Not going to prestigious/selective college limit career success?

Parents Forum
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<p>CC is replete with talk about prestigious colleges and how to increase chances of getting into one. Everyone on here seems to make SUCH a big deal about getting into an ivy, or the most selective school possible, but what I want to know is, is it absolutely necessary to attend a highly prestigious university to get a good, well paying job? </p>

<p>Does going to a less selective private, a low ranked UC or California State University lower ones chances of having a successful career? </p>

<p>Do colleges even have anything to do with your future job success? Doesn’t it only matter that you have the BA or BS, not what school u got it from? </p>

<p>Thanks…</p>

<p>Just a concerned and stressed out high school student.</p>

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<p>I just read an article about the 25 richest men and not one of them graduated from an Ivy. If I can located the link I will send it to you. Therefore, if money is what you are interested in you don’t have to worry…just enjoy your high school experience.</p>

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<p>Where did your mom and dad go to to college?</p>

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<p>This is humor. This site has been waaaaay creepy lately with strange goings-on. If you are offended by anything I’ve ever written since the third grade don’t read this.</p>

<p>

No, Masha, it is not necessary to attend such a school to get a good job. Many of the lesser Ivies ,the top 3 or 4 LAC’s, Devry Technical, and that correspondence school that Sally Struthers pitches for on TV will also help lead you to a good, well paying job.</p>

<p>Sorry to use your thoughtful post as a prop , Masha. I’ll try to answer your question generally.</p>

<p>Truthfully Masha , there are 1000’s of schools that have produced doctors, lawyers, bankers, ceo’s and people who work for a living. Find some schools that interest you . That get you where you want to go career wise. Other people’s views of good,better, best should not control your decision. </p>

<p>Here’s another angle. Reverse engineering. Look at the professions that interest you. Ask people who work in those fields about their academic background. You’ll be surprised how few went to super-selective schools. Good luck.</p>

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<p>Making a big deal about a college is what this site is for, after all. People who are content to attend open-admission community colleges have little reason to visit a site like this, so you get a biased sample of the population of parents and college applicants. </p>

<p>It seems to me that the answer to your question is “It depends.” I think for some applicants, going to the most selective school that those applicants can get into makes more sense, for career development, for social networking, and for just plain fun, than going to the most easily entered college. For some other applicants (one example would be people like Bill Gates who were rich before they started college), it probably makes little difference whether one goes to college at all. I know my friendly local state university will admit my children, and that they can be gainfully employed after attending State U, but I think they might enjoy and gain from the experience of going out of state to school, PERHAPS at a highly selective school (which might, oddly, be more affordable for us than the less selective schools). Reasonable minds can differ on this issue. I congratulate all the young people who grow up and learn to lead independent lives.</p>

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<p>To the OP:</p>

<p>Only if failing to go to the prestigious/selective school results in suicide…thankfully, this is far more likely to occur with the parents of said students than the students themselves.</p>

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<p>Statistical studies have shown that people who go to the most prestigious schools make more money than people who don’t. Interestingly, more recent studies have shown that people who are accepted to the HYP and decide to go somewhere else are as successful at making money as people who actually go to HYP. The meaning of this seems to be that some people are more likely to be successful no matter where they actually go to school.</p>

<p>Of course, success in life isn’t all about making money. I certainly think that a person’s choice of spouse is more important than choice of college.</p>

<p>I work back and forth between the business world and the academic world. People in academia don’t give people much credit for practical experience, but feel that they only have a superficial knowledge of the subject. People in the workplace don’t give people much credit for what courses they have taken, but want to know what the person has actually done. Except for some difference in getting the first job, I don’t think that where you went to school matters at all in the workplace. Other factors outweigh it.</p>

<p>Every year about 1.2 million kids graduate from high school. All of the “top” colleges altogether can only take about 50,000 into their freshman classes. The frenzy about colleges is driven by parents to some extent, but I think it is more the kids. Somebody posted yesterday about how their daughter was upset about having to go to Rice after being denied at all of the Ivy League schools. I don’t think that going to Rice is going to be a problem later in life for her.</p>

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<p>The concept of going to a more “prestigious” college with the intent/hope/motivation that it will lead to a better job/income is one I had never thought of until I read CC where I have read that sentiment in some posts. I just know that my own kids picked colleges that had elements that they wanted…one element might have been to go to a college with the appropriate level of challenge where the student body was highly motivated which fit this child’s profile…never thought about that if child goes to X college, she will get a better career/job/money/life. If the child happens to go to a college that is quite selective or has a “name”, it just coincides with the fact that the school environment really fit what the child likes in a college, nothing more, nothing less. </p>

<p>And to answer the original question, success (which is not defined by money by some folks) is not based on where you went to college. Successful people come from all walks of life and all colleges. College is what you make of it. If you are motivated to have successful goals, it is YOU who will reach them, not the name of which college you went to. Success is what you make of your life. There are many ways to get there.
Susan</p>

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<p>I think it always boils down to the range of options the student is considering. The study I have often cited, Krueger and Dale, concluded that it does not make any difference w/r to career earnings success. However the study only compared students who were accepted to the very selective and chose to attend a selective college or university.</p>

<p>So for instance, my son was looking for merit aid and he had stats that were a match for colleges such as Cornell, JHU, CMU, Colgate, etc. He chose to apply to colleges a step below like Case, Rensselaer and Oberlin and was considering Rochester too. I doubt he was forfeiting anything significant with his choices either in terms of career “success” or the college experience.</p>

<p>Now if he had chosen to attend SUNY-Plattsburg or Oral Roberts it would have been an entirely different matter in my optinon.</p>

<p>BTW, this is the same situation with AA admissions. A non-URM who is bumped from a Harvard class will probably end up at a Brown, a Brown bumpee with probably end up at a JHU. Is there a difference? Very little if anything at all in my opinion. In fact the student may end up having a better college experience because of random happenings.</p>

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<p>The conventional wisdom among the cognoscenti is that it’s the qualities that Ivy and other elite students bring with them that accounts for success is later life, not the stamp of the institution upon their brow. </p>

<p>As with many things, I think this is largely but not completely true. For <em>most</em> careers, you can do fine with a low-ranked UC or Cal State degree as your point of departure. In some cases–if, for instance, you want to become an investment banker or a Supreme Court justice–you’re stacking the deck against yourself but I’d say it’s a probabilistic thing, not absolute and deterministic.</p>

<p>However, it’s something of a cliche but true: there are an awful lot of CEO’s out there that were one-time “C” students at medium-grade colleges.</p>

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<p>Well, let me pull out my list. Hmmm. Here it is:</p>

<p>Famous people who did NOT go to famous schools (not complete by any means):</p>

<p>Corazon Aquino, Mt. St. Vincent College
Annette Benning, Cal State San Francisco
Sandra Bullock East Carolina State U
Helen Gurley Brown (publisher), Woodbury U
Tom Clancy, Loyola U (MD)
Ann Compton, Hollins
Annie Dillard, author, Hollins
Chevy Chase, Bard College
GEorge Clooney, Northern Kentucky U
Peter Coors, Coors CEO, U of Denver
Kevin Costner, Cal State Fullerton
Clarance Darrow, Allegheny College
Colleen Dewhurst, Lawrence U
Michael Eisner (businessman, former CEO of Disney), Denison U
Joycelyn Elder, US surgeon general, Philander Smith College
Milton Friedman, economist, Rutgers
Lee Iococca, LEhigh U
Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial human heart, Syracuse U
Steve Jobs, Reed
Harrison Ford, Ripon College
Geena Davis, New England College
Roger Ebert, film critic, U of Illinois, Urbana
Francis Ford Coppola, Hofstra
Matt Groenig (cartoonist - The Simpsons), Evergreen State
Nikki Giovanni, Fisk U
John Grishom, Mississippi State U
John Irving, author, U of New Hampshire
Garrison Keillor, U of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Stephen King, U of Maine Orono
Woody Harrelson Hanover College
Hal Holbrook, Denison U
Michael Keaton, Kent State
Jack Kemp, Occidental
Vernon Jordan, civil rights activits, DePauw U
Jesse Jackson, North Carolina A&T State
Roy Lichtenstein, artist, Ohio State
Martin Luther King, Morehouse College
Murray LEnder (of bagel fame), Quinnipiac
Rush Limbaugh, Southeast Missouri State U
John Malkovich, Illinois State U
Johnny Mathis, musician, Cal State San Francisco
Bill Moyers, U of North Texas
Gary Larsen (cartoonist), Washington State
Paul Newman, Kenyon College
Richard Nixon, Whittier College
Deborah Norville, U of Georgia
Carroll O’Conner, U of Montana
Jane Pauley, Indiana U
Jamison Parker, Beloit
Brad Pitt, U of Missouri-Clumbia
P.J. O’Rourke, Miami U (Ohio)
Fred Rogers (“Mr. Rogers”) Rollins College
Alex Trebeck U of Ottawa
Condeleeza Rice, U of Denver
Phylicia Rashad, Howard
Lawrence Sanders (author), Wabash
Jerry Seinfield, City U of New York, Queens College
Steven Spielberg, Cal State Long Beach
Arnold Schwarzenegger, U of Wisconsin=Superior
Sinbad, U of Denver
Sylvester Stallone, U of Miami
John Tesh, musician, North Carolina State U
Spencer Tracey, Ripon
Clarence Thomas, Holy Cross
Dan Quayle, DePauw
Denzel Washington, Fordham
Paula Zahn, Stephens College</p>

<p>And, finally, an interesting study done at Princeton regarding the effects on pay of attending an elite university: <a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/00/q1/0126-krueger.htm[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/00/q1/0126-krueger.htm&lt;/a&gt;
Bottomline: If you have talent, are driven to succeed, and work hard, you can get there from anywhere. It’s not where you go to school, it’s what you do while you are there - and afterwards - that matters most.</p>

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<p>Just about all the MDs I know went to state schools undergrad. My brother-in-law is a college dropout who is currently CEO of a public company. He has houses in Manhattan, upstate NY and Italy along with a private jet. My across the street neighbor is a retired multimillionaire malpractice litigator who went to a tier 2 law school. He told me his wife graduated from an Ivy summa cum laude and never earned a dime. My best friend’s brother went to MIT undergrad, Cornell MBA and law school (I forget where). He is currently disbarred and having major financial problems.</p>

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<p>Not at all. Studies who have tracked students with stats that made them likely candidates for the most selective schools, show that they do just as well as those who go those schools. It is not the schools that make them successful. I feel it is for those kids who need a boost and get in despite lower stats are the ones who benefit the most from going to a name school.</p>

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<p>This article contains most of the recent data on the effects of college on later career success. <a href=“http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml[/url]”>http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Carolyn’s list illustrates my point…nice timing, C.</p>

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<p>The qualities that qualify a person for admission to a prestigious school may have more of an impact than the institution itself. If a student, who is accepted at Harvard because he/she worked like a demon through high school, continues to work like a demon…they probably will be successful. If they stop working they might not be successful.</p>

<p>If a student acquires this work ethic later, they might become successful. </p>

<p>Another view might be that wealthy families are more successful at placing their offspring in prestigious schools, and it is their wealth and family connections that give them the advantage.</p>

<p>One of the nicest, most generous and certainly happiest persons I know is a retired farmer who never went to college. Success has many definitions.</p>

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<p>I bet we can all name people who never attended college and are wildly successful and wealthy. We can also name people who attended highly selective colleges and failed horribly…and now live paychek to paycheck. It’s about the person…not their school. It just so happens that most of the kids who have made their way into highly selective schols have the drive and talent to succeed in spite of their college choices, not because of them. Imagine what will happen if a student like Lindsey (admitted to just about every Ivy) were suddenly denied the opportunity to attend college. Would she fail at life? Of course not. She would direct her talent and energy into success without college…and she might just end up ahead of most of the selective college-bound kids. </p>

<p>If you’re looking to earn big bucks and have a good career, you can easily skip college. There are plenty of well-paying (6 figure) careers that don’t require a degree. College is about other things. If you’re not interested in those other things…skip it. You’ll have a 4 year head start.</p>

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<p>Warren Buffet, the billionaire investment manager, went to the University of Nebraska. Ted Kaczynski, the unibomber, went to Harvard. I guess it just depends on how you define a “successful career.”</p>

<p>Graduating from the highest ranked schools can possibly give you some edge in acquiring that first job. Thereafter it depends on how good you actually are.</p>

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<p>masha, the school i have chosen to attend is not well known here on cc or by just about anyone i know. in fact, i’ve received a great deal of criticism from turning down a school within my state that is more well known. however, the school i will be attending is well respected by people in the career field i wish to enter. if you’re concerned about attending a lesser known university, my advice would be to talk to people who work in the field you wish to enter (such as a potential future employer) as well as people who have graduated from the university you are considering and entered the field you are planning to enter (ok, if that was confusing let me know. looking back i’m starting to confuse myself.). hope that helped!</p>

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<p>never mind</p>