Certainly, industries would take what works for them. I just wouldn’t want to be in the industry where the skill sets they require I mostly achieved at age 18. If I can help it, thst is.
The schools can do what they want.
I have no idea why taxpayers are subsidizing these schools.
Well…I do have an idea.
I think it’s more the employers desire the pedigree of such hires as a way to sell their firm as one having the most intelligent/competent employees AND a way to MINIMIZE* the chances of hiring someone lacking those qualities.
- Not eliminate as there are elite/Ivy admits/grads lacking in those qualities. My uncle was stuck with an HYP engineering grad as a clerical secretary for 10 years because that grad was an idiot nephew of an engineering senior exec and I've encountered a few who made me wonder how they survived HS...much less graduate from college. A few older college classmates whose lack of such qualities caused them serious issues in the workplace turned down elite U admission offers...including Ivies.
Re Post 763:
Taxpayers whose offspring are not attending private schools are subsidizing private schools?
The older college classmates were mostly of the legacy/developmental variety due to large ongoing donations by family and multi-generational association with the elite Us concerned.
Most URM elite U grads I’ve encountered IME tended to be among those who epitomized Hunt’s traits above and beyond most of their elite U peers.
Granted, a large part of that might be due to the need to prove stereotypes of URMs being “less qualified” wrong to everyone.
Has anyone seen “The New Yorker” skit on Family Guy? (look it up on youtube) It cracks me up how much it reminds me of the discussion here about working at elite companies…
@fractalmstr, not nice to tease and not provide a link.
Is it this one?
^ Yeah, that’s the one! 
Moral Failing?
I interview people for a living. Moral Failing is working your way through undergrad selling meth to 10 year olds, not ending up at Case because you couldn’t afford Cal Tech.
Do you people even hear yourselves sometimes?
I work at an organization which has a reasonably elitist attitude towards hiring and our selection/assessment models are not that forgiving. But I have not met a single colleague in Talent Management (30+ years doing this) who considers the choice of college an opportunity to exhibit morality. Not one. I’ve had managers who think the world begins and ends with Princeton, Williams and Swarthmore- and even they would be horrified by that statement.
I’m very surprised to see some of the perspectives in this forum.
I was raised to be as on the ball and as competitive as necessary, and to go to the best school that I got into, based on the US News rankings.
Not competing and not going to the highest-ranked school was just not acceptable.
And I certainly did not grow up in the Northeast or California.
Though not raised to consider looking at something through different prisms, it seems, @HappyAlumnus?
And sure, I can see the benefits of going to the best school you can if all else is equal (though again, slavish fealty to a ranking that exists to sell magazines and is susceptible to gaming shows an unimaginative one-track mind).
When costs are very different, however, it’s a very different decision. As many people on here have pointed out, there are many paths to success and happiness. Some of them even allow you to save as much or more as a Wachtell associate while working half as many hours and incurring far less debt.
@happyalumnus Being collaborative is considered by the elites these days as a much better model than competitiveness. Making a major scientific discovery is more about teamwork and working towards a common goal than it is about being the first to score a touchdown.
@PurpleTitan, no. My surprise is that people who live outside NY and California claim that people in their parts of the US, outside of NY and California, don’t buy into school-ranking weight, competitiveness, etc. I’m from far away from either coast and in the circles that I grew up in, everyone I knew was like me- not like the “let’s go to State U., avoid the rat race and come home after State U.” crowd that I’m seeing on this board.
My parents were raised in similar circles, in “flyover states”, decades ago; for example, my father was not allowed to even apply to a public university for undergrad or grad school; he was required to consider only private institutions. Not saying that’s the right attitude at all, but that’s how he was raised, too, far away from NY or California, and decades ago.
@HappyAlumnus, oh right, people definitely generalize. There are all sorts of people everywhere. And some of the places that extol competition the most are in “flyover country”. Though few places in the US are as competitive as New York (go to China, though, and the whole country is like New York).
It is called the work life balance. Many people want a life not just work. Too many people are enthralled by the golden handcuff. But not everybody feels that way.
We’re from the East Coast, and both of my kids’ first choice schools were colleges that would have been considered “matches” rather than “reaches” for them. They chose not to apply to reach schools, and that’s fine. They both got into those first choice schools and had good experiences there.
They’ve gone on to have quite acceptable careers and lives, despite not aiming as high as they possibly could as undergraduates.
“was raised to be as on the ball and as competitive as necessary, and to go to the best school that I got into, based on the US News rankings.”
So you were raised to think that there was an appreciable difference between (say) 3 and 9 on USNWR? Wow.
Sorry you had such parental pressure. I had supportive parents, but was never “pushed.”
What “soft skills”? Half the times the advice they sell is just bullcrap. MC and IB firms hire elite school grads to sell their crap advice because people assume they are smart, the bullcrap sounds more convincing when it comes from a Harvard grad than from a Cal State - Fresno grad, especially since these elite school grads have already convinced themselves they are smarter than everyone else, they sell the bullcrap with more confidence. The reason these firms like guys who play rich boy team sports like lacrosse is because these guys tend to be competitive and well connected. And I’m sure the guys in the right social clubs like Skull and Bones at Yale or the Ivy club at Princeton also get preference in hiring, they are hired for their connections. It’s those connections that will generate new business leads.
Here we go again. The whole business world is full of idiots, except you I guess. The elite school grads arrogantly sell bull crap advice and clueless company execs are dumb enough to buy it since they like confident rich lacrosse players. Wow, talk about arrogance–that assessment takes the cake for being full of it.