A physician/researcher friend of the family who graduated from the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon in Mexco is the most “prestigious” /highest achieving person I know
The most successful person I know went to MIT. So I guess if you’re trying to prove that top tier schools don’t matter . . .
UMichigan undergrad and UChicago Law
Re: post #119 … The happiest person I know is my FIL. He loves his life (despite the health challenges of Parkinson’s). He went to RPI … turned down a football scholarship from Yale to take an academic scholarship from RPI, even though he did play football at RPI. He loved his time at RPI, he visits campus every few years, and he is a generous donor. He credits the school with taking a poor kid from an ethnic neighborhood across from the stockyards on the south side of Chicago and making him into a man capable of taking care of his family. I believe he would be just as amazingly wonderful no matter where he went to school (or even if he didn’t go to school) … he is just a really great guy.
@purpletitan re post #82, and I haven’t read every post, but I am hazarding a guess that many people who are regularly on CC, and posting on this thread, quite possibly hold higher degrees themselves, and quite possibly come from higher SES than the general public. It stands to reason that these people will know similar people. It would be interesting to see how people not on the forum would answer the OPs question:-) Of course, we can’t possibly know what answers they might give, but I think you would see a lot more regional and “unprestigious” colleges being mentioned.
Ah, happiest person? SUNY New Paltz.
Most prestigious people? Honestly, I am surrounded by Colorado State and CU-Boulder graduates.
My mentor (I work in the tech industry) doesn’t even hold a college degree yet; she rose through the ranks as a dispatcher for an EMS agency, moved into a customer support role at this company, and through training and tuition reimbursement, moved into managemtn.
And, I’m a U of Nebraska grad. 
“course, we can’t possibly know what answers they might give, but I think you would see a lot more regional and “unprestigious” colleges being mentioned.”
A lot of regional and “unprestigious” colleges HAVE been mentioned.
I do think that there are some people on CC who happen to work in fields where elite degrees are highly valued / the price of entry who erroneously conclude - hey, my workplace consists almost exclusively of elite grads, therefore there are 2 types of workplaces - the elite-grad workplace and the non-elite grad workplace. As opposed to the nuanced middle, where elite and non-elite grads work side by side. I think those same people - despite their elite grad status - are almost stunningly naive about the fact that people in these other fields can and do make a lot of money, and that they do “intellectual” and interesting things too.
Long Island University (Brooklyn Campus) - - Terry Semel - Former Chairman and CEO of Yahoo and before that Chairman an CEO of Warner Brothers.
I live in a very wealthy area and many of the richest people went to lesser known schools or didn’t even finish college.
Personally my Mom is friends with a Modern Family producer who she went to Syracuse with.
One thing to keep in mind is that a school may have been more elite/respectable in the past when a given alum attended than the present.
Syracuse is one good example as I heard it had a far stronger academic reputation when my older 50-something cousin attended and before than it did when I was applying to colleges in the mid-'90s or now.
Another good example is CCNY/CUNY as before the implementation of open admission and consequent rapid deterioration of academic standards in the '70s, CCNY/CUNY and graduates from the late '60s and before were considered academically elite.
This is one reason why a journalist who wrote about General Colin Powell turning down admission to NYU for CCNY with the implication that the latter was the less prestigious choice is being anachronistic as back when he was applying/attending CCNY in the mid-late '50s, CCNY was the prestigious choice whereas NYU was widely regarded as an academic safety school for CCNY/CUNY rejects. Some older neighbors/friends who attended NYU back in the '50s and early '60s were quite frank that they attended largely because their HS stats weren’t sufficient to merit admission to CCNY/CUNY back in their HS/college years.
Slightly diff theme and I might get modded out but I think relevant… but best and worst intern I’ve had…
Best CWRU, whip smart went the extra mile… Worst UPENN uninterested just ticking the box.
This makes perfect sense to me. Many of the elite graduates feel the need to follow in the steps of other elite graduates into the prestigious corporate world of business or law. If you are not elite, you have far less to lose by taking risks the elite might never take. For example. Elite law graduate works for a Big Firm in NY at a good salary but where the odds are great he will never make partner. Non-elite law school graduate can not get a good job, so starts with a small firm, learns the ropes, starts own firm and soon becomes a “super lawyer” based on trial ability and results.
Elite business law graduate goes to corporate America and gets a good but limiting job. Lower tier business graduate goes out and starts his own business. The elite don’t want to waste the prestige of their degrees and take the “prestigious” jobs. The less elite aren’t offered those jobs in the first instance so strike out on their own because they have no choice but to do so.
I am in the legal profession. The very best lawyers I know, I mean the top trial lawyers rarely went to top schools. They did it on their own.
I’m not sure what the criteria is for “prestigious” or actually “knowing” someone. I’ve met a LOT of very wealthy, famous, and successful people in my line of work, so I’m going to skip over them (many were born into wealth and privilege anyway) and focus on self-made people I knew personally:
Two guys from high school, both of whom are very successful in the performing arts world (one a playwright, the other a musician in a pretty famous band). One went to IU (Bloomington) and the other IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania).
One of my oldest friends from another high school grew up dirt poor, the youngest of three brothers. The middle brother is a multimillionaire graduate of Temple.
My husband’s stepfather was world-famous in his field and was on faculty at one of the UCs. He earned his undergrad and master’s degrees at the University of Utah and his PhD at Chicago.
BA Human Rights- Columbia
BA Sociology- Yale
Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST Robotics, and billionaire inventor. Went to Worcester Poly and dropped out. Made a fortune and influenced the lives of thousands of kids. Makes me a bit sad my S turned down WPI (for RPI which has it’s share of prestigious, in tech world).
Someone you know personally? This thread isn’t “name famous people who didn’t go to elite schools.”
I look up to my robotics professor who worked in corporate America and raked in the big bucks before settling down as a HS teacher of all things. She went to MIT.
undergrad at UC Davis grad at CSU long beach
My HS pharmacology teacher graduated from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and worked as a Psychiatrist for some years before deciding to teacher HS chemistry and related courses including the pharmacology course I took which was mostly populated by aspiring pre-meds.
Inventor of one of the first video games and on the team that developed the first nuclear bomb - Williams, Cornell.