I find it annoying when people get on here and say it really doesn't matter where your kid goes

[Anonymous]

It's like, why are you on here then?

People are trying to make choices. Sure it may not be life or death, but to be like, it doesn't matter, do whatever, are you really adding value?

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

Amen!

[Anonymous]

I think when people say it "doesn't matter", there's an unspoken caveat, that it doesn't matter within a larger-than-you-think pool of schools. Yes, there absolutely are schools that I would not want my kid to go to. Poor retention rate, crappy graduation rate. Can't get classes so you have to go for 5 years to get a degree that would be 4 years elsewhere.

At the same time, I believe it doesn't matter if my kid goes to the #30 ranked university vs. the #80.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

There are a group of employers that for all intents and purposes essentially only recruit from the top 10 schools. I agree there are also plenty of employers that don’t waste their time recruiting from those schools as well.

It’s more than just “bonus” points.

I actually believe there are many employers in tech that don’t care if you go to college at all. My kid interned at an AI company that raised $50MM+ of VC and 1/3 of the company didn’t go to college.

[Anonymous]

I’m one of the posters who think it doesn’t matter and I’m on here a lot. My kid will still go somewhere, preferably to a place not that stressful that’s a nice place to live and not a pressure cooker. I’m here to find out about those little schools I hadn’t heard about that aren’t high in the rankings. We have looked at a lot of websites of places that I first heard about on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

For some kids, it doesn’t really matter. The parents of those kids are the ones on here saying that. Not a judgement.

[Anonymous]

It seems implausible that so many people are making such a fuss and paying such a premium over nothing. Markets are generally very efficient. But for some reason here people are inexplicably wasting their time and money. I think it may ultimately matter more than people think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

There are a group of employers that for all intents and purposes essentially only recruit from the top 10 schools. I agree there are also plenty of employers that don’t waste their time recruiting from those schools as well.

It’s more than just “bonus” points.

I actually believe there are many employers in tech that don’t care if you go to college at all. My kid interned at an AI company that raised $50MM+ of VC and 1/3 of the company didn’t go to college.

If you are talking about big banks and consulting, I would venture to argue that these are the jobs and institutions that are sucking the wealth from the bottom half of the population and perpetuating the wealth gap. It is all so ironic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

There are a group of employers that for all intents and purposes essentially only recruit from the top 10 schools. I agree there are also plenty of employers that don’t waste their time recruiting from those schools as well.

It’s more than just “bonus” points.

I actually believe there are many employers in tech that don’t care if you go to college at all. My kid interned at an AI company that raised $50MM+ of VC and 1/3 of the company didn’t go to college.

If you are talking about big banks and consulting, I would venture to argue that these are the jobs and institutions that are sucking the wealth from the bottom half of the population and perpetuating the wealth gap. It is all so ironic.

No…VC funds, boutique investment banks…they don’t comprise a significant number of jobs but their hiring is very insular.

[Anonymous]

I don't care if my kid goes a school in the top 20 or top 30 or top 50. As long as its the right school for them, it REALLY doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m one of the posters who think it doesn’t matter and I’m on here a lot. My kid will still go somewhere, preferably to a place not that stressful that’s a nice place to live and not a pressure cooker. I’m here to find out about those little schools I hadn’t heard about that aren’t high in the rankings. We have looked at a lot of websites of places that I first heard about on DCUM.

Are you really saying that prestige doesn’t matter? It sounds like you care a lot about your kid, and want the educational setting that will be best for THEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

I'm sorry but I just don't agree that this applies to everyone. The assumption that wealth & eduction correlates with Middle class white culture is so off-putting. I'm asian and a child of immigrants- I've seen way too many successful lives destroyed by events that would never be life 'destroyers' for their white peers b/c of a lack of exposure to ideas/UMC ways of doing things and confidence. The difference that going to a top ten law school would make for my kid even though their parents are lawyers will be much much bigger than it is for your kids and there are plenty of immigrants, brown and black people and even first generation college grad white posters here and we know better than you how social mobility works b/c its something we have experienced for ourselves, not just read about in the Atlantic and VOX. I've seen first hand the difference in girls who go to George mason vs. even UVA/George Washington and what they've gone on to do with their lives. Exposure to a wider set of possibilities and the self concept that you are one of the ppl who should be applying to post docs at Magdalen college and MS at LSE and opening businesses with friends you met at NYU Beijing are vastly different than a fed contractor driving to target and their home in Burke with no USAID/FSO posting in sight day after miserable day. Many ppl on here have benefited from their superior merit and work ethic and want make sure that their kids move that one rung up to having even more choices and possibilities when their grandparents struggled and sacrificed. That is what ppl move here for, if I wanted to keep treading water, my father should've stayed home and not left his family and everyone he held dear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

There are a group of employers that for all intents and purposes essentially only recruit from the top 10 schools. I agree there are also plenty of employers that don’t waste their time recruiting from those schools as well.

It’s more than just “bonus” points.

I actually believe there are many employers in tech that don’t care if you go to college at all. My kid interned at an AI company that raised $50MM+ of VC and 1/3 of the company didn’t go to college.

If you are talking about big banks and consulting, I would venture to argue that these are the jobs and institutions that are sucking the wealth from the bottom half of the population and perpetuating the wealth gap. It is all so ironic.

+1 I generally think it "doesn't matter" because I work with people from all kinds of schools and know lots of successful people who went to lots of kinds of schools. But I acknowledge I don't work in IB or big consulting. I also have no interest in doing so and my kids don't either. So those firms' recruiting practices are really irrelevant. Still, FWIW, my kid goes to VT and I've seen companies people on here swear only hire from certain schools on the list of first employers for VT students. So, yeah, I take that with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

It doesn’t matter lol