@LucieTheLakie Here’s my plan. I’ll put the outline up. I’ll tweet it, I’ll Facebook it, I’ll shamelessly self-promote. Briefly. And if an agent likes the sound of it enough to invest in working with me, I’ll go forward. And then I might really need a copy editor;). How does that sound? And thank you for the vote of confidence.
@woodlandsmom, appreciate your perspective. Thank you!
@Alumother, sounds good!
The Harvard athletes also are more likely to come from prep schools, wealthy to begin with. Particularly in the preppier sports like lacrosse. Even the non revenue sports can be a good ticket into the top schools.
@Pizzagirl, good question. And what exactly is the definition of an “elite field” in this thread? Is it really about starting salary? Or ceiling? Or some kind of social prestige?
As I understand it, I think people are using “elite” in the same sense that Rivera does - the law firms, consulting firms, investment banks, hedge funds, etc. where many graduates of highly ranked schools at least start their careers. Not to say that everyone wants to work at these kinds of places, or should want to, just that descriptively a lot of graduates of highly ranked schools tend to spend time in these places.
It may be a definition that’s somewhat behind the times, as more recently a lot of these folks have also been heading to Silicon Valley . . .
“Elite” is similar to “very desirable” jobs, and most new graduates would consider jobs at Google, FB, Amazon are more desirable than IB or consulting firms.
“Going to an “elite” school symbolizes that you’re a good 'ol boi (who they can go drink with on Friday and play golf with on Saturday). Employers are people too, and being good 'ol bois, they want more good 'ol bois. Also known as “alumni connections.” Especially true of IB.”
Aren’t you a high school senior / entering college? How do you know what “employers” look for?
Pssst … plenty of jobs where no one cares about whether they can drink with you on Friday and play golf with you on Saturday. And other protip: Alumni connections occur at every school, not just the Ivies / elites.
Love the use of “boi” in this context;).
I think “elite” kind of morphed from “white shoe.” Here’s a definition of “white-shoe firm” from Investopedia:
Beyond a dictionary definition (“a select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities”), “elite” seems to be in the eye of the beholder, but it’s one of those terms that’s bandied about without being defined in any objective sense. Kind of like “middle class.” And possibly “pornography.” 
Sometimes, young people want to get into a particular field because they are interested in it, but it just happens to be elite. The eliteness (is that a word?) of the field may not be its attraction.
I do think that even if you are an athlete…having Harvard on your resume is a “job getter”. It sure is down here where I live. In fact, the male lawyers I know hire anyone that played a sport and they talked about that sport in the interview with the guys I knew. It gave them panache and an “in”. They talked about golf and the fact that they played football in college and with me they wanted to know if I was married. Go figure.
The three new words/expressions I learned on CC this week: boi, High WASP, sex-positive. I need a new dictionary, but I really appreciate the personal growth.
I believe that’s possible; I just have not personally encountered that myself. The interest expressed is in either the prestige or the $$. I’m always open to revision.
Look for people who entered college in majors whose major-specific job markets were bottoming out at the time. E.g. CS majors who started in 2001-2003 (graduated in 2005-2007), civil engineering majors who started in 2008-2010 (graduated in 2012-2015). Such people are probably those who had strong interests in the subjects despite then-poor major-specific job markets when they chose their majors. Or petroleum engineering majors whenever oil prices are low.
Yes, graduation is offset 4-5 years from entry, but it does seem like few people consider that the job markets could be different 4-5 years from now (huge numbers of students flooded into CS in 1998-2000, just in time to graduate into a down market, for example), or that they assume that current trends will go on forever.
My guess is that most of the posters on CC though don’t consider civil or petroleum engineers or computer scientists as “elite” or prestigious. Just not elite enough.
Well CS is pretty “elite” at the moment in my view, with high starting salaries, lots of hot technology companies that graduates want to work for, and much increased enrollment including at top universities. And for young people who want a shot at getting wealthy, you could argue that it’s a faster route than going into investment banking for example, although the odds are against that in any field.
Who knows how long the party will last in CS but there’s cyclicality in all fields e.g. the financial firms went through a rough few years in the recession.
Well, one of my kids is in CS (although his degree is in engineering) with high salary, options, perks, etc. but I’m still not sure it is elite in many people’s eyes, although I could be wrong. It is maybe “elite” at the moment, as you say, but maybe not “elite” in the way that many CC people look at things.
One of my kids joined a specialized consulting firm after graduating from college because the type of work was interesting and seemed to be a good “fit.” It was elite in the sense that the company only recruited at a limited number of highly selective colleges (including the one my kid attended). The salary was not exceptionally high, although it was enough to live on comfortably. There were other jobs available, in other lines of work, that paid more.
This doesn’t seem unusual to me.
And it may not be, just that it hasn’t been something I have run across. Probably just chance, that’s all.
I think kids who are naturally drawn to engineering and science are hitting it at the right time. It is more cool now. Neither of my kids went into engineering and technology initially for prestige or the big money . They came by it naturally- grandfather engineer, great grandfather physician, dad engineer. We never pushed them toward engineering. They were free to study what they wanted to but gravitated in that direction. The money is following but some of that is the current climate for technology. If anything, engineers and scientists seem to have been undervalued for years in terms of prestige .