Why do people insist that their kid can always "go to an Ivy for grad school?"

[Anonymous]

What is this nonsense about what “the DMV” costs? A significant majority of the households in the greater DC area make less than $180k. I don’t think I need to plan my kid’s career based on him trying to live in McLean or Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the major and end goal.

Grad school is much easier to get in.

Only stupid people would pay a lot of money for grad school

smart people get free tuition and stipend for grad school (admittedly, still less $$ than market job)

It’s not liveable anymore.

This depends on the field and the person and how they use their degree.

The stipend is not enough to live on.

Yeah -- have you seen the grad student strikes across the country?

Choose wisely when choosing grad programs..... if you choose a program in an expensive city then you will likely need loans. No strikes from my university. Funding is adequate there and degree is very marketable - just on school name alone.

This doesn't make sense. Harvard PhDs have a hard time finding jobs if their PhD was in something useless like English. School name alone is nowhere near enough.

But this is why subject matters. A Harvard PhD in Econ or a hard science will likely do great. And neither will have paid for a Harvard degree other than the opportunity cost of income lost in their time there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is this nonsense about what “the DMV” costs? A significant majority of the households in the greater DC area make less than $180k. I don’t think I need to plan my kid’s career based on him trying to live in McLean or Bethesda.

Yeah it’s hilarious. There are any number of GMU and JMU grade living comfortable and affluent lifestyles in DC metro area. Little do they realize the long odds they beat to do this without an Ivy League diploma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have a very narrow view of grad school.

My sister went to Harvard. She went to a large state school for her graduate program because she was looking at the best PROGRAM for her course of study, not name prestige. Within her field, the university she got her PhD from is incredibly well known because the people who run her program are famous in their field.

Not everyone is going to law school or getting an MBA. Some people are actual scholars!

I’m glad someone posted this before I finished perusing the responses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the major and end goal.

Grad school is much easier to get in.

Only stupid people would pay a lot of money for grad school

smart people get free tuition and stipend for grad school (admittedly, still less $$ than market job)

It’s not liveable anymore.

What is "livable" to you? When I was in grad school I found work outside of school to cover the extras and received a fellowship to cover tuition. You have three choices, make it work, don't do it, or complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of people on this board myopically insist that undergrad prestige doesn't matter and that their kid can go to an Ivy for grad school. This seems misguided. The top firms only recruit from Ivies and other T20 schools. Going to an HYPSM for undergrad will increase your odds of landing at one of them.

If you go to an elite school and do everything right, you don't even need to go to grad school. The people on here saying that their kids at a state school or some no-name SLAC can "always go to an Ivy for grad school" seem misguided. Not all grad schools pay off. I had a woman in my neighborhood say the same thing -- her daughter went to a selective but not elite SLAC, and her mom insisted that her college education paid off since she's at Columbia for her PhD in History. Ummm.... hello?!!!! A PhD in the humanities is the LAST thing I would want my kid to do.

Lucky it's not your kid then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the major and end goal.

Grad school is much easier to get in.

Only stupid people would pay a lot of money for grad school

smart people get free tuition and stipend for grad school (admittedly, still less $$ than market job)

It’s not liveable anymore.

What is "livable" to you? When I was in grad school I found work outside of school to cover the extras and received a fellowship to cover tuition. You have three choices, make it work, don't do it, or complain.

Key phrase is bolded. Stipends have not kept up with COL. Lots of university strikes across North America recently.

[Anonymous]

Working at a top firm early on is a good way to get burned out early in your career. True wealth and independence is in young and middle market companies. The ones that get bought out by the “top firms”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the major and end goal.

Grad school is much easier to get in.

Only stupid people would pay a lot of money for grad school

smart people get free tuition and stipend for grad school (admittedly, still less $$ than market job)

It’s not liveable anymore.

This depends on the field and the person and how they use their degree.

The stipend is not enough to live on.

Yeah -- have you seen the grad student strikes across the country?

Misguided kids without any other direction yet wasting their most productive years in the classroom.
There is a huge PhD glut, that's why the tenure track jobs are drying up (adjuncts are cheaper!). The grad students who are unionizing for higher pay to lead undergrad classes don't seem to understand it is a temporary apprenticeship. Universities have set term limits on how long one can dawdle unproductively in a phd program. So they have to hurry it up and finish the program then start job hunting at small regional colleges that might pay them enough to live in a trailer.
Read about the English lit teacher who basically lives in her car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the major and end goal.

Grad school is much easier to get in.

Only stupid people would pay a lot of money for grad school

smart people get free tuition and stipend for grad school (admittedly, still less $$ than market job)

It’s not liveable anymore.

This depends on the field and the person and how they use their degree.

The stipend is not enough to live on.

Yeah -- have you seen the grad student strikes across the country?

Misguided kids without any other direction yet wasting their most productive years in the classroom.
There is a huge PhD glut, that's why the tenure track jobs are drying up (adjuncts are cheaper!). The grad students who are unionizing for higher pay to lead undergrad classes don't seem to understand it is a temporary apprenticeship. Universities have set term limits on how long one can dawdle unproductively in a phd program. So they have to hurry it up and finish the program then start job hunting at small regional colleges that might pay them enough to live in a trailer.
Read about the English lit teacher who basically lives in her car.

Your bit about the tenure track jobs varies quite a bit by subject. In CS, for example, universities are tripping over themselves to attract professors — the subject is much more popular at the undergrad level than PhD, and many CS PhDs would rather go into industry. (For example: UVA has seven tenure-track CS openings available, according to their hiring website.) English lit may be a vastly different story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the major and end goal.

Grad school is much easier to get in.

Only stupid people would pay a lot of money for grad school

smart people get free tuition and stipend for grad school (admittedly, still less $$ than market job)

It’s not liveable anymore.

This depends on the field and the person and how they use their degree.

The stipend is not enough to live on.

Yeah -- have you seen the grad student strikes across the country?

Misguided kids without any other direction yet wasting their most productive years in the classroom.
There is a huge PhD glut, that's why the tenure track jobs are drying up (adjuncts are cheaper!). The grad students who are unionizing for higher pay to lead undergrad classes don't seem to understand it is a temporary apprenticeship. Universities have set term limits on how long one can dawdle unproductively in a phd program. So they have to hurry it up and finish the program then start job hunting at small regional colleges that might pay them enough to live in a trailer.
Read about the English lit teacher who basically lives in her car.

Curious, do you feel this way about every labor strike?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of people on this board myopically insist that undergrad prestige doesn't matter and that their kid can go to an Ivy for grad school. This seems misguided. The top firms only recruit from Ivies and other T20 schools. Going to an HYPSM for undergrad will increase your odds of landing at one of them.

If you go to an elite school and do everything right, you don't even need to go to grad school. The people on here saying that their kids at a state school or some no-name SLAC can "always go to an Ivy for grad school" seem misguided. Not all grad schools pay off. I had a woman in my neighborhood say the same thing -- her daughter went to a selective but not elite SLAC, and her mom insisted that her college education paid off since she's at Columbia for her PhD in History. Ummm.... hello?!!!! A PhD in the humanities is the LAST thing I would want my kid to do.

It's a cope. Many (most?) Ivy grad schools are just degree mill scams. Nobody is going to think your kid has "pedigree" because they have a bachelor's from Tailgate State and an MPA from Penn or a random master's from Columbia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The whole premise of OP's statement is wrong. It's been demonstrated ad nauseum by many people that top firms want top people, not diplomas from colleges everyone has heard of. Here's a list of references. I'd love to see OP's support for their statement.

Dale and Kruger, a peer-reviewed study of outcomes for college grads comparing elite colleges to their backups.

Less High School Stress (website cited frequently on DCUM with tons of data looking at this from multiple angles.

LinkedIn, on which anyone can do their own research and see from which colleges any firm is hiring.

Harvard Schmarvard (book by Jay Mathews)

Where You Go is not Who You'll Be (book by Frank Bruni)

Numerous DCUM threads.

Lol. Bruni grew up rich and graduated from an elite boarding school (Loomis Chaffee). That alone made him pedigreed. He allegedly only went to UNC because it was 100% free. I think he turned down Yale? Then he went to Columbia for their journalism master's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole premise of OP's statement is wrong. It's been demonstrated ad nauseum by many people that top firms want top people, not diplomas from colleges everyone has heard of. Here's a list of references. I'd love to see OP's support for their statement.

Dale and Kruger, a peer-reviewed study of outcomes for college grads comparing elite colleges to their backups.

Less High School Stress (website cited frequently on DCUM with tons of data looking at this from multiple angles.

LinkedIn, on which anyone can do their own research and see from which colleges any firm is hiring.

Harvard Schmarvard (book by Jay Mathews)

Where You Go is not Who You'll Be (book by Frank Bruni)

Numerous DCUM threads.

Lol. Bruni grew up rich and graduated from an elite boarding school (Loomis Chaffee). That alone made him pedigreed. He allegedly only went to UNC because it was 100% free. I think he turned down Yale? Then he went to Columbia for their journalism master's.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of people on this board myopically insist that undergrad prestige doesn't matter and that their kid can go to an Ivy for grad school. This seems misguided. The top firms only recruit from Ivies and other T20 schools. Going to an HYPSM for undergrad will increase your odds of landing at one of them.

If you go to an elite school and do everything right, you don't even need to go to grad school. The people on here saying that their kids at a state school or some no-name SLAC can "always go to an Ivy for grad school" seem misguided. Not all grad schools pay off. I had a woman in my neighborhood say the same thing -- her daughter went to a selective but not elite SLAC, and her mom insisted that her college education paid off since she's at Columbia for her PhD in History. Ummm.... hello?!!!! A PhD in the humanities is the LAST thing I would want my kid to do.

It's a cope. Many (most?) Ivy grad schools are just degree mill scams. Nobody is going to think your kid has "pedigree" because they have a bachelor's from Tailgate State and an MPA from Penn or a random master's from Columbia.

Let's face it: Columbia undergrad degree idoesn"t confer "pedigree" either. Neither does Penn, Northwestern and their ilk.

HYPSM undergrad, on the other hand, are prestigious enough that they're worth paying for.