p>You will still be an idiot when you graduate.</p>
<p>This includes a sizeable percentage of the graduating classes of the Top 20 Universities listed on this forum.</p>