Does college matter?

[Anonymous]

I’ve noticed that kids I knew to to be top 1% in competitive high school who went to top colleges and their peers who barely made 10% and attended average colleges are working at same companies and getting accepted at similar level grad/professional schools. Is this anecdotal or do you see it too?

[Anonymous]

Anecdotal.

There’s a reason m7 MBAs are over represented in the c-suite.

[Anonymous]

Not if you hustle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not if you hustle

Hard work is a myth

[Anonymous]

By hustle you mean sleep with or meet the right people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By hustle you mean sleep with or meet the right people?

Seriously?

[Anonymous]

Jobs often but grad schools not as much.

[Anonymous]

Bump

[Anonymous]

I used to think it does and I still do in certain circumstances but I have noticed that most of my management folks are from no name schools - literally schools that I have never heard of.

[Anonymous]

It seems academic excellence (personal or institutional) isn’t rewarded as much as high school grads and parents think or assume it would. Luck, connections and circumstances play a huge role in every person’s professional trajectory.

[Anonymous]

It depends on so many things.

If a person knows exactly what they want to do, is incredibly driven, and if that profession is one where you can be self-taught, then you have a chance at success.

However, that's not going to be most 18 year olds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems academic excellence (personal or institutional) isn’t rewarded as much as high school grads and parents think or assume it would. Luck, connections and circumstances play a huge role in every person’s professional trajectory.

Academic success matters to get to the next level of academics and/or programs that connect people with professions. No one thinks it matters aside from that.

[Anonymous]

What are you asking? Does going to college at all matter? I think yes but what I don't think is that which college you go to matters as much as parents think. For many jobs, having the college degree is a requirement but ultimately how successful someone is is based on their work not the name of the school on their diploma.

[Anonymous]

College names do help with social and professional networking. Even if you got in a good college because they needed someone for new curling team or from Nebraska to show their geographical reach, people assume you are as smart as academic admits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve noticed that kids I knew to to be top 1% in competitive high school who went to top colleges and their peers who barely made 10% and attended average colleges are working at same companies and getting accepted at similar level grad/professional schools. Is this anecdotal or do you see it too?

There are a lot of problems with your assumptions here, but the first would be that there's an enormous academic difference between the top 1% and top 10% in HS. The top 1% of a HS graduating class of 500 is 5 people. Employers recruit from a lot of schools, not just HYPS. Which isn't to say there isn't value in going to an elite school, but if you are coming back to work near where you grew up, it's not the only thing.