Degrees where college prestige matters

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if your kid has to major in the humanities - classics, literature, history, sociology - try to go to an ivy. The degree with will be likely useless, by the name of the ivy on his/her resume will not.

I still do regret studying literature, but because I did it at Yale and Harvard (BA through PhD), I managed to make the transition from academia pretty painlessly. It shocked me how much the name impressed potential employers even though I felt woefully unqualified in terms of experience. People just assumed that I was smart enough to pick up new skills and fields of knowledge very quickly.

In the 30 years I've been working (half the time for a very well known tech company), I have learned that not every smart person can do any job. People, no matter how smart they are, are not plug and play where they can pickup new skills that quickly.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, even ivy grads.

A lit. major from an ivy has a better chance of moving up and running a tech company than a code monkey. The latter are a dime a dozen from 3rd world countries. To move up, you need to be able to communicate. Can a code monkey write like a novelist? That's golden in management.

lol you definitely don't work in tech.

No one in upper management at tech companies need to write like a novelist, nor do they have degrees in literature. That's hysterical.

Most have either tech degrees or MBAs or some other business type background. There are those who have things like linguistics backgrounds for speech software, but high level tech people don't have literature degrees.

You missed the point. They need to communicate. If they can write, they will go far.

Sure, but there are no lit majors in top positions at tech companies. People who go far up the ladder have more than just the ability to write well.

The vast majority of lit majors make far less than a "code monkey".

seriously. And the term that poster users - 'code monkey' - says it all. What a dou#$@

Can you imagine that person being your manager? ....

No...unless you too are looking to get a job at Starbucks as a Barista in training.

Actually that is funny. I have a very professional degree but after finishing it in another country I really kind of got depressed and didn't want to continue that career because yes the people were very competitive and many times mean. My parents didn't want me to just do nothing so they cut off the credit cards and I had to work as a barista in a place that is very similar to Starbucks. That was probably the best lesson of my life. I thought that all these artsy fartsy kids were going to be nice; they ended up being the meanest people I've ever met especially the manager. That painful experience got my head back on straight and I finished with post-graduate work in the States and have a really great job in my career field now. I understand that what you do doesn't define you but rather who you choose to be does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read a bio of the CEO of T Rowe Price. He went to Towson then got an MBA from Wharton. Despite Wharton being the top business school on Wall Street, he still faced discrimination in finance hiring because of going to Towson.

This just made me laugh. Obviously it didn't hurt him that much.....

+1 Nonsensical example.

People are just weird (re: T Rowe Price CEO). When I was a PSU student a prominent PSU alum who worked on Wall Street came to give a talk to Honors College students. Of course a lot of attendees were interested in how to make it on Wall Street. He told them chances were poor because PSU wasn't a feeder school and he was a rare exception. Completely tone deaf. Not sure why he bothered to give a talk.

According to DCUM, PSU does place kids on Wall Street now. I have no evidence either way but know there were some barriers for my Michigan MBA classmates despite explicit recruiter on-campus presence.

The T Rowe Price guy was honestly a bit lucky to find a big hometown exec job.

While it's not what the audience wanted to hear, there's a lot of truth to what the Executive said. Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, Private Equities, and Consultancies have limited resources to assign to campus recruiting so they prioritize what schools to send their recruiting teams. Experienced hires are totally different. These firms also recognize that there are top talent at non-feeder schools and will consider those candidates, but getting into the recruiting pipeline is a lot more difficult for non-feeder schools candidates. For entry level (Analyst) positions, the ranking/prestige of undergrad is important. For higher level (Associate/Manager) positions, the prestige of the MBA is more important than undergrad.

I recruited at Ross and Wharton, the number of candidates we targeted from Wharton is a lot more than from Ross (absolute and percentage wise). I'm a Ross alum BTW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read a bio of the CEO of T Rowe Price. He went to Towson then got an MBA from Wharton. Despite Wharton being the top business school on Wall Street, he still faced discrimination in finance hiring because of going to Towson.

This just made me laugh. Obviously it didn't hurt him that much.....

+1 Nonsensical example.

People are just weird (re: T Rowe Price CEO). When I was a PSU student a prominent PSU alum who worked on Wall Street came to give a talk to Honors College students. Of course a lot of attendees were interested in how to make it on Wall Street. He told them chances were poor because PSU wasn't a feeder school and he was a rare exception. Completely tone deaf. Not sure why he bothered to give a talk.

According to DCUM, PSU does place kids on Wall Street now. I have no evidence either way but know there were some barriers for my Michigan MBA classmates despite explicit recruiter on-campus presence.

The T Rowe Price guy was honestly a bit lucky to find a big hometown exec job.

While it's not what the audience wanted to hear, there's a lot of truth to what the Executive said. Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, Private Equities, and Consultancies have limited resources to assign to campus recruiting so they prioritize what schools to send their recruiting teams. Experienced hires are totally different. These firms also recognize that there are top talent at non-feeder schools and will consider those candidates, but getting into the recruiting pipeline is a lot more difficult for non-feeder schools candidates. For entry level (Analyst) positions, the ranking/prestige of undergrad is important. For higher level (Associate/Manager) positions, the prestige of the MBA is more important than undergrad.

I recruited at Ross and Wharton, the number of candidates we targeted from Wharton is a lot more than from Ross (absolute and percentage wise). I'm a Ross alum BTW.

The other thing people don't realize is how many boutique Ibanks, hedge funds and P/E firms there are. Many of those firms are founded by Wharton, Harvard, etc. grads that used to work at GS, MS, etc.

Those firms often are only hiring maybe less than 20 undergrads each year, and they tend to take them all from the schools they know...i.e., Wharton, Harvard, etc.

There are hundreds of boutique firms like this that fly under the radar that are only hiring from 10 or fewer colleges on average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read a bio of the CEO of T Rowe Price. He went to Towson then got an MBA from Wharton. Despite Wharton being the top business school on Wall Street, he still faced discrimination in finance hiring because of going to Towson.

This just made me laugh. Obviously it didn't hurt him that much.....

+1 Nonsensical example.

People are just weird (re: T Rowe Price CEO). When I was a PSU student a prominent PSU alum who worked on Wall Street came to give a talk to Honors College students. Of course a lot of attendees were interested in how to make it on Wall Street. He told them chances were poor because PSU wasn't a feeder school and he was a rare exception. Completely tone deaf. Not sure why he bothered to give a talk.

According to DCUM, PSU does place kids on Wall Street now. I have no evidence either way but know there were some barriers for my Michigan MBA classmates despite explicit recruiter on-campus presence.

The T Rowe Price guy was honestly a bit lucky to find a big hometown exec job.

While it's not what the audience wanted to hear, there's a lot of truth to what the Executive said. Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, Private Equities, and Consultancies have limited resources to assign to campus recruiting so they prioritize what schools to send their recruiting teams. Experienced hires are totally different. These firms also recognize that there are top talent at non-feeder schools and will consider those candidates, but getting into the recruiting pipeline is a lot more difficult for non-feeder schools candidates. For entry level (Analyst) positions, the ranking/prestige of undergrad is important. For higher level (Associate/Manager) positions, the prestige of the MBA is more important than undergrad.

I recruited at Ross and Wharton, the number of candidates we targeted from Wharton is a lot more than from Ross (absolute and percentage wise). I'm a Ross alum BTW.

The other thing people don't realize is how many boutique Ibanks, hedge funds and P/E firms there are. Many of those firms are founded by Wharton, Harvard, etc. grads that used to work at GS, MS, etc.

Those firms often are only hiring maybe less than 20 undergrads each year, and they tend to take them all from the schools they know...i.e., Wharton, Harvard, etc.

There are hundreds of boutique firms like this that fly under the radar that are only hiring from 10 or fewer colleges on average.

Connections matter more than anything else these days. Even from ivies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if your kid has to major in the humanities - classics, literature, history, sociology - try to go to an ivy. The degree with will be likely useless, by the name of the ivy on his/her resume will not.

I still do regret studying literature, but because I did it at Yale and Harvard (BA through PhD), I managed to make the transition from academia pretty painlessly. It shocked me how much the name impressed potential employers even though I felt woefully unqualified in terms of experience. People just assumed that I was smart enough to pick up new skills and fields of knowledge very quickly.

In the 30 years I've been working (half the time for a very well known tech company), I have learned that not every smart person can do any job. People, no matter how smart they are, are not plug and play where they can pickup new skills that quickly.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, even ivy grads.

A lit. major from an ivy has a better chance of moving up and running a tech company than a code monkey. The latter are a dime a dozen from 3rd world countries. To move up, you need to be able to communicate. Can a code monkey write like a novelist? That's golden in management.

lol you definitely don't work in tech.

No one in upper management at tech companies need to write like a novelist, nor do they have degrees in literature. That's hysterical.

Most have either tech degrees or MBAs or some other business type background. There are those who have things like linguistics backgrounds for speech software, but high level tech people don't have literature degrees.

You missed the point. They need to communicate. If they can write, they will go far.

Sure, but there are no lit majors in top positions at tech companies. People who go far up the ladder have more than just the ability to write well.

The vast majority of lit majors make far less than a "code monkey".

seriously. And the term that poster users - 'code monkey' - says it all. What a dou#$@

Can you imagine that person being your manager? ....

No...unless you too are looking to get a job at Starbucks as a Barista in training.

The "lit major" is probably mad that such degrees are no longer considered "prestigious" or are highly paid, and that "code monkeys" get paid more than their soft lit major. They also probably didn't do well in STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the pp. I’m bored & quickly found the article I just mentioned. It’s called “Catching up is hard to do: undergraduate prestige, elite graduate programs, and the earnings premium” by Joni Hersch. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, fall 2019.

The summary of this paper seems to say it all:

Abstract
A commonly held perception is that an elite graduate degree can “scrub” a less prestigious but less costly undergraduate degree. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates from 2003 through 2017, this paper examines the relationship between the status of undergraduate degrees and earnings among those with elite post-baccalaureate degrees. Few graduates of nonselective institutions earn post-baccalaureate degrees from elite institutions, and even when they do, undergraduate institutional prestige continues to be positively related to earnings overall as well as among those with specific post-baccalaureate degrees including business, law, medicine, and doctoral. Among those who earn a graduate degree from an elite institution, the present value of the earnings advantage to having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from an elite institution generally greatly exceeds any likely cost advantage from attending a less prestigious undergraduate institution.

As others have said, correlation and causation are not the same thing. Those who attend an elite undergrad and elite grad school earn more because of who they are, not because of where they went to college.

You continue to spew that same argument...but you don't ever cite any 3rd party work that supports your "correlation and causation" argument.

Please, show us the study/analysis. The study mentioned above is extensive...perhaps you should read the entire study and decide if it supports your position or not.

I've read the study. It shows correlation, not causation. Here are the biggest problems:

1) On page 1, the author says there is "extensive evidence of a substantial premium to earning a bachelor’s degree from an elite college or university", and implies she wants to build on this literature. She waits until page 4 to tell us that the evidence in the studies she cites is correlational. Hers is, too.

2) She relegates her discussion of Dale and Krueger to a footnote, where she dismisses it as inconsequential since it focuses on elite colleges like Yale vs. highly selective colleges like Penn State instead of comparing elite colleges to the entire spectrum of other options. Yale vs. Penn State (and other comparisons like it) is the only comparison most people care about, so it's very relevant. And of all the studies she cites, Dale and Krueger gets the closest to showing causation. Plus, many of the other studies weren't even done in the US (irrelevant to us) or were done on much smaller and vastly different population comparisons (flagship universities vs. branch campuses, for instance). It doesn't seem right to cite these as evidence to support your thesis.

Her ominous conclusion implies that if you're admitted to an elite college you'd better go or you'll regret it later, but none of the real world evidence points to that. Look at where the leadership of any company in any field studied. Those with degrees from less selective colleges are represented at least as much as one would expect given that they don't get first crack at many of the most talented high school students. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.

[Anonymous]

Wherever a grad degree is isn't a necessity and entry level income is high, prestige matters but likely reason is not the colleges but because they admit high achieving students to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the pp. I’m bored & quickly found the article I just mentioned. It’s called “Catching up is hard to do: undergraduate prestige, elite graduate programs, and the earnings premium” by Joni Hersch. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, fall 2019.

The summary of this paper seems to say it all:

Abstract
A commonly held perception is that an elite graduate degree can “scrub” a less prestigious but less costly undergraduate degree. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates from 2003 through 2017, this paper examines the relationship between the status of undergraduate degrees and earnings among those with elite post-baccalaureate degrees. Few graduates of nonselective institutions earn post-baccalaureate degrees from elite institutions, and even when they do, undergraduate institutional prestige continues to be positively related to earnings overall as well as among those with specific post-baccalaureate degrees including business, law, medicine, and doctoral. Among those who earn a graduate degree from an elite institution, the present value of the earnings advantage to having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from an elite institution generally greatly exceeds any likely cost advantage from attending a less prestigious undergraduate institution.

As others have said, correlation and causation are not the same thing. Those who attend an elite undergrad and elite grad school earn more because of who they are, not because of where they went to college.

You continue to spew that same argument...but you don't ever cite any 3rd party work that supports your "correlation and causation" argument.

Please, show us the study/analysis. The study mentioned above is extensive...perhaps you should read the entire study and decide if it supports your position or not.

I've read the study. It shows correlation, not causation. Here are the biggest problems:

1) On page 1, the author says there is "extensive evidence of a substantial premium to earning a bachelor’s degree from an elite college or university", and implies she wants to build on this literature. She waits until page 4 to tell us that the evidence in the studies she cites is correlational. Hers is, too.

2) She relegates her discussion of Dale and Krueger to a footnote, where she dismisses it as inconsequential since it focuses on elite colleges like Yale vs. highly selective colleges like Penn State instead of comparing elite colleges to the entire spectrum of other options. Yale vs. Penn State (and other comparisons like it) is the only comparison most people care about, so it's very relevant. And of all the studies she cites, Dale and Krueger gets the closest to showing causation. Plus, many of the other studies weren't even done in the US (irrelevant to us) or were done on much smaller and vastly different population comparisons (flagship universities vs. branch campuses, for instance). It doesn't seem right to cite these as evidence to support your thesis.

Her ominous conclusion implies that if you're admitted to an elite college you'd better go or you'll regret it later, but none of the real world evidence points to that. Look at where the leadership of any company in any field studied. Those with degrees from less selective colleges are represented at least as much as one would expect given that they don't get first crack at many of the most talented high school students. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.

The study is 50+ pages, yet your "analysis" comprises just of something written on Page #1 and Page #4...sure you read the entire study, absorbed it and provided us an in-depth analysis. Yet the abstract (and I see no reason why the authors would have an agenda) doesn't support your position at all.

You have produced NOTHING that supports your position. Reference one similar article/study that supports your position.

Even your final example about leadership can't be supported.

Again...find one independent study that supports your position and post it here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will play:

Nursing-absolutely not, same salaries for Ivy or CC trained nurses, same options for NP/PA school(many which are online).

Lawyers--seems this one is the most important to land high paying jobs, though still think being connected(through family or friends) and good social skills come a long way

Medicine-absolutely not, MD/DO the same, i guess if you are a cash pay derm/psych r plastic surgeon and Ivy will get you more customers but charisma. how you do your work and patient referrals do more for you.

Social work--not really-cash pay patients seeing online degree therapists also a thing here, more about your marketing skills than therapy skills.

Nursing -- correctish. You can get higher paying jobs from top programs in specialties that are not open to most.

Lawyers -- connected not a help at all in biglaw. They have taken that all out of the process. If a partner came and said take a look at kid X he is a family friend, most firms would not look at or would and dismiss. Law school and law school grades most important. Undergrad secondary but still counts when interviewing.

Medicine -- agree

Social work ---- agree but when it comes to running non-profits, donors are still impressed with a Harvard or Stanford.

+1. True about law firms - if you have ever worked for the biggest (and also the top, BTW) law firms in the metropolitan areas, you know that they only hire from certain schools - but you know know that before you even step foot in law school.

This statement is quickly refuted by looking at the bios of the attorneys at any law firm. Nobody hires 'only from certain schools'.

I worked at Davis Polk. The list of law schools was longer than I would have thought, but the firm did prefer certain schools. Going to a top law school clearly is an advantage at a firm of that caliber.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will play:

Nursing-absolutely not, same salaries for Ivy or CC trained nurses, same options for NP/PA school(many which are online).

Lawyers--seems this one is the most important to land high paying jobs, though still think being connected(through family or friends) and good social skills come a long way

Medicine-absolutely not, MD/DO the same, i guess if you are a cash pay derm/psych r plastic surgeon and Ivy will get you more customers but charisma. how you do your work and patient referrals do more for you.

Social work--not really-cash pay patients seeing online degree therapists also a thing here, more about your marketing skills than therapy skills.

Nursing -- correctish. You can get higher paying jobs from top programs in specialties that are not open to most.

Lawyers -- connected not a help at all in biglaw. They have taken that all out of the process. If a partner came and said take a look at kid X he is a family friend, most firms would not look at or would and dismiss. Law school and law school grades most important. Undergrad secondary but still counts when interviewing.

Medicine -- agree

Social work ---- agree but when it comes to running non-profits, donors are still impressed with a Harvard or Stanford.

+1. True about law firms - if you have ever worked for the biggest (and also the top, BTW) law firms in the metropolitan areas, you know that they only hire from certain schools - but you know know that before you even step foot in law school.

This statement is quickly refuted by looking at the bios of the attorneys at any law firm. Nobody hires 'only from certain schools'.

I worked at Davis Polk. The list of law schools was longer than I would have thought, but the firm did prefer certain schools. Going to a top law school clearly is an advantage at a firm of that caliber.

Do they prefer certain schools, or are they just in a position to hire only the very best? Because it makes sense that the very best would be found mostly at the most selective law schools, since those schools get first choice of most of the strongest undergraduate talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the pp. I’m bored & quickly found the article I just mentioned. It’s called “Catching up is hard to do: undergraduate prestige, elite graduate programs, and the earnings premium” by Joni Hersch. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, fall 2019.

The summary of this paper seems to say it all:

Abstract
A commonly held perception is that an elite graduate degree can “scrub” a less prestigious but less costly undergraduate degree. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates from 2003 through 2017, this paper examines the relationship between the status of undergraduate degrees and earnings among those with elite post-baccalaureate degrees. Few graduates of nonselective institutions earn post-baccalaureate degrees from elite institutions, and even when they do, undergraduate institutional prestige continues to be positively related to earnings overall as well as among those with specific post-baccalaureate degrees including business, law, medicine, and doctoral. Among those who earn a graduate degree from an elite institution, the present value of the earnings advantage to having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from an elite institution generally greatly exceeds any likely cost advantage from attending a less prestigious undergraduate institution.

As others have said, correlation and causation are not the same thing. Those who attend an elite undergrad and elite grad school earn more because of who they are, not because of where they went to college.

You continue to spew that same argument...but you don't ever cite any 3rd party work that supports your "correlation and causation" argument.

Please, show us the study/analysis. The study mentioned above is extensive...perhaps you should read the entire study and decide if it supports your position or not.

I've read the study. It shows correlation, not causation. Here are the biggest problems:

1) On page 1, the author says there is "extensive evidence of a substantial premium to earning a bachelor’s degree from an elite college or university", and implies she wants to build on this literature. She waits until page 4 to tell us that the evidence in the studies she cites is correlational. Hers is, too.

2) She relegates her discussion of Dale and Krueger to a footnote, where she dismisses it as inconsequential since it focuses on elite colleges like Yale vs. highly selective colleges like Penn State instead of comparing elite colleges to the entire spectrum of other options. Yale vs. Penn State (and other comparisons like it) is the only comparison most people care about, so it's very relevant. And of all the studies she cites, Dale and Krueger gets the closest to showing causation. Plus, many of the other studies weren't even done in the US (irrelevant to us) or were done on much smaller and vastly different population comparisons (flagship universities vs. branch campuses, for instance). It doesn't seem right to cite these as evidence to support your thesis.

Her ominous conclusion implies that if you're admitted to an elite college you'd better go or you'll regret it later, but none of the real world evidence points to that. Look at where the leadership of any company in any field studied. Those with degrees from less selective colleges are represented at least as much as one would expect given that they don't get first crack at many of the most talented high school students. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.

The study is 50+ pages, yet your "analysis" comprises just of something written on Page #1 and Page #4...sure you read the entire study, absorbed it and provided us an in-depth analysis. Yet the abstract (and I see no reason why the authors would have an agenda) doesn't support your position at all.

You have produced NOTHING that supports your position. Reference one similar article/study that supports your position.

Even your final example about leadership can't be supported.

Again...find one independent study that supports your position and post it here.

I did not claim I was giving a thorough analysis. I have other things I do with my time other than respond to angry, contemptuous, condescending posters on an anonymous forum who insist on proof from those who disagree with them, but then won't recognize as legitimate whatever response is provided.

Dale and Krueger is the most recognized study in this realm. It supports my position.

Anyone reading this can (and is encouraged to) look at the leadership teams of whatever there favorite companies are in their field of interest. I'm confused why you say that can't be supported when the evidence is available for anyone to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will play:

Nursing-absolutely not, same salaries for Ivy or CC trained nurses, same options for NP/PA school(many which are online).

Lawyers--seems this one is the most important to land high paying jobs, though still think being connected(through family or friends) and good social skills come a long way

Medicine-absolutely not, MD/DO the same, i guess if you are a cash pay derm/psych r plastic surgeon and Ivy will get you more customers but charisma. how you do your work and patient referrals do more for you.

Social work--not really-cash pay patients seeing online degree therapists also a thing here, more about your marketing skills than therapy skills.

Nursing -- correctish. You can get higher paying jobs from top programs in specialties that are not open to most.

Lawyers -- connected not a help at all in biglaw. They have taken that all out of the process. If a partner came and said take a look at kid X he is a family friend, most firms would not look at or would and dismiss. Law school and law school grades most important. Undergrad secondary but still counts when interviewing.

Medicine -- agree

Social work ---- agree but when it comes to running non-profits, donors are still impressed with a Harvard or Stanford.

+1. True about law firms - if you have ever worked for the biggest (and also the top, BTW) law firms in the metropolitan areas, you know that they only hire from certain schools - but you know know that before you even step foot in law school.

This statement is quickly refuted by looking at the bios of the attorneys at any law firm. Nobody hires 'only from certain schools'.

I worked at Davis Polk. The list of law schools was longer than I would have thought, but the firm did prefer certain schools. Going to a top law school clearly is an advantage at a firm of that caliber.

Do they prefer certain schools, or are they just in a position to hire only the very best? Because it makes sense that the very best would be found mostly at the most selective law schools, since those schools get first choice of most of the strongest undergraduate talent.

DP. Both, I guess, but law school ranking is used by these firms as a proxy for “the very best.” Big law is notoriously elitist with respect to law school credentials and firms mostly/preferentially hire from T14 schools. They typically only participate in formal recruiting (OCI) at T14 schools. They do hire non-T14 students, but those students are typically stars at their schools and/or have some sort of connection to the firm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the pp. I’m bored & quickly found the article I just mentioned. It’s called “Catching up is hard to do: undergraduate prestige, elite graduate programs, and the earnings premium” by Joni Hersch. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, fall 2019.

The summary of this paper seems to say it all:

Abstract
A commonly held perception is that an elite graduate degree can “scrub” a less prestigious but less costly undergraduate degree. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates from 2003 through 2017, this paper examines the relationship between the status of undergraduate degrees and earnings among those with elite post-baccalaureate degrees. Few graduates of nonselective institutions earn post-baccalaureate degrees from elite institutions, and even when they do, undergraduate institutional prestige continues to be positively related to earnings overall as well as among those with specific post-baccalaureate degrees including business, law, medicine, and doctoral. Among those who earn a graduate degree from an elite institution, the present value of the earnings advantage to having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from an elite institution generally greatly exceeds any likely cost advantage from attending a less prestigious undergraduate institution.

As others have said, correlation and causation are not the same thing. Those who attend an elite undergrad and elite grad school earn more because of who they are, not because of where they went to college.

You continue to spew that same argument...but you don't ever cite any 3rd party work that supports your "correlation and causation" argument.

Please, show us the study/analysis. The study mentioned above is extensive...perhaps you should read the entire study and decide if it supports your position or not.

I've read the study. It shows correlation, not causation. Here are the biggest problems:

1) On page 1, the author says there is "extensive evidence of a substantial premium to earning a bachelor’s degree from an elite college or university", and implies she wants to build on this literature. She waits until page 4 to tell us that the evidence in the studies she cites is correlational. Hers is, too.

2) She relegates her discussion of Dale and Krueger to a footnote, where she dismisses it as inconsequential since it focuses on elite colleges like Yale vs. highly selective colleges like Penn State instead of comparing elite colleges to the entire spectrum of other options. Yale vs. Penn State (and other comparisons like it) is the only comparison most people care about, so it's very relevant. And of all the studies she cites, Dale and Krueger gets the closest to showing causation. Plus, many of the other studies weren't even done in the US (irrelevant to us) or were done on much smaller and vastly different population comparisons (flagship universities vs. branch campuses, for instance). It doesn't seem right to cite these as evidence to support your thesis.

Her ominous conclusion implies that if you're admitted to an elite college you'd better go or you'll regret it later, but none of the real world evidence points to that. Look at where the leadership of any company in any field studied. Those with degrees from less selective colleges are represented at least as much as one would expect given that they don't get first crack at many of the most talented high school students. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.

The study is 50+ pages, yet your "analysis" comprises just of something written on Page #1 and Page #4...sure you read the entire study, absorbed it and provided us an in-depth analysis. Yet the abstract (and I see no reason why the authors would have an agenda) doesn't support your position at all.

You have produced NOTHING that supports your position. Reference one similar article/study that supports your position.

Even your final example about leadership can't be supported.

Again...find one independent study that supports your position and post it here.

I did not claim I was giving a thorough analysis. I have other things I do with my time other than respond to angry, contemptuous, condescending posters on an anonymous forum who insist on proof from those who disagree with them, but then won't recognize as legitimate whatever response is provided.

Dale and Krueger is the most recognized study in this realm. It supports my position.

Anyone reading this can (and is encouraged to) look at the leadership teams of whatever there favorite companies are in their field of interest. I'm confused why you say that can't be supported when the evidence is available for anyone to see.

So you admit you are just a blowhard that loves to scream "it's correlation not causation" to anything you can shake a stick at. You have nothing to support it. Glad we agree on that.

Dale and Krueger does not support your position. Dale and Krueger says a kid that was accepted to Yale but attends Penn State AND graduated in the top of the class at Penn State performs the same financially as the AVERAGE Yale graduate. It's actually not a great conclusion that the Penn State kid has to be in top 5% of Penn State grads just to achieve what the average Yale grad has achieved.

Let's look at your "favorite" companies example, because once more, it doesn't support your thesis. 12% of all Fortune 500 companies have a CEO that went to an Ivy League college for undergrad (this is not counting Ivy MBAs, JDS, etc.). Think about that, just 8 schools out of 3,000 4 year residential schools (0.2% of all 4-year residential schools) produce 12% of Fortune 500 company CEOs. If you look at Top 25 schools, you get to like 35% of all Fortune 500 CEOs. Again, that is a massive skew towards top schools.

But sure...just keep screaming "correlation isn't causation" into the wind, because that's what you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the pp. I’m bored & quickly found the article I just mentioned. It’s called “Catching up is hard to do: undergraduate prestige, elite graduate programs, and the earnings premium” by Joni Hersch. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, fall 2019.

The summary of this paper seems to say it all:

Abstract
A commonly held perception is that an elite graduate degree can “scrub” a less prestigious but less costly undergraduate degree. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates from 2003 through 2017, this paper examines the relationship between the status of undergraduate degrees and earnings among those with elite post-baccalaureate degrees. Few graduates of nonselective institutions earn post-baccalaureate degrees from elite institutions, and even when they do, undergraduate institutional prestige continues to be positively related to earnings overall as well as among those with specific post-baccalaureate degrees including business, law, medicine, and doctoral. Among those who earn a graduate degree from an elite institution, the present value of the earnings advantage to having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from an elite institution generally greatly exceeds any likely cost advantage from attending a less prestigious undergraduate institution.

As others have said, correlation and causation are not the same thing. Those who attend an elite undergrad and elite grad school earn more because of who they are, not because of where they went to college.

You continue to spew that same argument...but you don't ever cite any 3rd party work that supports your "correlation and causation" argument.

Please, show us the study/analysis. The study mentioned above is extensive...perhaps you should read the entire study and decide if it supports your position or not.

I've read the study. It shows correlation, not causation. Here are the biggest problems:

1) On page 1, the author says there is "extensive evidence of a substantial premium to earning a bachelor’s degree from an elite college or university", and implies she wants to build on this literature. She waits until page 4 to tell us that the evidence in the studies she cites is correlational. Hers is, too.

2) She relegates her discussion of Dale and Krueger to a footnote, where she dismisses it as inconsequential since it focuses on elite colleges like Yale vs. highly selective colleges like Penn State instead of comparing elite colleges to the entire spectrum of other options. Yale vs. Penn State (and other comparisons like it) is the only comparison most people care about, so it's very relevant. And of all the studies she cites, Dale and Krueger gets the closest to showing causation. Plus, many of the other studies weren't even done in the US (irrelevant to us) or were done on much smaller and vastly different population comparisons (flagship universities vs. branch campuses, for instance). It doesn't seem right to cite these as evidence to support your thesis.

Her ominous conclusion implies that if you're admitted to an elite college you'd better go or you'll regret it later, but none of the real world evidence points to that. Look at where the leadership of any company in any field studied. Those with degrees from less selective colleges are represented at least as much as one would expect given that they don't get first crack at many of the most talented high school students. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.

The study is 50+ pages, yet your "analysis" comprises just of something written on Page #1 and Page #4...sure you read the entire study, absorbed it and provided us an in-depth analysis. Yet the abstract (and I see no reason why the authors would have an agenda) doesn't support your position at all.

You have produced NOTHING that supports your position. Reference one similar article/study that supports your position.

Even your final example about leadership can't be supported.

Again...find one independent study that supports your position and post it here.

I did not claim I was giving a thorough analysis. I have other things I do with my time other than respond to angry, contemptuous, condescending posters on an anonymous forum who insist on proof from those who disagree with them, but then won't recognize as legitimate whatever response is provided.

Dale and Krueger is the most recognized study in this realm. It supports my position.

Anyone reading this can (and is encouraged to) look at the leadership teams of whatever there favorite companies are in their field of interest. I'm confused why you say that can't be supported when the evidence is available for anyone to see.

So you admit you are just a blowhard that loves to scream "it's correlation not causation" to anything you can shake a stick at. You have nothing to support it. Glad we agree on that.

Dale and Krueger does not support your position. Dale and Krueger says a kid that was accepted to Yale but attends Penn State AND graduated in the top of the class at Penn State performs the same financially as the AVERAGE Yale graduate. It's actually not a great conclusion that the Penn State kid has to be in top 5% of Penn State grads just to achieve what the average Yale grad has achieved.

Let's look at your "favorite" companies example, because once more, it doesn't support your thesis. 12% of all Fortune 500 companies have a CEO that went to an Ivy League college for undergrad (this is not counting Ivy MBAs, JDS, etc.). Think about that, just 8 schools out of 3,000 4 year residential schools (0.2% of all 4-year residential schools) produce 12% of Fortune 500 company CEOs. If you look at Top 25 schools, you get to like 35% of all Fortune 500 CEOs. Again, that is a massive skew towards top schools.

But sure...just keep screaming "correlation isn't causation" into the wind, because that's what you do.

Your logic is deeply flawed. If you seemed like a nice person who genuinely wanted to understand what I'm saying, I'd take the time to explain. You don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the pp. I’m bored & quickly found the article I just mentioned. It’s called “Catching up is hard to do: undergraduate prestige, elite graduate programs, and the earnings premium” by Joni Hersch. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, fall 2019.

The summary of this paper seems to say it all:

Abstract
A commonly held perception is that an elite graduate degree can “scrub” a less prestigious but less costly undergraduate degree. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates from 2003 through 2017, this paper examines the relationship between the status of undergraduate degrees and earnings among those with elite post-baccalaureate degrees. Few graduates of nonselective institutions earn post-baccalaureate degrees from elite institutions, and even when they do, undergraduate institutional prestige continues to be positively related to earnings overall as well as among those with specific post-baccalaureate degrees including business, law, medicine, and doctoral. Among those who earn a graduate degree from an elite institution, the present value of the earnings advantage to having both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from an elite institution generally greatly exceeds any likely cost advantage from attending a less prestigious undergraduate institution.

As others have said, correlation and causation are not the same thing. Those who attend an elite undergrad and elite grad school earn more because of who they are, not because of where they went to college.

You continue to spew that same argument...but you don't ever cite any 3rd party work that supports your "correlation and causation" argument.

Please, show us the study/analysis. The study mentioned above is extensive...perhaps you should read the entire study and decide if it supports your position or not.

I've read the study. It shows correlation, not causation. Here are the biggest problems:

1) On page 1, the author says there is "extensive evidence of a substantial premium to earning a bachelor’s degree from an elite college or university", and implies she wants to build on this literature. She waits until page 4 to tell us that the evidence in the studies she cites is correlational. Hers is, too.

2) She relegates her discussion of Dale and Krueger to a footnote, where she dismisses it as inconsequential since it focuses on elite colleges like Yale vs. highly selective colleges like Penn State instead of comparing elite colleges to the entire spectrum of other options. Yale vs. Penn State (and other comparisons like it) is the only comparison most people care about, so it's very relevant. And of all the studies she cites, Dale and Krueger gets the closest to showing causation. Plus, many of the other studies weren't even done in the US (irrelevant to us) or were done on much smaller and vastly different population comparisons (flagship universities vs. branch campuses, for instance). It doesn't seem right to cite these as evidence to support your thesis.

Her ominous conclusion implies that if you're admitted to an elite college you'd better go or you'll regret it later, but none of the real world evidence points to that. Look at where the leadership of any company in any field studied. Those with degrees from less selective colleges are represented at least as much as one would expect given that they don't get first crack at many of the most talented high school students. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many.

The study is 50+ pages, yet your "analysis" comprises just of something written on Page #1 and Page #4...sure you read the entire study, absorbed it and provided us an in-depth analysis. Yet the abstract (and I see no reason why the authors would have an agenda) doesn't support your position at all.

You have produced NOTHING that supports your position. Reference one similar article/study that supports your position.

Even your final example about leadership can't be supported.

Again...find one independent study that supports your position and post it here.

I did not claim I was giving a thorough analysis. I have other things I do with my time other than respond to angry, contemptuous, condescending posters on an anonymous forum who insist on proof from those who disagree with them, but then won't recognize as legitimate whatever response is provided.

Dale and Krueger is the most recognized study in this realm. It supports my position.

Anyone reading this can (and is encouraged to) look at the leadership teams of whatever there favorite companies are in their field of interest. I'm confused why you say that can't be supported when the evidence is available for anyone to see.

So you admit you are just a blowhard that loves to scream "it's correlation not causation" to anything you can shake a stick at. You have nothing to support it. Glad we agree on that.

Dale and Krueger does not support your position. Dale and Krueger says a kid that was accepted to Yale but attends Penn State AND graduated in the top of the class at Penn State performs the same financially as the AVERAGE Yale graduate. It's actually not a great conclusion that the Penn State kid has to be in top 5% of Penn State grads just to achieve what the average Yale grad has achieved.

Let's look at your "favorite" companies example, because once more, it doesn't support your thesis. 12% of all Fortune 500 companies have a CEO that went to an Ivy League college for undergrad (this is not counting Ivy MBAs, JDS, etc.). Think about that, just 8 schools out of 3,000 4 year residential schools (0.2% of all 4-year residential schools) produce 12% of Fortune 500 company CEOs. If you look at Top 25 schools, you get to like 35% of all Fortune 500 CEOs. Again, that is a massive skew towards top schools.

But sure...just keep screaming "correlation isn't causation" into the wind, because that's what you do.

Your logic is deeply flawed. If you seemed like a nice person who genuinely wanted to understand what I'm saying, I'd take the time to explain. You don't.

That's what people who have no actual leg to stand on post...glad you admit you are beat.

Now go scream out the window "correlation isn't causation".