Dear lady, you make putative a fairly lofty goal. It was, if you don’t have the cognitive ability to make such recognition, an example. It was not a definitive judgement, and I prefaced it by saying, it is unfortunate–it is also a reality.
My reality check came when I moved to the Midwest and found countless doctors who were regional state school graduates and were living lives the elite medical school graduates on the coasts could never imagine. It is similar to what I have found with local engineers, lawyers, etc. They aren’t just successful here in a small market, they would be deemed successful anywhere. After years of seeing these success stories, I no longer want my children to attend elite schools solely on their reputation. I want them to seek value for their time and money.
@PurpleTitan - You are 100 percent correct. Elite schools can provide contacts and opportunities that people otherwise would not receive. Whether and how they take advantage of those opportunities is another matter.
My personal view is that the top four schools, HYPS, can offer significant advantages to their graduates in certain specific fields. Below that level, say rankings between 5 and 16 or 20, the schools can offer some advantages over lower ranked schools in limited areas of strength and particularly in the early parts of someone’s career. Once you get below that level, say that pool of schools between 20 and 60 which includes most flagship state schools, the advantages of rank pretty much wash out. The differences get smaller and smaller when you get to the less selective schools below that range.
My last corporate job was in a $100,000,000 professional services division with about 300 professionals. It was headed up a graduate of Long Island University. He was in the right place, at the right time, and had a very engaging personality that allowed him to beat numerous graduates from more prestigious schools to the job. In contrast, one of the lowest guys on the totem poll in my office had two degrees from Ivy league schools. Very intelligent person, but he didn’t have the drive to make himself standout in a corporate environment.
I tell my kids to think of life as a marathon. Unlike a real marathon that is fixed in length with competitors, their lives will be run based on goals and destinations they set themselves, and whether they are successful is something they will only decide for themselves with the benefit of hindsight.
College admissions only measure the success of getting to the starting point of life. Doing well in high school and getting into an elite school is like working yourself to the front of the start line; nobody will be in front of you, and you can pick and choose what your course and destinations will be. Screwing up in high school and ending up in directional state school is equivalent to starting 30 minutes back. Yeah, you are in the race, but there are a whole lot of people in front of you, you will lack a significant freedom of action to pursue your hopes and dreams, and you probably will not get as far as if you had started with the leaders. Life though, is a long run, and it is not about how you start the race but how you finish it.
Did you know that Wachtell and Blackstone PE place lists of their principal attorneys or employees online? And they also list the undergraduate colleges those managers attended?
Guess what? They arrived at their place of employment from many different colleges and universities.
http://www.wlrk.com
http://www.blackstone.com/businesses/aam/private-equity/the-team
It is not proven that one’s choice of undergraduate college closes doors. It is a theory without firm proof. Certainly, the people listed on the firms’ websites are very smart, and they worked very hard as undergraduates, no matter what school they attended.
I am friends with lots of McKinsey people, including my very best friend who is (gasp) a Notre Dame grad. And guess what? They did NOT all attend elite schools. Some did, some didn’t.
I do think there are some elite school grads who happen to congregate in jobs / fields / careers where there are a lot of elite school grads, so they mistakenly think that because they are surrounded with elite school grads, that “other” jobs / fields / careers must collect all the leftover non-elite school grads. They simply haven’t a clue that there are many jobs / fields / careers where elite school grads and non-elite school grads work side by side.
I work with executives at Fortune 50 companies. I can sit in a meeting with two executive VPs at the same level, making good money, doing interesting stimulating intellectual work - and one may have gone to Harvard and the other to a SUNY (or insert whatever other school). It’s just not all that uncommon, really.
I don’t get what’s the point of being elite-educated if you don’t get how the world works, but whatever.
@Periwinkle - If you go through the Wachtell site, you find that the schools with by far the most representation are Harvard, Yale and Penn. While they are a wide variety of non-Ivy undergraduate schools listed, most have one or two people max.
Okay, since I’m not going to go through the whole directory of that firm, I will believe you. However, most of us were responding to the quote below:
Happy Alumnus said:
It turns out that is patently FALSE. I clicked on five names of the Wachtell site, and the first name I came to got her Bachelors from VALDOSTA STATE and her law degree from Howard University. The second name, a judge, got his JD from The University of Texas at Austin.I saw a couple of BAs from Penn State and some JDs from NYU. Perusing further, I see a BA earned at UVA before going to law school at NYU. Here is a Colgate/NYU, a Middlebury/Boston U, Ohio State/Ohio State Law, etc.
I also clicked on many with Ivy league degrees, of course. But we were ASSURED that “doors would be closed” to graduates of less elite institutions and that turned out to BS, even at the “most prestigious firm in the US.”
Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe this is an un-winnable debate?
@nrdsb4: no, you did not bother to actually read my post. Your post responds to something that I never said.
I said that the junior associate ranks at Wachtell are “PRETTY MUCH off-limits to people who didn’t go to elite LAW schools.”
Just so you know, Valdosta State is not a LAW school. Nor is Middlebury (which is an elite school). A BA from Penn State or Ohio State is not from a LAW school.
Try again: look at LAW schools. You’ll find junior associates–who are recruited straight from school, usually, unless they do a clerkship- overwhelmingly from top-tier LAW schools, showing that Wachtell favors school name highly. Of course there are a few people like the summa cum laude graduate from Howard. (And no, the 3 “back office” people from New York Law School don’t count; they’re seasoned lawyers who are not on the partnership track and who fill niche jobs, probably at significantly lower pay than the partner-track associates.)
If you want to look at undergraduate schools (and no, to other posters, I am not mixing those two up; I am distinctly separating undergraduate from law schools): go for it. You’ll find that while undergraduate schools at Wachtell have more of a mix than law schools do, they are disproportionately (although less overwhelmingly) elite schools.
And for others who say, “I live in Middle America and couldn’t care less about working at Wachtell”: Wachtell pays double the starting rate of other large NYC law firms. I would guess that its total compensation package for first-year associates can be up to $320,000 per year. You wouldn’t want that?
Why don’t “back office” people count? If they’re happy with what they do, why are they any less “successful”? How odd.
Oh I get it - you measure success by salary. Oooohkay.
One thing to keep in mind is that the legal industry was much stronger back when they graduated law school and going for their first jobs as opposed to what many law school grads faced after the implosion of the legal industry after 2008.
That implosion combined with incurring a $200k+ of debt for 3 years of private law school debt or $150+ at a public law school combined with a sharp drop in number of open positions and sudden rise of “no-offers” at the last minute means one has to be much more careful about assessing the ROI on one’s law school credential and viability of a career which’ll facilitate paying down that debt. Especially considering unlike before 2011, interest rates for law school…like other grad school loans start from the moment one takes out the loan…not 6 months after graduation. In this case, compounding interest is an extremely terrifying prospect.
Since 2008, employment situations and debt factor has been such that the common refrain I kept hearing from law school students, recent grads, and even some younger attorneys is how it’s MORE important now to attend a T-14 or moreso, a T3 law school or graduate in the top few percent of one’s lower ranking law school class where everyone’s on a strict curve NOW than before the recession. Rule of thumb among most is to attend the highest ranking law school one can unless one gets a sizable/full ride scholarship…especially if the law school providing it is a few rungs lower within the T-14.
The only exception to this is if one intends to live and practice in regions like Texas where local schools/ties are most important or goes to a lower ranking law school on a full scholarship which doesn’t have onerous conditions for retaining it like being in the top half/quarter of one’s incoming class as there’s a 50% or greater chance of losing it after 1L after which continuing law school becomes a financially dubious endeavor. Even with improving conditions, there are still far too many law school grads and unemployed/underemployed attorneys vying for too few lawyer jobs requiring a JD and bar admittance. Especially jobs which could reasonably service that law school and/or undergrad debt.
You must not have really my post either. I didn’t say or imply Valdosta State is a law school. I specifically mentioned that she got her JD from Howard University. I put a slash between undergrad schools and law schools for most of the ones I mentioned. I saw several state law schools or other non elites represented in this cream of the crop you brought up. I do not believe you proved your point AT ALL that “the junior associate ranks at Wachtell are pretty much off-limits to people who didn’t go to elite law schools.”
As for Middlebury, it is a fine school, like many of the state institutions which are ranked above it.
I don’t think Texas is unique in this regard. I believe every region outside the Northeast probably operates in much the same way Texas does. Having an elite education and going “back home” will certainly not hold most of them back, but as to the thread title, NOT having a degree from an elite institution does NOT CLOSE DOORS for the majority.
Smart, @Zinhead. Getting a teenager (at least a male one) to understand that life is a marathon may be challenging, though. I know that I certainly wasn’t as mature back then as other kids (or as I later became).
Some researchers now believe that a comprehension of the future doesn’t take place in the brains of some people until their mid 20’s, and the brain doesn’t fully mature until 30 for many. To many teenagers, a 40 year-old self is essentially a completely different foreign unimaginable person to them.
Nope. Wouldn’t want to live in NYC for any amount of money. Had the opportunity to move there with DH when we were forst married, and graciously declined. I love NYC…love to visit.and have good friends and relatives who love there. But, I am perfectly happy living where I live…so no…$350,000 in annual pay is not something that would lure me to NYC.
@HappyAlumnus, when I look around the office, I see myself and a good number of other people who can afford a better lifestyle and save more money than a Wachtell associate making $320K in NYC while working half as many hours, so no, I wouldn’t want that.
BTW, I’ve worked in NYC before.
In my experience, the best trial lawyers, both civil and criminal, did not go to the ‘elite’ law schools. Those lawyers have to be able to understand the type of people who will be on the jury and relate to them, talk like them. They are more likely to have gone to state schools, not the Ivies. But they are incredibly successful. Think of John Edwards (yes, I know he’s scum but he was a successful lawyer). Went to the University of North Carolina School of Law.
Actually when you peruse that Blackstone list, the only schools that have multiple representation are–Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Wharton, Dartmouth and Georgetown. I think Wharton had the most with 6 or 7, followed by Harvard.
“Try again: look at LAW schools.”
That’s * exactly * what Nrdsb4 did. She was quite aware of the difference between undergrad and law school, and indicated it accordingly.
With just a cursory search, she found Wachtell people who got their law degrees from Howard, UTexas, NYU, Boston U, Ohio State law schools. I think you owe her an apology.
HappyAlumnus, I’ve used this example before on CC but you appear to be new around these parts.
In every industry, there are a few firms where the people there believe so desperately that everyone else who isn’t in that industry still envies them and aspires to be them.
The Goldman Sachs people think that they are the coolest thing since sliced bread - what is cooler than arranging financing for such-and-such? The McKinsey people think the same thing of themselves - what is cooler than telling some corporate client what their strat plan should be? And perhaps the Wachtell people think the same thing of themselves - what is cooler than being the lawyer of record on such-and-such corporate merger or whatever?
But what you’re missing is that people outside of those fields don’t much care - and indeed have their own perspective of prestige. I have a major media/communications company as a client. They are convinced that they are indeed the coolest thing - because what could be cooler than shaping America’s listening taste and being up close and personal with the hottest music celebrities? They would laugh at the idea that they should “envy” the folks at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, or Wachtell.