Sarah Lawrence College is kind of a specialty school (arts, some humanities, and psychology), so it may have prestige only in those subjects it focuses on.
I guess that we all have different opinions on what is prestigious. In the context of this thread, I seem to be suffering from a disconnect. Not being quite sure what “prestige” is I looked up a definition:
“Prestige refers to the high status, respect, and admiration granted to a person, organization, or object due to their perceived success, wealth, influence, or high quality. It signifies renown, distinction, and social standing, often making a person or thing feel important or exclusive.”
So, the most successful person who I have had the good fortune to work with graduated from a university in India which I have otherwise never heard of. The next most successful people I have worked with graduated from RPI, UBC, U.Mass, Michigan, and U.Mass, I don’t know where, plus a few more schools in India. I once on an airplane flight chatted with a different very successful person who according to Wikipedia never attended any university.
One friend graduated from U.Mass, founded a successful company, retired, and went back to school and just graduated with a second bachelor’s degree but in music. To me this is impressive. I do not think that I would say “prestigious”.
This all leaves me confused regarding what, if anything, would count as “prestigious”. I am impressed by students who find an affordable university that is a good fit for them, and then do well.
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And that’s the thing - Rose Hulman, S&T, Colorado School of Mines all do very well outcome wise but are not hard ins.
But they are getting jobs.
Then how do you rate - Honors -Is a U of SC Honors prestigious or a sub group of Honors like the Charleston Fellows or Levine Scholats at UNCC.
There’s no universally right answer to any of this.
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Just on the topic of prestige and jobs, there are places that I think people would consider prestigious, but the outcomes don’t necessarily match. Conservatories like Julliard are one. So I wouldn’t necessarily conflate prestige to immediate job outcomes.
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If job outcomes matter, the academies win there, too, with zero school debt and a guaranteed job building a nice resume for post-service career opportunities. The military certainly isn’t for everyone, but you can’t beat the value package.
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Well that’s a depressing article. Having a much more optimistic experience with my recent grad conservatory musician and his cohort.
Thankfully. 
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Congratulations. My middle one went to Berklee and I’m really not clear what she’s doing now.
I’ve said elsewhere, arguably the two most successful people from my very fancy business school went to URI and Clark as undergrads. Now yes, they got fancy MBAs, but left the Consulting train two years out and crushed it thereafter. They don’t highlight their MBAs on their bios because…they don’t have to. Examples of folks who didn’t ride the “prestige” train to success. They were just killers.
I should change my sigtag to “PrestigeSceptic.”
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I think it’s a motherhood-type statement whose meaning varies from person to person.
What I find more interesting is, regardless of how each person conceives of it, why are people concerned about it?
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I am trying to follow your point.
Since you know two guys who received an MBA from a highly selective business school, but they choose not to list that on their professional bios, this has completely convinced you that there is no such thing as prestige related to education or this has convinced you that prestige does exist to some people but it does not matter….or were you trying to make a different point?
They didn’t need undergrad prestige to get a prestigious professional degree - which is well known.
Is there a connection from the professional degree to career - hard to tell.
The med school admissions out of high school are not the most prestigious, but I think many would say they are the smartest move.
Everyone wants those top finance jobs and the prestigious business schools. But a lot of the math those private equity firms use came from Stony Brook.
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Except that this article, like so many other articles which accept the “elite” designation without questioning it, focusses almost exclusively on Law and Banking.
That basic assumption by the people in Business schools and economics departments, that “leaders” = Top Lawyers + Top Bankers is not only wrong, but so out of date that it’s ridiculous.
Reading that article, you feel that you’ve gone back in time to the 1970s, and the vast change in the high paying jobs, and in the fields that are causing the major changes in our lives, never happened.
High paying engineering Jobs don’t exist in their world, start-ups, etc. Top Doctors, people who win Nobel prizes, nothing. Law and Banking, Banking and Law. It’s telling that they assume that all “leaders” work in a “Firm”. That term along demonstrates how narrow their view is. Engineering and biomedical companies are not called “Firms”.
When they talk about “Elite grad school”, they exclusively mean MBA programs or Law schools. No mention of PhDs, MDs, etc.
Seriously, their view of “Leadership” is so narrow as to be almost meaningless. They live n that bubble of Banking and Law, and nothing else seems to exist for them.
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I can’t get onboard with his go to the most selective college you can get into advice as described here. While I agree that prestige has benefits, including the presumption of competence others have mentioned, it is not the sole (or even primary) factor for which one (especially a very high achieving student) should pick where to go to school. Neither my wife nor I attended the most selective school we could get into, because the most selective schools were not as good a fit for us educationally or lifestyle wise. A friend’s kid turned down CalTech because they thought they’d be far less happy than at their less selective option they chose (Columbia). My wife and I went to prestigious undergrad and grad schools, and have known a fair number of unhappy people in high prestige positions they work in because they can. Same is true for some of the students who chose a school solely/primarily because it is the best school they can get into. Prestige has real benefits, but it is not all upside for everyone.
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That’s a reference to the Chetty study. The study defines “elite” as a firm that disproportionately employs graduates of Ivy+ colleges. Specifically “elite” firms are firms that rank highest in the calculation below:
“Elite” Firm Ratio = (% of Ivy+ grads working at firm, at age 25) / (% of highly selective public college grads working at firm, at age 25)
Firms included in the calculation above are not limited to just law and banking. “Firm” seems to mean employer. The study found that attending an Ivy+ college notably improved chance of working at employers that disproportionately employ Ivy+ college grads.
The study defines “elite” grad school as being an Ivy+ college or one of 5 publics. It is not limited to just MBA and Law. One of those 5 publics is UCSF, which doesn’t offer an MBA or Law degree, and instead focuses on health sciences.
Not controlling for specific grad/professional degrees makes it more difficult to entangle primary drivers for the connection. For example, I was among the ~40% of Stanford engineering majors who pursued a co-terminal masters, which involves simultaneously pursuing a BS + MS. So attending Stanford for undergrad no doubt increased odds of me doing a MS at Stanford, which counts as me attending an “elite” college for grad school using study definitions.
I don’t think any of above is good way to evaluate which colleges are prestigious. Prestigious is defined as being highly regarded or having an excellent reputation. This varies depending on which person or group is evaluating. A college that is highly regarded among one person or group may be far less highly regarded by another. For some prestigious will be well correlated with top ## on USNWR. For some prestigious, might include their flagship, but not include far more highly selective LACs. For some prestigious might mean having what they perceive to be an excellent engineering program. I doubt that this thread is going to come to a consensus definition or consensus list of prestigious colleges.
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I may have exaggerated, but still - look at their “Leadership” positions. By numbers, “Fortune 500 CEOs” make up the largest single group, “Public Service” have a lot of focus on Supreme Court Justices and Treasury Secretaries (no other cabinet position), and their grad school were mostly business and law schools.
They use Nobel Prizes, but engineering doesn’t have Nobel prizes, nor does Ag, nor does education, etc, and the leaders in these fields are entirely ignored. Again, a very large number of people study and work in Sciences, in Ag, in Medicine, etc, yet the “leaders” are really focused on people who are in Law or Business, or are in positions in which a degree in Law or Business is an asset.
As I wrote - the only position in the cabinet that they included was Secretary of Treasury.
BTW, the issues of “prestige” in academia is well known, but the hierarchy of prestige in Academia doesn’t actually fit as well within the hierarchy of prestige that they are pushing here.
They are actually contributing to the problem. They themselves are feeding the narrative that the colleges for the wealthy are indeed superior, and that, to make the country more egalitarian, we need more poor people to attend colleges like the Ivy+ colleges.
Of course, this creates a contradiction. These colleges are “prestigious” because they are colleges for the kids of the wealthy and powerful. Increasing the number of poor kids who attend will reduce their prestige and likely reduce the impact of attending one of these colleges on the chances of achieving a “leadership” position.
To create a more egalitarian society, we don’t need to stuff a few more poor kids into the pipeline of Elite High Schools for the wealthy => Elite Colleges for the wealthy => high paid leadership positions. We need to end the pipeline.
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Prestige, again, is independent.
For example, forever Pitt wasn’t selective (over 50%) and now still has a high rate. But when someone is pre-med, it comes up as the greatest thing.
Or St. Olaf - outside of the CC, has anyone heard of it? A student left Hamilton (another school few have heard of but we know it’s a top school) and ended up at St. Olaf - and is doing well (fortunately).
And we hear all the time -I’ve never heard of this or that school. A recent post was should I go to UTexas instead of Middlebury because no one in Texas has heard of it.
Everyone on the CC is like - it’s tops, those who need to know - know. So to those, it is prestigious - but to others - how can it be if they’ve never heard of it. Cue many/most LACs.
I mean, a parent recently asked - did my kid make a mistake going to Amherst. But did they err in turning down BU, Northeastern, Tufts, and UNC?
Another student recently chose E Carolina - does anyone think it’s prestigious? Guessing not - not even the student. But they are a Brinkley-Lane Scholar - ie full ride. To me, that’s prestigious even though no one will conflate E Carolina and prestige - and the student got into higher level schools.
Even W&L - a top LAC and even moreso if you win the Johnson - ask 100 random folks on the street about W&L - if 10 have heard of it, and 5 can name its state, you’d be doing well.
That’s why - prestige is in the eye of the beholder. Like a rank, it’s what you want to make of it or not - it’s really a self guided opinion - sometimes formed via what you read or other people’s opinions, etc.
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This is incorrect.
I could look this up, but did the Chetty study we are talking about control for students who had connections to the firms they work in, e.g., parents/family members/neighbors working there?
100%. These schools could expand the number of undergrads they enroll in several ways, but every day the admin/leadership staff go to work and choose not to.
Like I said above, we should all be giving more love to the schools that are leaders in increasing social mobility (which aren’t the highly rejective schools).
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