What are the Lifetime Advantages of Attending Top Colleges

Parents Forum
721

<p>Uh, reality check. </p>

<p>Lots and lots of kids don’t have a clue what career they’d like to pursue in HS, or college. Hard to form a basis for college selection… Even if they think they know, they often change their minds. Some people get sick of one path or find to their horror their job is becoming obsolete and need to be able to change course.</p>

<p>A strong education, whether elite or otherwise, should emphasize:</p>

<p>-writing, communication, & interpersonal skills
-creative thinking, analysis, & problem-solving
-boldness, risk-taking, and a growth mentality*
-knowing what sorts of things excite you
-independent initiative, self-starter skills
-good ability to identify assess, & choose from an array of options</p>

<p>I’ve worked with great success in three fields. None had entered my mind until well after college. I am just now thinking about a new path and percolating ideas. I have the personality type of intense enthusiasms that last about 7-10 years and, once conquered, lose some appeal; then I look for a new challenge. (BTW: If you have the facility to invent or initiate your own niche jobs, you will never be unemployed.)</p>

<p>**Re the “growth mentality,” read the book “Mindset.” It is excellent. </p>

<p>It explains how some very intelligent people wind up so keyed in to their own prowess, so identified with having successful outcomes, with A’s, that they wind up afraid to take risks or fail-- as that would threaten their whole self image. It explains why some corporate cultures stifle innovation and others welcome it. A very interesting book for anyone intrigued by what enhances success in life.</p>

722

<p>come on mini, you went to top schools, and you do have that intangible ‘it’ factor.</p>

723

<p>Let’s sum up what the research, not opinion shows.</p>

<p>For top 20 schools: </p>

<p>Except for the sciences, there appears to be little relation between major and eventual occupation.</p>

<p>Big differences in GPA (2.8 vs. 3.8) amount to negligible differences in income 4 years out of college.</p>

<p>There is no significant difference in career outcome for those who are accepted to a top school and go and those who are accepted and go elsewhere.</p>

<p>Where one is rejected from is a better predictor of success than where one actually attends.</p>

<p>There is no evidence that college provides special critical thinking skills, though most people list this a a major benefit of attending a college.</p>

<p>There is little evidence that the standard list of general undergraduate skills—critical thinking, analytic reasoning, lifetime learning, independence of thought, and skill at writing are even used in most professions. (Based on occupational research that includes executives, lawyers, physicians, etc.)</p>

<p>There is no evidence that a single body of content that could be described as “cultural literacy” is transmitted at top schools.</p>

<p>To quote Occupational Sociologist Andrew Abbott:</p>

<p>“The long and the short of it is that there is no instrumental reason to get an education, to study in your courses, or to pick a concentration and lose yourself in it. It won’t get you anything you won’t get anyway or get some other way”</p>

<p>We can argue and rationalize our attendance at one school or type of school versus another, and we can relate our personal stories, but for those who actually study this question the answer is pretty clear. The only reason to go to any top college (or if talented, any college) is to go to college. To continue with Abbott:</p>

<p>“The reason for getting an education…is that it is better in and of itself. Not because it gets you something. Not because it is a means to some other end. It is better because it is better. Indeed this statement implies that the phrase “aims of education” is nonsensical; education is not a thing of which aims can be predicated. It has no aim other than itself.”</p>

724

<p>“come on mini, you went to top schools, and you do have that intangible ‘it’ factor.”</p>

<p>As I’ve written at length, the greatest lifetime advantage I got from my UNDERGRADUATE school was the opportunity to hobnob with, and understand the feeling of entitlement of rich people, not particularly with intelligent ones (if that was the case, I got more out of my high school…and, on that score, I did.) Those advantages were real, tangible, and have stood me in good stead, and I am quite thankful for them.</p>

725

<p>idad, you’ve been a little under the radar in this thread. I just want to say I think your posts are great in this thread and in the thread about being happy at a 3rd tier school.</p>

<p>I’m not implying that they aren’t great elsewhere. :)</p>

726

<p>idad:
Great post! You really summed it all up well. I think we as parents put way too much stock into school prestige. It boils down to our children gooing out after they are done with school and living a full life, as they want; doing what they want, where they want.</p>

727

<p>mini: it was meant as a compliment :)</p>

728

<p>And was so understood. ;)</p>

729

<p>Well let me address mini’s last statement.</p>

<p>I have been thinking a lot about this thread, primarily because my own behaviour has been anomalous. I usually try terribly hard to offend no one. On this thread, I’ve offended hordes. So I asked myself, Why? Well, must be because I am emotionally involved. Again, why?</p>

<p>Two reasons, one of little consequence to the discussion, one of more consequence. First, my dad was a professor at one of said elite institutions all his life. I grew up in an academic family. How would you all feel if, say your dad was a solider his whole career and you are on a thread where people say there’s no difference between a decorated soldier and one who never distinguishes himself? To use a less charged analogy, what if your dad were a stonemason, in recognized for his craftsmanship and responsible for some of the more well-known buildings in America, and this were a thread saying that there’s no value to masonry except some shallow prestige and concrete and steel is completely equivalent? So, you don’t have to care about my dad, but it does explain some things.</p>

<p>But the second reason I am emotionally involved in this thread is actually quite important.</p>

<p>I have been in business almost all my career. That means I started in real corporate life in 1981, i.e. Fortune 500, out of business school. My first company was dominated by engineers and finance guys. And I say guys advisedly. There were almost no women at all there. I mean approaching <5% in the non-secretarial staff. We even had the finance guys once write a jokey broadside about why did the women in corporate planning all have flat chests. No kidding. And no sexual harassment laws available, either.</p>

<p>I was questioned all the time. I was suspect. But they couldn’t argue with that Princeton degree. Sure I still had to perform. Which, BTW, I did. Responsible in corporate planning, with a male teammate, for a strategic initiative that to this day is the corporation’s best growth business. Once I moved to sales, I was one of the top 3 salespeople in my region every quarter. But it was hard. And scary. And lonely. My Princeton degree helped me spend a little less time beating people over the head with the concept that I was capable, and a little more time laughing.</p>

<p>So, I got a great advantage from my “prestige school”. And, despite all my privileged background, in those days I was a scorned minority with minimal protection. And the degree helped.</p>

730

<p>I agree that it helped. That is something I can indeed understand. But “why” it helped is the issue. </p>

<p>I don’t think prestige is shallow - it is very real. As you said, they couldn’t argue with the Princeton degree. But the “prestige” didn’t necessarily come the academic side of Princeton at all (which isn’t to say that the education wasn’t excellent). And that it didn’t doesn’t make it any less real. You benefitted from the fact that for 10-15 generations, lots of well-spoken wealthy folk attended Princeton, and did indeed make their mark on society. And you were able to piggyback on them. And I don’t see anything wrong in that (actually, I see lots that is right with it.) Princeton wouldn’t be Princeton if the student body demographics resembled the rest of the society, with the top 3% of folks in wealth representing 3% of the student body. </p>

<p>But what you are saying - quite eloquently in fact - is that it was the “label” that made the difference. You would have been the same person had you finished second in your class at Wisconsin. Equally capable. You may have gotten a better academic education, or a worse one - other forums have discussed that ad nauseum. But the label helped you with a lifetime advantage in needing to spend “a little less time beating people over the head with the concept that I was capable.”</p>

<p>And I can laugh with you, because I understand it exactly. ;)</p>

731

<p>“How would you all feel if, say your dad was a solider his whole career and you are on a thread where people say there’s no difference between a decorated soldier and one who never distinguishes himself?”</p>

<p>Alumother, I don’t think anybody is saying this.</p>

<p>Nobody is attacking intelligence, or academic achievement. </p>

<p>Inteligence and academic achievement do not exist in just 4 schools as was mentioned very early in the thread, or 15 schools or 25 schools.</p>

<p>Intelligence or academic achievement doesn’t mean a person is more motivated or is more motivated for altruistic reasons than others as was mention in early this thread.</p>

<p>A person should get credit for academic achievement regardless of where that person goes to school.</p>

<p>If a person wants to go to an elite school, that’s great. If a person wants to go to another type of school, that’s great too. </p>

<p>A friend of my daughter’s graduated high school with a 3.95 uw gpa, and turned down Dartmouth because he wanted a bigger school. Somebody else might make the opposite choice. They are both good choices.</p>

<p>A degree from Princeton can help and does help many students that go there. Probably helps most.</p>

732

<p>But mini, it wasn’t the wealthy well-spoken thing they valued. These were engineers, most of them first generation of their family to go to college, many West Point. They were numbers guys, they calculated things. They didn’t care if I could talk. They really did believe as far as the Princeton degree that it meant my brain worked as least as well as theirs did, despite my long blonde hair.</p>

<p>And as for the the actual quality of the education at Princeton, well, I’ve posted about that elsewhere in this thread.</p>

733

<p>dstark. You say

I guess the unpopular thing I will continue to say is this. I would place a higher value on academic achievement at Princeton or similar schools than I would on equal academic achievements elsewhere. Maybe I would assume the first in the class at Princeton was pretty much equal to the first in the class at University of Wisconsin but not at City College of Santa Barbara. I might be wrong occasionally, for the outliers, but mostly I would be right.</p>

734

<p>How long did it take to work the “I went to Princeton” into the sales call or did you just wear orange and black suits?
I started work at the largest real estate investment firm in the country in the early 80’s and we had women in the dept and nobody found it strange. There were plenty of women in B school by then. Not so many in RE but at least 8 out of 40 and I can still name most of them as we all worked together on projects over the two years.</p>

735

<p>Ah to h. with you barrons. My company was a chemical engineering company. Believe me or be a jerk, I was one of the only women. And the only time I ever told anyone in my sales calls that I went to Princeton was one time when a guy was trying to squeeze my price and was being a true a$$h*** and I got fed up and told him not to talk to me that way, that I had gone to good schools and besides I was 8 weeks pregnant. The Princeton thing had no effect but the 8 weeks pregnant got a huge laugh, he got off his squeeze the vendor ploy and we renegotiated a contract extension.</p>

736

<p>Alummother, look at the flip side of your father analogy. What if he had been a distinguished academic at Kansas State University. Wouldn’t you feel badly if his accomplishments were slighted just because of that fact?? Of course you would and rightfully so.</p>

<p>And Mini, I do believe that “prestige” is a mile wide and an inch deep because it is an intangible, subjective and relative descriptor. We can marvel at the number of Nobel Lauretes at UChicago for instance and agree that they add to the prestige of the university. However the important question is how accomplished are they in the classroom which is the raison d’etre of the instiution as related to undergraduate education. MSU may have prestige relative to ELCC.</p>

737

<p>“I guess the unpopular thing I will continue to say is this. I would place a higher value on academic achievement at Princeton or similar schools than I would on equal academic achievements elsewhere. Maybe I would assume the first in the class at Princeton was pretty much equal to the first in the class at University of Wisconsin but not at City College of Santa Barbara. I might be wrong occasionally, for the outliers, but mostly I would be right.”</p>

<p>Equal academic achievements are by definition equal, so no, I don’t value one over the other.</p>

<p>You have every right to think what you think, but so does everybody else.</p>

<p>My life’s experiences are different than yours. I went to City College of SF for 2 years. It was a long time ago, but there were people there that I met that were as bright as anybody I have met elsewhere in the last 30+years, including IVY Leaguers. </p>

<p>There is a kid in my son’s high school that is going to go to SBCC. My son says he lives with his sister. No parents. The family is disfunctional. I don’t really want to pass judgment on this kid, and compare him to Princeton kids. It’s kind of tough living without a parent’s guidance.</p>

738

<p>“But mini, it wasn’t the wealthy well-spoken thing they valued.”</p>

<p>Well, first of all, that’s much of what YOU got out of it (though I suspect I got a lot more - your dad was a college professor, mine at the height of his “career” ran an empty travel agency that I think was a Mafia store-front.) But secondly, they assumed that Princeton grads would have a level of “polish” and “class” that could be expected that they might not have gotten from others. They “calculated” things, and as you wrote, the Princeton degree meant you had to spend less time beating the calculators over the head.</p>

<p>As to brightness, I had two, three, or four students every year at the Community College of Philadelphia who were as bright as the best students at the Ivies. So bright, in fact, that Penn snapped them up, and paid heftily for the privilege.</p>

739

<p>Mini you are wrong. They did not expect polish and class. And if they had well I am not known for polish but for a sort of rough-hewn say what I believe and move forward with focus. Despite my pedigree I am not polished. Don’t extrapolate your personal Williams experience to every person who comes from the upper socioeconomic regions, just as I have explained that I think only that ON AVERAGE the person at the top of the class in Princeton will be ON AVERAGE more intellectually able than the person at the top of the class at City College of Santa Barbara. Dear god. Can anyone really with a straight face argue otherwise?</p>

<p>They did not expect or value any polish. No. They expected I would be like to correctly analyze complex and ambiguous data. Otherwise known as business.</p>

<p>Oh god! Will someone please bar me from this forum and put me out of my misery? </p>

<p>How obnoxious do I have to get to be barred? Any ideas? At this point I am open to anything.</p>

740

<p>It’s only the Ivy people, in their own world, who care about the Ivy label. And I think they miss out on a lot.
My husband worked with chemical engineers who were drawn mostly from NYC and surrounding areas when he started his career - the smartest ones I remember were from CCNY. Mostly first generation college, as was my husband. Many of these people in those days did not know any better, nor could they have they in any way afforded better even if they did. I laugh at the emphasis put on “first generation college” now. Both my husband and I were - his father delivered bread for a bakery- we never looked at this at an advantage. That generation usually went to schools they could afford, unless their parents were college educated and more savvy. Really, this is almost ridiculous. My husband chose a school with a work-study program - that and scholarships and working through high school as a grocery bagger were the only ways he could get to college. No one guided him. No one helped him. No one read College Confidential. I think this entire discussion is insulting to so many people. The fact that some people on here can’t realize that is kind of pathetic. I’m sorry if I have offended anyone, I am not naming names, but really…</p>