Selingo WSJ Essay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in the South and many of the SEC grads around me are living very comfortable lives- professional careers, beautiful homes, private schools for the kids, country club memberships, the second home, etc. the refreshing thing is that many of them aren’t hung up on the Ivies and other Ivy-type schools- it makes for a much more pleasant, normal high school experience for the kids down here. The Ivies and WASP’s and Ivy+ aren’t the only ticket to the “good life”.

I work with a guy who is likely one of the 10 richest in Alabama and he sends his kids to Vandy and Princeton and he said most of the kids from the private Hs are attending the same elite private colleges as private schools in the northeast. Very few of the school’s grads attend Auburn or Alabama (Alabama is 60% OOS).

I don’t think the truly wealthy are much different regardless of where they live.

I'm from Alabama and this is a good point. My well regarded public high school had as many Ivy League matriculations as my husband's private New England private school. This was before FGLI was a thing, and most were from high income and socially established families.

But there were an equal number of wealthy and socially well established families whose kids who went on to Alabama and auburn too.

Both sets of kids are now doing well.

People need to stop trying to make this into a false dichotomy

Except something doesn’t compute for Alabama…it’s the only flagship with a majority of OOS kids (60%) which doesn’t make much sense to me. Even Auburn is only 40% OOS.

Something about Alabama turns off a lot of in state folks and I have to believe the wealthiest are most likely to not care about OOS rates.

Alabama is popular with OOS as of late because of the well popularized Greek scene. Bama Rush Tik Tok to be precise.

It also helps that these folks are monied and pay that sweet OOS tuition.

Yet...people that live in-state don't like the Greek scene?

You are missing the point, considering schools like LSU and Ole Miss are 80% in state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in the South and many of the SEC grads around me are living very comfortable lives- professional careers, beautiful homes, private schools for the kids, country club memberships, the second home, etc. the refreshing thing is that many of them aren’t hung up on the Ivies and other Ivy-type schools- it makes for a much more pleasant, normal high school experience for the kids down here. The Ivies and WASP’s and Ivy+ aren’t the only ticket to the “good life”.

I work with a guy who is likely one of the 10 richest in Alabama and he sends his kids to Vandy and Princeton and he said most of the kids from the private Hs are attending the same elite private colleges as private schools in the northeast. Very few of the school’s grads attend Auburn or Alabama (Alabama is 60% OOS).

I don’t think the truly wealthy are much different regardless of where they live.

I'm from Alabama and this is a good point. My well regarded public high school had as many Ivy League matriculations as my husband's private New England private school. This was before FGLI was a thing, and most were from high income and socially established families.

But there were an equal number of wealthy and socially well established families whose kids who went on to Alabama and auburn too.

Both sets of kids are now doing well.

People need to stop trying to make this into a false dichotomy

Except something doesn’t compute for Alabama…it’s the only flagship with a majority of OOS kids (60%) which doesn’t make much sense to me. Even Auburn is only 40% OOS.

Something about Alabama turns off a lot of in state folks and I have to believe the wealthiest are most likely to not care about OOS rates.

Alabama is popular with OOS as of late because of the well popularized Greek scene. Bama Rush Tik Tok to be precise.

It also helps that these folks are monied and pay that sweet OOS tuition.

Yet...people that live in-state don't like the Greek scene?

You are missing the point, considering schools like LSU and Ole Miss are 80% in state.

No you’re missing the point, which is OOS flock to Alabama because of the Greek scene.

If you live in state you don’t have to go to Alabama for a lively Greek experience - there are other schools that are just as good and popular.

Those schools just don’t have the same place in the imagination of OOS because they were not spotlighted in that Greek documentary a few years back.

There are national articles about the Bama rush scene.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The essay kind of talks out two sides. Says the elite schools don’t matter in the end, but then also says graduates of elite schools are 60% more likely to end up at elite jobs (think he used Goldman as an example) and secure higher salaries out of undergrad.

Also, it shows a chart that says out of a Microsoft pool of entry level employees, 3500 out of around 12,000 come from colleges with 20% or less acceptance rates. It’s the largest group though that leaves 8500 employees coming from less selective schools.

Again, the issue with this is that there are only like 25 colleges (most of which are relatively small) that fit this criteria while there are thousands that fit the other criteria of higher acceptance rates.

My takeaway was that at Microsoft it definitely pays to come from a sub-20% acceptance college.

I also don’t get looking at Fortune 50 companies as a good measure. Outside of tech, you just won’t see many top school grads wanting to work at Exxon or CVS or a good 30 of the F50 companies.

I didn’t read all the pages and I don’t know all of the data, but when talking about the 60 percent boost for getting elite jobs, what is the context?
Are we talking about going from a 1% chance to a 1.6% chance? Does this consider that the average kid going to an average LAC doesn’t have the same kind of social connections the kid at the elite school does?