<br>
<br>
<p>Or so says Robert J. Samuelson, Harvard class of ‘67. When the college question came to his own house I’ll bet he didn’t send his kids to good ol’ Podunk.</p>
<p>Sac–good question. I think I have overlapped both my kids’ experiences into one perfect one.</p>
<p>I shall recommend fencing to S, though. That sounds great.</p>
<p>Ivy League is better if you’re rich or famous but mediocre in academics and you need that coddling and grade inflation they give you. You would be rich so cost wouldn’t matter. If you’re food stamp poor or kinda close, cost doesn’t matter for Ivys because they give you a full ride to the few they admit. If you make between 60-200k with some payments and you are independent and motivated then you don’t need an Ivy and shouldn’t go. UF at less than 10k a year total blows them out of the water. #1 NCAA Champs football and basketball. Eat it Harvard!</p>
<p>Because I am sooo concerned about athletics when choosing colleges!</p>
<p>Personally, it was a <em>minus</em> for me whenever there was focus on football for a school. I felt good about Brandeis precisely because they didn’t have a football team. </p>
<p>Mikemac, I found your analysis of the study fascinating! I’ve been often wondering what I’m doing if the Ivy League is purported to have “zero effect” on future earnings. I’m also thinking that if you split it into professions in which there is a focus on prestige, say, law and ibanking, there was a significant earning difference between grads of different schools.</p>
<p>Lingbo:</p>
<p>Let’s say that someone graduated from SUNY Binghamton and then attends Yale Law School. Now, let’s say that someone graduated from Harvard and went to Yale Law School. Do you think that the Binghamton grad is likely to earn more or less than the Harvard grad? Why?</p>
<p>As far as ibanking is concerned…Let’s say you have a graduate of Princeton who is working at Goldman Sachs, and a graduate of Lehigh who is working at Goldman Sachs…Do you think that the Lehigh graduate is likely to earn more or less than the Princeton grad? Why?</p>
<p>Well, as for the second question, wouldn’t the person from Lehigh be less likely to secure a job at Goldman Sachs? I’m not terribly familiar with ibanking recruiting, but they obviously recruit from top schools to fill their jobs. </p>
<p>And I don’t know for the first question. Supposedly, it’s your last degree that counts most. So going by that, they should technically make about the same. Again, I don’t know enough about the hiring practices of law firms to be sure. Let’s say they are being considered for the same job at a prestigious law firm and are otherwise about equal. Then it would seem that the Harvard undergrad would get the job. Then again, the binghamton undergrad wouldn’t necessarily be left in the cold; he can easily find a job somewhere else with a Harvard degree. So what’s the real answer?</p>
<p>The real answer is this: All employers are looking for the person who will best meet their needs: That person may be a graduate of Harvard, St. Lawrence, SUNY Albany, etc. There are some people at Albany who are brighter and more talented than some people at Harvard. There are also some people at Harvard who are brighter and more talented than some people at Albany.
The best and the brightest are the ones who will be hired by Goldman Sachs.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yeah, but implicit in all this is that Goldman Sachs recruits equally at Harvard and Albany – which probably is not the case. You can be pretty sure that GS recruiters will visit Harvard to look over the new grads, but I seriously doubt that they will visit very many out-of-the-way 3rd tier state schools.</p>
<p>I have not read this study but I did read the article. Many thoughts came to mind, here are two:</p>
<p>Penn State is hardly “Podunk U.” I would be more impressed if the authors had chosen Wayne State as a reference as I think it would be a better test. Or how about chosing some schools that are closer the size of an Ivy? Convince me by showing that schools where the SAT average is 1000 or less produce small differences. OK?</p>
<p>To some extent the study may be circular. As I understand the study, students chosing a non-Ivy were compared to those who did choose an Ivy. The basis for comprison is post graduation wages …or money. Now rewind to the time that a decision is being made where to attend. Why would a student choose a Penn State over an Ivy? There are many reasons, of course but I suspect that MONEY would top the list of factors. So people who prefer to save money in selecting a college may be more money oriented to begin with …even before the first class at P(odunk) U. Might not the preference for money and wages play out over a whole host of decisions later in life resulting in high wages due to preferences entirely consistent with selecting PU in the first place? How does the study design control for such preferences?</p>
<p>OBW: How many times is a thread like this going to be started? The study just shows what everyone knew but many do not want to admit: It is the person not the place that really matters. Yes, students should go to college to learn how to think. And of course getting an “education” means different things to different people. To some it is imperative that they experience the broad-based curriculum that a small LAC can provide and to others it may be a concentration and specialty on an engineering school. However, the surveys on the site and others and the list of colleges applied to, suggest a fair number of kids and their parents think “prestige” is what is important. Now I tend to think most peole think economics down the road and status are more related to “prestige” and going to a big name place then they admit. Furthermore, many students do not look at the “what is really best for them”, fit, or getting the “best college experience” as much as where a school places on a USNWR list. To many people, the "four year experience that can only be had “walking on the paths of Harvard” has an infinite price tag. I have friends who have gone into debt saying you can’t put a value on it. That is okay. Ironically though they talk about it often in terms of it rankings (they usually start introductions with “This is my D,she went to ____”) and things that are really about economics. I often think we do put way too much into believing that the four year, right after high school, major college experience is the be all and end all. When I look at late bloomers or kids who went into the military first etc. I see that there is more than one way to “skin the cat” and it is probably a bit elitist and wrong to imply that prestige and such is so important. I also notice that often it is those who are well off, who say money is not important. I once worked in a third world country where professional were paid about $70 a month or about 1/300 th of the expats they worked for. I said to an executive we needed to increase the wages. He said money is not a motivator . So I asked him then if he would donate is bonus to the locals? Kind of had a rocky relationship after that.
Anyway, no mattter what economics show, people are going to choose what they think is best. They aren’t always economically rational nor do they always choose based on logic and facts. As long as they are happy with their decision it was the best college choice for them.</p>
<p>What’s rough is when parents choose for their children what college they “need” to go to. Too much pressure, imo.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Law firm recruiters DO look at where a law student studied as an undergrad. That’s partly because of how front-loaded the law firm hiring process is. Yes, being in an elite law firm is not the only way to make big money as a lawyer–plenty of tort lawyers from more average law schools or colleges hit it big too–but it helps. Out of all the occupations my children might pursue, I would most advise them to go for the most elite undergraduate degree if they were seriously interested in being lawyers later.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You are far, far more likely to attend Yale Law School as a Harvard undergrad than as a SUNY Binghamton undergrad. (Yale Law School is actually a pretty bad example, because I suspect the key criteria there are which Oxford or Cambridge college you got your MA from, and where you got your PhD.) My class at Stanford Law School had 10 or so people from each of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and one from Binghamton. (The guy from Binghamton has probably earned less than average, too, but that’s just him. He spent some time working as a bike messenger in Manhattan, and a cook at a summer camp, after he had worked as a lawyer for awhile.)</p></li>
<li><p>As for Goldman Sachs . . . well, law schools are far more democratic and less elitist. That’s not to say someone brilliant from SUNY Binghamton might not make it there – I’m sure they have – but that person could probably have a more secure career path playing online poker.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>S gots emails recently about Goldman Sachs and D.E Shaw coming to campus to recruit. Several grads currently working at D.E.Shaw also wrote to invite current undergrads to apply. The Comp Sci Society sent an email about a Microsoft vice-president coming to campus for a talk; apparently, he is happy to have dinner with undergrads. They were encouraged to bring their resumes along.</p>
<p>Its one thing to get interviewed at D E Shaw, GS, ML, etc., but another just to get an internship. Only the best interns get hired after college graduation, and then another filter after 2 years. Not exactly a secure field. Still, I agree that it is easier to give one’s resume to a representative that visits your campus during Career Week, then to apply online. </p>
<p>After the campus interview, there is the phone call, then the actual day spent at the firm. The college recruiting gets many to an interview stage, but not necessarily thru the door.</p>
<p>Bookworm:</p>
<p>All this goes without saying–and it applies to everyone, not just students as top schools, does it? Still, it’s easier to apply if you’re invited to do so.</p>
<p>All the stuff I mentioned, by the way, is not part of career week. I believe the Microsoft Exec is coming in for a talk–of which there is a surfeit at Harvard.</p>
<p>Garland, let me add my name to the many others that agree with you. When D was applying to schools one of the essay questions was why she wanted to attend that school. Being a sports junkie (intramural, not varsity) she compared the selection of a school to the selection of an athletic shoe (affordability (finaid/scholarships), color (diversity), appearance (location) but most importantly - overall fit. For both of my kids I wanted schools that were politically, socially and environmentally active and aware. I think everyone got what they wanted in their choices, even me 
.</p>
<p>
It doesn’t control for them, it would capture them. Suppose as schools decreased in cost their students have a greater drive for high-wage jobs. Then the coefficient on the cost of college in the regression results would be a negative number. Keep in mind that regression studies return information on correlation, not causation. </p>
<p>Incidentally in the draft of the study available on Krueger’s website, they discovered (in his words) “we find a substantial internal rate of return from attending a more costly college”.</p>
<p>It is clear that many “make it” without attending an elite college, it is also clear that it is more important where one has attended graduate (or professional) school, however, and I and others have said this before, it is not about money or the future for us, it is about the fabulous academic and cultural experience S is getting where he is at. Priceless.</p>
<p>JHS: In response to you comment that one is "far, far more likely to attend Yale Law School if they graduate from Harvard, Yale or Princeton.</p>
<p>Using you example of Stanford Law School: Of course there will be more HYP students at Stanford Law, but it is purely because of mathematically odds. If Stanford law gets hundreds of applicants from HYP, there will end up being a pretty good number of HYP grads at Stanford Law. It’s mathematically logical.</p>
<p>The other way to look at it, however, is this: The Binghamton grad in your Stanford Law School class beat out probably 2000-3000 grads of “elite” schools that year.</p>
<p>Binghamton probably had one or two grads apply to Stanford Law that year, and one was admitted.</p>
<p>Harvard probably had 100-200 apply, and only 10 Harvard students were enrolled.</p>
<p>The Admissions Committee at Stanford Law School admitted the Binghamton grad over the 2000-3000 applicants from “elite” colleges for one reason: He possessed the qualities they were looking for.</p>
<p>I believe that this supports my claim that it’s not where one goes to college… it’s his/her personal attributes that will have the greatest impact on future professional success.</p>