UVA with Jefferson Scholarship vs Harvard

[Anonymous]

You will never regret going to Harvard, even with loans. You may well regret turning down Harvard.

Anyway, no loans needed at Harvard. They’re alrea dry billionaires and are inviting you in. Run, don’t walk. https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our family would definitely do UVA in this case. But we are not loaded. And Harvard has no strong appeal for us. Even if we had 300k laying around, it would probably do better in the long run to invest it.

THIS

Get the degree from UVA and use the 300K to start a business or pay for grad school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would take Harvard, not because the education will be better (it likely won't), but because it opens more doors over the long-term.

I wouldn't want to work anywhere that opened its doors simply because I went to Harvard. That kind of superficial decision-making can't possibly lead to the best team possible.

You would when you see the jobs opening doors due to Harvard brand have employees making $300-500k/year within 5 years of work in finance and consulting, while the rest of the jobs pay $70k/year 10 years down the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We prefer to hire state college grads over Ivy. We've learned they are simply better on the job. If presented with a resume from UVA and a resume from Harvard and everything else was the same we would hire the UVA grad.

This is either a hilarious lie or taking out the interviewers' resentments on the poor job applicant.

[Anonymous]

If you are planning on going to professional or grad school, I would have to say UVA. I went to law school in the NE and the slate is wiped clean in terms of undergrad. At a law firm, no one could care less about your undergrad. People do care about the name of the law school, for better or worse (worse in my opinion). My class was filled with students from Ivys/Top 20s, state flagships, SLACs. The ones who made Law Review were a mix. It certainly was not dominated by the Ivies +. Of the 20 or so who made it my year (I had to look these up in my old directory)

Princeton
Vanderbilt
Connecticut College
UMass
Wisconsin
Union
Missouri
St. Olaf
Bates
Holy Cross
G’town
Haverford
University of Washington
BYU
Grinnell
Miami (OH)
USC (Southern Cal, not to be be confused with South Carolina)
Syracuse
Trinity College
Brown
UConn
New Hampshire
Law Review from a top 20 law school is basically a ticket to most Wall Street firms.

[Anonymous]

Yes, Harvard is worth the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA Business is not guranteed

For a Jefferson Scholar it is all but guaranteed. Being a Jefferson Scholar is a very big deal at UVA

McIntire is not going to accept an applicant with C's in their transcript and a 3.0 because of their high school performance, which is what the Jefferson Scholar is based on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much is the different? 300k?

If you have it saved up for college, yes Harvard is worth the difference given your kid is a go-getter and takes advantage of the opportunities presented by Harvard.

If its loans, how much loan? $100k may be reasonable if your child is majoring in CS, but not reasonable at all if wanting to go to graduate school or majoring in the humanities with no interest in consulting or finance.

And by opportunities presented at Harvard, I don't mean networking with future politicians or titans of industry. Those doors are generally entirely closed to anyone other than the wealthy and already well-connected. I'm talking about practical benefits like recruitment from elite finance/consulting/tech firms. Tech is more meritocratic but Harvard brand still holds quite a sway, especially in algorithmic trading firms.

A student at Harvard with a 3.0 in History with no impressive extracurriculars would get invited for elite consulting/finance firms while the same student at UVA would need a 3.8+ GPA from McIntire to even get a preliminary interview. Many elite firms don't even recruit at UVA.

This is so, so true. All the finance guys I know from Harvard studied Government, History, and even Art History. One was busted cheating on a test and Harvard put him on probation for a year and made him graduate one year late. All of them went on to very well-paid careers in finance, no need to take a break for an MBA. They made partner at Goldman, became lead traders, went into buy-side, or private equity. They are now starting to retire in their mid-40s.

It's a f#cking racket.

It's a racket because high finance and consulting is a racket. What these firms do is not easily differentiable (or, they don't do anything of substance), but they need to convince clients to invest their money with them or sell clients services. Clients are more at ease seeing those from top undergrads working on their cases and handling their investments.

Imagine a corporation is looking for consulting firms to do some study on some industry subject. The work itself is trivial, but it's much easier to convince the company to hire McKinsey and charge a high billing rate when the McKinsey team handling the case is entirely composed of Ivy grads. Throw in students from Case Western, Boston College, Northeastern and the case to go with McKinsey just isn't quite as strong. The latter group very well could do as good of a job as the Ivy grads, but clients are swayed by degrees.

This is also true for the elite law firms. Telling clients that your firm has the best attorneys to handle a case with millions on the line because your firm only hires from Yale and Harvard is a great pitch. Now throw UVA, UNC, UT-Austin, Boston University etc. into the mix and the pitch isn't as great.

Same for tech startups. There's not much to go by when raising money and ergo VCs will go with educational background of the founders. MIT, Stanford are obviously the gold standard but a school Harvard is always a safe bet for investors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much is the different? 300k?

If you have it saved up for college, yes Harvard is worth the difference given your kid is a go-getter and takes advantage of the opportunities presented by Harvard.

If its loans, how much loan? $100k may be reasonable if your child is majoring in CS, but not reasonable at all if wanting to go to graduate school or majoring in the humanities with no interest in consulting or finance.

And by opportunities presented at Harvard, I don't mean networking with future politicians or titans of industry. Those doors are generally entirely closed to anyone other than the wealthy and already well-connected. I'm talking about practical benefits like recruitment from elite finance/consulting/tech firms. Tech is more meritocratic but Harvard brand still holds quite a sway, especially in algorithmic trading firms.

A student at Harvard with a 3.0 in History with no impressive extracurriculars would get invited for elite consulting/finance firms while the same student at UVA would need a 3.8+ GPA from McIntire to even get a preliminary interview. Many elite firms don't even recruit at UVA.

This is so, so true. All the finance guys I know from Harvard studied Government, History, and even Art History. One was busted cheating on a test and Harvard put him on probation for a year and made him graduate one year late. All of them went on to very well-paid careers in finance, no need to take a break for an MBA. They made partner at Goldman, became lead traders, went into buy-side, or private equity. They are now starting to retire in their mid-40s.

It's a f#cking racket.

The saying that the college does not matter or that it only matters for the first job is such a lie.

Yeah, it does not matter if you want an average life with a 9-5 making $70k a year and a mountain of mortgage, bills and future college tuition to worry about.

If you want to be wealthy, work at elite firms, work in upper management or comfortably retire in your early 40s or even 30s, certain colleges make those doors wide open for you. With most colleges, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than achieving such outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much is the different? 300k?

If you have it saved up for college, yes Harvard is worth the difference given your kid is a go-getter and takes advantage of the opportunities presented by Harvard.

If its loans, how much loan? $100k may be reasonable if your child is majoring in CS, but not reasonable at all if wanting to go to graduate school or majoring in the humanities with no interest in consulting or finance.

And by opportunities presented at Harvard, I don't mean networking with future politicians or titans of industry. Those doors are generally entirely closed to anyone other than the wealthy and already well-connected. I'm talking about practical benefits like recruitment from elite finance/consulting/tech firms. Tech is more meritocratic but Harvard brand still holds quite a sway, especially in algorithmic trading firms.

A student at Harvard with a 3.0 in History with no impressive extracurriculars would get invited for elite consulting/finance firms while the same student at UVA would need a 3.8+ GPA from McIntire to even get a preliminary interview. Many elite firms don't even recruit at UVA.

This is so, so true. All the finance guys I know from Harvard studied Government, History, and even Art History. One was busted cheating on a test and Harvard put him on probation for a year and made him graduate one year late. All of them went on to very well-paid careers in finance, no need to take a break for an MBA. They made partner at Goldman, became lead traders, went into buy-side, or private equity. They are now starting to retire in their mid-40s.

It's a f#cking racket.

It's a racket because high finance and consulting is a racket. What these firms do is not easily differentiable (or, they don't do anything of substance), but they need to convince clients to invest their money with them or sell clients services. Clients are more at ease seeing those from top undergrads working on their cases and handling their investments.

Imagine a corporation is looking for consulting firms to do some study on some industry subject. The work itself is trivial, but it's much easier to convince the company to hire McKinsey and charge a high billing rate when the McKinsey team handling the case is entirely composed of Ivy grads. Throw in students from Case Western, Boston College, Northeastern and the case to go with McKinsey just isn't quite as strong. The latter group very well could do as good of a job as the Ivy grads, but clients are swayed by degrees.

This is also true for the elite law firms. Telling clients that your firm has the best attorneys to handle a case with millions on the line because your firm only hires from Yale and Harvard is a great pitch. Now throw UVA, UNC, UT-Austin, Boston University etc. into the mix and the pitch isn't as great.

Same for tech startups. There's not much to go by when raising money and ergo VCs will go with educational background of the founders. MIT, Stanford are obviously the gold standard but a school Harvard is always a safe bet for investors.

UVA is the #8 law school, Harvard #4. Clients are credentialist, too. They know the rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Different point of view to consider....

Map out a potential 4 yr plan for two programs.

An Economics degree at Harvard will be a different experience than a degree from a Business school program (at any university). Business schools will require pre-professional courses in Accounting, Finance, Operations, Bus Law, Marketing etc and that will include case studies and group project work. A liberal arts economics degree will focus more on topics, theories, applications and can be supplemented with quantitative analyses in econometrics etc. are will likely have more room (freed by not taking business core) for studying other liberal arts, math, or science courses.

Both are useful degrees (even if the intended career is business) but functionally they present themselves differently in the "process" of getting to the final degree.

If the intended career is business, is it better to just go to UVA that actually has a business program? For example, if Wall Street isn't the goal, will an economics degree be as useful as a business degree?

The economics degree may or may not be as useful, but the Harvard name on the resume is definitely going to be more useful in getting interviews and jobs at high-paying companies, whether at Wall Street or outside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our family would definitely do UVA in this case. But we are not loaded. And Harvard has no strong appeal for us. Even if we had 300k laying around, it would probably do better in the long run to invest it.

THIS

Get the degree from UVA and use the 300K to start a business or pay for grad school.

Or put it in an ETF that averages 5% per year and give the $538k to them when they turn 30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would take Harvard, not because the education will be better (it likely won't), but because it opens more doors over the long-term.

I wouldn't want to work anywhere that opened its doors simply because I went to Harvard. That kind of superficial decision-making can't possibly lead to the best team possible.

You would when you see the jobs opening doors due to Harvard brand have employees making $300-500k/year within 5 years of work in finance and consulting, while the rest of the jobs pay $70k/year 10 years down the line.

Anyone making that kind of money that quickly is working 70-80 hours a week, and is probably having to compromise their integrity daily. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much is the different? 300k?

If you have it saved up for college, yes Harvard is worth the difference given your kid is a go-getter and takes advantage of the opportunities presented by Harvard.

If its loans, how much loan? $100k may be reasonable if your child is majoring in CS, but not reasonable at all if wanting to go to graduate school or majoring in the humanities with no interest in consulting or finance.

And by opportunities presented at Harvard, I don't mean networking with future politicians or titans of industry. Those doors are generally entirely closed to anyone other than the wealthy and already well-connected. I'm talking about practical benefits like recruitment from elite finance/consulting/tech firms. Tech is more meritocratic but Harvard brand still holds quite a sway, especially in algorithmic trading firms.

A student at Harvard with a 3.0 in History with no impressive extracurriculars would get invited for elite consulting/finance firms while the same student at UVA would need a 3.8+ GPA from McIntire to even get a preliminary interview. Many elite firms don't even recruit at UVA.

This is so, so true. All the finance guys I know from Harvard studied Government, History, and even Art History. One was busted cheating on a test and Harvard put him on probation for a year and made him graduate one year late. All of them went on to very well-paid careers in finance, no need to take a break for an MBA. They made partner at Goldman, became lead traders, went into buy-side, or private equity. They are now starting to retire in their mid-40s.

It's a f#cking racket.

The saying that the college does not matter or that it only matters for the first job is such a lie.

Yeah, it does not matter if you want an average life with a 9-5 making $70k a year and a mountain of mortgage, bills and future college tuition to worry about.

If you want to be wealthy, work at elite firms, work in upper management or comfortably retire in your early 40s or even 30s, certain colleges make those doors wide open for you. With most colleges, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than achieving such outcomes.

C'mon, man. You can't just make stuff up and expect people to believe you.

Here's where the CEOs of 100 recognizable US companies went to college.....

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/business/

Here's the upper management at top biotech firms.....

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/biotech-pharma/

And top tech firms.....

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/lists/tech/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA Business is not guranteed

For a Jefferson Scholar it is all but guaranteed. Being a Jefferson Scholar is a very big deal at UVA

McIntire is not going to accept an applicant with C's in their transcript and a 3.0 because of their high school performance, which is what the Jefferson Scholar is based on.

It is extremely unlikely that a Jefferson Scholar is going to have C’s/3.0 on their transcript before applying to the Comm School. The Jeff Scholars are exceptionally bright and motivated. Also, someone mentioned up thread that even those within the UVA Circle may not know what a Jefferson Scholar is - and that just isn’t true. Those within the UVA circle most definitely know what a Jefferson Scholar is and who they are in their class.