Do Prestigious Schools Matter for Future Success?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at bios of successful people in the field you are interested in. It will give you an idea. I know CEOs and very rich people from unremarkable schools. But if you are not able to figure out how to make it on your own and need to be at Goldman Sachs or something, then yes, it will matter.

I would say in the past it has not mattered much except in a few fields. That may change with this obsession with prestige we have going. Maybe not once people figure out many of these kids are not special and just cheated their way to 4.0.

Even at Goldman Sachs, there's a spread of schools. Just look at their leadership:

David Solomon, Chairman & CEO: Hamilton College (undergraduate)
John Waldron, President & COO: Middlebury College (undergraduate)
Robert Kaplan, Vice Chairman: University of Kansas, Lawrence (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)
Ashok Varadhan, Co-Head of Global Banking & Markets: Duke (undergraduate) + Stanford (PhD)
Dan Dees, Co-Head of Global Banking & Markets: Duke (undergraduate)
Marc Nachmann, Co-Head of Global Wealth Management: Wesleyan (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)
Tucker York, Co-Head of Global Wealth Management: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)

All of these individuals are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they had a range of education journeys. Of course you see degrees from Harvard, Duke, and Stanford, but the top 2 executives didn't need that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look at bios of successful people in the field you are interested in. It will give you an idea. I know CEOs and very rich people from unremarkable schools. But if you are not able to figure out how to make it on your own and need to be at Goldman Sachs or something, then yes, it will matter.

I would say in the past it has not mattered much except in a few fields. That may change with this obsession with prestige we have going. Maybe not once people figure out many of these kids are not special and just cheated their way to 4.0.

Even at Goldman Sachs, there's a spread of schools. Just look at their leadership:

David Solomon, Chairman & CEO: Hamilton College (undergraduate)
John Waldron, President & COO: Middlebury College (undergraduate)
Robert Kaplan, Vice Chairman: University of Kansas, Lawrence (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)
Ashok Varadhan, Co-Head of Global Banking & Markets: Duke (undergraduate) + Stanford (PhD)
Dan Dees, Co-Head of Global Banking & Markets: Duke (undergraduate)
Marc Nachmann, Co-Head of Global Wealth Management: Wesleyan (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)
Tucker York, Co-Head of Global Wealth Management: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)

All of these individuals are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they had a range of education journeys. Of course you see degrees from Harvard, Duke, and Stanford, but the top 2 executives didn't need that.

Other than University of Kansas, all of these schools are well regarded for banking (and Middlebury and Wesleyan probably are in the prestigious SLAC category), have strong Wall Street alumni networks and are very expensive. It's not as though Hamilton is some $20k/year SUNY. I gather the Kansas graduate needed the Harvard MBA to break into Wall Street.

[Anonymous]

Normally, I would say no...but since OP is incapable of even looking at the exact same thread on this first page (or the weekly threads on this topic)...today I will say absolutely yes.

OP, if your kid can't get into a top 5 school, then you might as well sign them up for SNAP and Medicaid now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me lay this out really simply. There is a very very limited subset of careers where going to an ivy might credible help set up for long term success. Like being elected president of the United States.

There are a subset of careers where it can help in the short term but that bump may or may not last over time AND an ivy isn’t the only pathway to success, for example certain business fields.

There is an exceptionally large subset of jobs and careers where it simply does not matter. An elementary school teacher doesn’t need to go to an Ivy. Same with a physical therapist. Same with an accountant. Etc ad nauseum for 98% of actual jobs.

If you have never met someone with a successful career who didn’t go to a top school I have to seriously wonder if you exist in the same world as the rest of us.

What about a banker? Private equity? Is Cornell worth it for the network?

[Anonymous]

I work with some private equity folks and they attended a huge range of colleges and some don't have degrees past BS. This includes the ones who did not come from money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title says it, but if I hear things like "My kid didn't go to an ivy and he turned out fine, he went to Duke undergrad and Stanford for an MBA." OBVIOUSLY that doesn't count if you're including two very prestigious schools that are better than most of the ivy league. I'm talking about going to regular schools (not top privates or flagship state schools) and having a great career. Thanks!

Yes going to a prestigious school IS helpful for future success, and yes, many people also do very well without going to a prestigious school. It is one factor. It's also near impossible to quantify the effect - how do you study outcomes of going to Harvard vs not going to Harvard?

I went to HYPSM and it's very hard for me to tell how much of an impact it has had. I can't tell how prospective employers or clients react to my degree. Is it a factor in hiring me or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone beating the same drum in different posts. Boring.

Trolls gonna troll. At least in this thread most aren’t rising to the bait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Normally, I would say no...but since OP is incapable of even looking at the exact same thread on this first page (or the weekly threads on this topic)...today I will say absolutely yes.

OP, if your kid can't get into a top 5 school, then you might as well sign them up for SNAP and Medicaid now.

Absolutely and set up a go fund me. Do it now.

[Anonymous]

No, their internal drive and personal qualities (resilience, intelligence, drive, EQ, etc.) matter more.

[Anonymous]

There are a few fields that use "prestigious" schools as an efficient way to weed out applicants - finance, big law, consulting, often academia. It seems a little antiquated these days, not least because the Harvards and Yales are not necessarily getting the best and brightest anymore. But as long as a few schools continue to be perceived as more prestigious, there will be certain companies and industries that will prefer those students rather than objectively more talented students from say Maryland or Wisconsin.The Blackstones and KKRs of the world still feel they have a good talent pool to choose from with the limited number of schools they target for recruitment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title says it, but if I hear things like "My kid didn't go to an ivy and he turned out fine, he went to Duke undergrad and Stanford for an MBA." OBVIOUSLY that doesn't count if you're including two very prestigious schools that are better than most of the ivy league. I'm talking about going to regular schools (not top privates or flagship state schools) and having a great career. Thanks!

In the Detroit area there are a lot of immigrants from many different countries. Many prefer to live with parents throughout their undergrad years.

We know multiple kids who went to Wayne State University (decent college in Detroit) and then on to one of the many med schools in the state or to pharmacy school. These families couldn’t care less about the eliteness of their undergrad schools, they just study hard, get good grades, & end up doing very well.

Also common for students to attend unglamorous local engineering schools (eg, Lawrence Tech, U of Michigan-Dearborn) & get lucrative jobs in the auto industry.

[Anonymous]

If it is about direct ROI, it does not matter for the majority of fields. If it is about academic fit specifically intellectual prowess and ambition among the majority of peers, yes where you go matters a lot. The 15-20 schools with the highest percent of 99th %ile kids (we tracked it well before covid, when tests were required) also happen to overlap almost perfectly with highest endowment per student and highest percent of undergrads who pursue MD, JD, phD. These are the peers our kid wanted and frankly needed to be around; we picked accordingly and had Oxford in the back pocket if a top 10 had not worked out. The experience has been incredible, two different ivies, majority of undergrads are highly academic in and outside of classes, with professors who are world class! Worth each cent!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title says it, but if I hear things like "My kid didn't go to an ivy and he turned out fine, he went to Duke undergrad and Stanford for an MBA." OBVIOUSLY that doesn't count if you're including two very prestigious schools that are better than most of the ivy league. I'm talking about going to regular schools (not top privates or flagship state schools) and having a great career. Thanks!

I guess every family approaches it differently, but ours is willing to spend on education more than anything else. We want to set our kids up well. So if our kid can get into a school like Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Stanford, Wharton, whatever it may be, we'll do our best to make it work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look at bios of successful people in the field you are interested in. It will give you an idea. I know CEOs and very rich people from unremarkable schools. But if you are not able to figure out how to make it on your own and need to be at Goldman Sachs or something, then yes, it will matter.

I would say in the past it has not mattered much except in a few fields. That may change with this obsession with prestige we have going. Maybe not once people figure out many of these kids are not special and just cheated their way to 4.0.

Even at Goldman Sachs, there's a spread of schools. Just look at their leadership:

David Solomon, Chairman & CEO: Hamilton College (undergraduate)
John Waldron, President & COO: Middlebury College (undergraduate)
Robert Kaplan, Vice Chairman: University of Kansas, Lawrence (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)
Ashok Varadhan, Co-Head of Global Banking & Markets: Duke (undergraduate) + Stanford (PhD)
Dan Dees, Co-Head of Global Banking & Markets: Duke (undergraduate)
Marc Nachmann, Co-Head of Global Wealth Management: Wesleyan (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)
Tucker York, Co-Head of Global Wealth Management: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (undergraduate) + Harvard Business School (MBA)

All of these individuals are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they had a range of education journeys. Of course you see degrees from Harvard, Duke, and Stanford, but the top 2 executives didn't need that.

All but maybe one are white men.

The college doesn't matter.

Affirmative action from 1619 until around 1965 or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a few fields that use "prestigious" schools as an efficient way to weed out applicants - finance, big law, consulting, often academia. It seems a little antiquated these days, not least because the Harvards and Yales are not necessarily getting the best and brightest anymore. But as long as a few schools continue to be perceived as more prestigious, there will be certain companies and industries that will prefer those students rather than objectively more talented students from say Maryland or Wisconsin.The Blackstones and KKRs of the world still feel they have a good talent pool to choose from with the limited number of schools they target for recruitment.

There’s also just more students overall with opportunities. More schools with extensive AP and IB programs, which allows for more educated students. As holistic admissions has gotten crazy, there’s been more spread as to the type of institutions top students get into!