No way, GPA and strong rigorous academic courses are mandatory (& common) of all the kids I have seen goto IVY’s this year from my location.
What about $100K the first year and then $500K in 5 yrs. Do you think $45K a year earner would make $200K in 5 years?
It depends on what you are pursuing and why ? If you get admission into BROWN medical program and have aspirations to become a doctor? Why not? How many times to do you meet doctors from Johns Hopkins or any other top colleges ?
@CU123 To add to my comment. Employers in the real world can smell attitude a mile away. If that arrogant attitude exists in the career world, they will chew you up and spit you out like yesterday’s doughnuts.
@oldfort I started out several years ago at $45k. I work in computers. In 5 years, that salary could easily double, but $200k is unrealistic in that amount of time. A Harvard degree would not make a hill of difference because employers only ask about skill and experience. In fact, in my current job, my education never came up. I have one, but they didn’t care. The longer you work, the less and less your degree actually matters to anyone.
^^^Agreed, but the first jobs it matters. After few years it is really your performance that matters.
@coolguy40 let me explain it to you, the better you perform in high school, the better college you go into, the better you performed in college the better job you got. The better you performed in the job the more they pay you. The key here is that performance in a constant not an up and down roller coaster. While there are exceptions, I have always found that the better performers went to better colleges, at a very high correlation.
P.S. and trust me, if you had gone to Harvard in would come up in every interview…
Of course, it matters in many cases but it matters more what kind of person and student you are. My kid was basically handed a paid summer internship position (not an easy position to get for a graduating high schooler) because the interviewing people found out he got into Stanford. But at the same time, my kid is humble and hard working. What I am saying is it’s more impressive if you have other qualities on top of your degree from a top college. If you are an as* then I don’t think it will help that much unless the interviewing company is looking for an as* quality.
Let’s be real here. Who doesn’t want to be associated with the brand name of Nike? If you had a choice of wearing a sports t-shirt with a “Nike” name written at the back vs. “Algos” name written at the back, of course, most people would want to wear the Nike shirt. It’s the brand name marketing regardless of whether Nike t-shirt is of better quality. Is Nike t-shirt worth $100 more? Probably not to most people, but many people are given financial aid which makes buying a Nike t-shirt cheaper or same as the Algos t-shirt, or some people have enough money to pay for Nike t-shirt. It’s the same thing with the sneakers or cars. I drive Prius because I am too lazy to go to gas station often and I don’t use my car for business meetings, but if I did, you can bet I would choose a Benz car over Prius. Most people would.
People who chose Honors or cheaper school will say it doesn’t matter as much, whereas people who chose to send their kids to brand name schools will say it matters somewhat more. But more to what end? For happiness? Not really but maybe for 4 years depending on your kid. For higher paying jobs? Maybe somewhat, for some kids.
@oldfort Very true, but not as much as you might think. It’s not the brand name, it’s the level of skill and education. One thing to consider is that a masters degree trumps a bachelors from any school, even Harvard. That’s the equivalent of 1-2 years of experience, as a standard hiring practice. That’s what opens the doors to a higher paying starting job. If all of your applicants are equally qualified for an entry level job requiring 0-1 yrs of experience, and you have 2 applicants from a state university, 1 applicant from Harvard, and 1 applicant with a masters degree, the masters degree is the one with the most “job” experience, and will be more likely to get the job if he/she interviews well.
@CU123 Sure Harvard would come-up in an interview, but ultimately it’ll mean squat when the interview starts. Harvard won’t get you the job unless you can convince a panel of hiring managers you’re worth hiring. In a job interview, most of your questions will be about people skills. They do that on purpose, even for tech jobs. Why? because the cutthroat competition many students have thrived on is actually a toxic liability in the career world. Professional companies expect someone who can thrive on collaboration. That’s why companies value master’s degrees. They’re based on collaboration and complex group problem solving skills; skills mostly lacking in a bachelors degree.
I would argue that “Harvard” could get your resume a second look and possibly the interview.
Colleges, especially elite ones, require critical thinking. When people say you’re more than you’re scores, it’s not equivalent to saying scores don’t matter. If scores didn’t matter, colleges wouldn’t ask for them. As a person, you have more to offer than your stats and you can go to a good school and do great things. But without those numbers you won’t be admitted to the Ivy League. Neither will thousands of other students, and many of them have near perfect stats.
That’s not always true. Employers, I for one, have purposely not even interview PhDs and sometimes masters when those degrees are not relevant. Advance degrees do not necessary translate into job experience.
Many IBs are retaining/promoting their analysts instead of having them go back to school to get a MBA. They do not believe MBAs add values.
For some industries, UG schools (or prestige of it) is more important than graduate schools. You can tell when a school considers someone is a legacy, most of the time it is parents who went to UG not G.
@oldfort Good to know 
If @coolguy40 would modify (and moderate) his tone, others would notice that he sometimes makes decent points (other times, sadly, they are rants filled with objectively false statements). There is a way to take a firm stance while still being thoughtful and truthful.
For instance, @coolguy40 I’m with you on the brand name obsession. Elsewhere, you have stated that you’re no fan of rankings. Neither am I. This is why I do not buy the Ivy League = strongest UG academics argument. For grad school, sure. But for UG? Nuh-uh. Plus, I find it odd that no one points out the obvious flaw with the rankings. Despite all of the criteria USNWR considers, it never looks at what actually happens in the classroom. Call me crazy, but wouldn’t that be sort of the number-one criterion? I mean, you know, if you’re going to create a list and call it “Best Colleges” and all? For instance, do students learn? Are they satisfied with professors’ teaching and accessibility? Do they graduate smarter than they entered? Are faculty dedicated to teaching undergrads (not just conducting research, not just teaching grad students/seniors)? Are faculty accessible? Do faculty members enjoy teaching? Honestly, imagine someone putting together a ranking of best restaurants, and that person considers all of these different data points (cost of meal, salary paid to chef, difficulty in terms of getting a reservation), but no one thinks, “But what about the food? Is the food any good? Shouldn’t we evaluate that?” This is what the USNWR rankings do. They measure everything except what is most important: what happens in the classroom.
Sorry for the digression, but it is connected to what @coolguy40 is saying throughout a number of his posts: he’s questioning the unquestioned assumption that Ivies provide the best/most rigorous education, and then schools drop in quality as–gasp–acceptance rates drop (as if one can judge a school’s educational quality based on how many students it rejects). But here’s the thing, CG40. What terrific points you do make, such as “It’s not the brand name, it’s the level of skill and education,” are indeed terrific, but you lose the crowd entirely (and even potentially lead students/families to disaster) when you write rants like this one in another thread:
“Most the kids that go to ivy league aren’t even the smart ones. They’re mainly children from rich alumni, or influential people. They get in through different channels. Notice how a politician’s kid ALWAYS manages to get into Harvard? It’s not because he’s just so super smart. He gets in because they know his dad. Dad pays full price for tuition, and donates money. The prestige is really just a big lie. Only a small minority of the students in these schools are actually the smart gifted students. They’re also the schools most notorious for grade inflation.”
Wait? What? Yikes!
This sun-came-up-today argument regarding the benefits of the Ivies always reminds me of the great Yogi Berra quote:
“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded”.
@Hapworth Don’t get too caught up with my words I’m just one person with with an opinion about one thing. That’s how it should be taken in this forum because NONE of us are experts. Naturally, as a human, I’m not always right. None of us are. If someone decides to blindly follow my opinion and end-up in a disastrous situation, they missed the whole point, didn’t they? Respecting an opinion also requires a person to form their own thinking and make their own informed decisions. The idea is to learn from each other. When advice and opinion are subjective, who’s standard to you judge what’s “right?”
So it’s okay that you give wrong info because it’s users’ fault for believing you?
@bodangles And who’s standard do we determine who’s giving “right” advice?
@coolguy40 FACTUAL standards. You said calc 3 was a graduate-only class for engineers! 3rd semester, graduate school, what’s the difference, right?