What an Ivy league education gets you - the Atlantic

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt Ivy League degrees help people get MBB and similar jobs. We all know who those "prestigious firms" hire and why.

The notion though that Ivy League schools actually confer abilities that other environments cannot, however, is pure conjecture. In my workplace being competitive is not a desirable trait.

I don’t understand that comment.

Literally all the people at the top of their area are competitive. Professors, medical labs/researchers, doctors, musicians, actors, NPO founders…literally everything …you read or watch interviews and they talk about their competitive drive.

Saying literally multiple times doesn’t make your opinion literally true. Just FYI.

Except it’s not an opinion dipshit. There is no line of work or career or workplace that doesn’t value competitiveness.

Off the top of my head, healthcare workers, research scientists, and teachers are jobs that don't value competitiveness.

Mwahahahaha!

Ever gotten a grant?

DP, research scientist- Yes, I get grants by establishing and maintaining long term, affable, mutually beneficial relationships with the folks who control the purse strings.

Have you ever gotten a grant? Or more to the point, have you ever gotten a second grant?

You are elbowing out others by brown nosing, but you are still elbowing them out.

The fact that you equate what I said with “brown nosing” proves a PP’s point that you lack emotional EQ…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt Ivy League degrees help people get MBB and similar jobs. We all know who those "prestigious firms" hire and why.

The notion though that Ivy League schools actually confer abilities that other environments cannot, however, is pure conjecture. In my workplace being competitive is not a desirable trait.

I don’t understand that comment.

Literally all the people at the top of their area are competitive. Professors, medical labs/researchers, doctors, musicians, actors, NPO founders…literally everything …you read or watch interviews and they talk about their competitive drive.

Saying literally multiple times doesn’t make your opinion literally true. Just FYI.

Except it’s not an opinion dipshit. There is no line of work or career or workplace that doesn’t value competitiveness.

Off the top of my head, healthcare workers, research scientists, and teachers are jobs that don't value competitiveness.

Mwahahahaha!

Ever gotten a grant?

DP, research scientist- Yes, I get grants by establishing and maintaining long term, affable, mutually beneficial relationships with the folks who control the purse strings.

Have you ever gotten a grant? Or more to the point, have you ever gotten a second grant?

You are elbowing out others by brown nosing, but you are still elbowing them out.

The fact that you equate what I said with “brown nosing” proves a PP’s point that you lack emotional EQ…

Not sure where you see someone accusing that PP of lacking "emotional EQ" but fyi there are multiple people posting here and not identifying themselves as PPs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt Ivy League degrees help people get MBB and similar jobs. We all know who those "prestigious firms" hire and why.

The notion though that Ivy League schools actually confer abilities that other environments cannot, however, is pure conjecture. In my workplace being competitive is not a desirable trait.

I don’t understand that comment.

Literally all the people at the top of their area are competitive. Professors, medical labs/researchers, doctors, musicians, actors, NPO founders…literally everything …you read or watch interviews and they talk about their competitive drive.

Saying literally multiple times doesn’t make your opinion literally true. Just FYI.

Except it’s not an opinion dipshit. There is no line of work or career or workplace that doesn’t value competitiveness.

Off the top of my head, healthcare workers, research scientists, and teachers are jobs that don't value competitiveness.

Mwahahahaha!

Ever gotten a grant?

DP, research scientist- Yes, I get grants by establishing and maintaining long term, affable, mutually beneficial relationships with the folks who control the purse strings.

Have you ever gotten a grant? Or more to the point, have you ever gotten a second grant?

You are elbowing out others by brown nosing, but you are still elbowing them out.

The fact that you equate what I said with “brown nosing” proves a PP’s point that you lack emotional EQ…

Effective brown nosing definitely does require emotional EQ, so congrats for that I guess.

If you don't think the specifics of what you do constitutes brown nosing, please feel free to explain why to those of us who apparently lack the emotional EQ. Just make sure to use a reasonable definition of what brown nosing entails.

[Anonymous]

wow this thread is no fun.

I thought this thread is about how Ivy kids learn to socialize with high achievers and thereby leave the rest of us in the dust!

I guess we must not all be fun-loving get-along Ivy parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt Ivy League degrees help people get MBB and similar jobs. We all know who those "prestigious firms" hire and why.

The notion though that Ivy League schools actually confer abilities that other environments cannot, however, is pure conjecture. In my workplace being competitive is not a desirable trait.

I don’t understand that comment.

Literally all the people at the top of their area are competitive. Professors, medical labs/researchers, doctors, musicians, actors, NPO founders…literally everything …you read or watch interviews and they talk about their competitive drive.

Saying literally multiple times doesn’t make your opinion literally true. Just FYI.

Except it’s not an opinion dipshit. There is no line of work or career or workplace that doesn’t value competitiveness.

Off the top of my head, healthcare workers, research scientists, and teachers are jobs that don't value competitiveness.

Mwahahahaha!

Ever gotten a grant?

DP, research scientist- Yes, I get grants by establishing and maintaining long term, affable, mutually beneficial relationships with the folks who control the purse strings.

Have you ever gotten a grant? Or more to the point, have you ever gotten a second grant?

You are elbowing out others by brown nosing, but you are still elbowing them out.

The fact that you equate what I said with “brown nosing” proves a PP’s point that you lack emotional EQ…

Effective brown nosing definitely does require emotional EQ, so congrats for that I guess.

If you don't think the specifics of what you do constitutes brown nosing, please feel free to explain why to those of us who apparently lack the emotional EQ. Just make sure to use a reasonable definition of what brown nosing entails.

I’m more curious to hear your definition of brown nosing. And whether you have any friends.

To me, brown nosing means sucking up. Friendly relationships that benefit both parties do not require sucking up - just professionalism, competence, and respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In summary a couple of Harvard alumni did a study finding that Ivy League alums are overrepresented in jobs that almost exclusively recruit from Ivy League schools and are able to succeed in an environment that is populated disproportionately by people just like them. And these two alumni conclude that this success comes from Ivy League grads being better than everyone else. Lol... totally tracks

Ha ha...I also read it and thought hmmm...reads like some Ivy economists were edged out of an award or some recognition by a "state university" economists so they wrote a paper to justify their value - to their employers, industry and themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only real information I glean from this study is how opportunity and inequality work at the very top of higher education and that these schools do not admit students based purely on merit. Nothing surprising.

Define merit?

They all admit on merit. Their definition of merit may not align with yours but the do not admit unqualified students.

DP

I think when people say merit in the academic context, they mean academic merit or sometimes mere IQ. They usually don't think it includes skin color or where your parents went to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only real information I glean from this study is how opportunity and inequality work at the very top of higher education and that these schools do not admit students based purely on merit. Nothing surprising.

Define merit?

They all admit on merit. Their definition of merit may not align with yours but the do not admit unqualified students.

DP

I think when people say merit in the academic context, they mean academic merit or sometimes mere IQ. They usually don't think it includes skin color or where your parents went to school.

I'll always remember an admissions interview for a grad program at one of the "new Ivy" schools. When I told the admissions officer I had no undergraduate debt, she visibly perked up. Suddenly I became a bunch of dollar signs to her. No shock I got an admissions offer with no aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's true. I went to an Ivy and I'm a Fortune 500 CEO.

Everyone should send their kid to an Ivy 25 years ago so they can be a Fortune 500 CEO too!

Look at Sundae Pichai, Satya Nadella, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook...

Sundai did attend UPenn and Satya attended an ITT school in India which are the equivalent of HYPSM.

Jensen has a graduate degree from Stanford and gives tons more to Stanford than Oregon where he did undergrad.

Tim Cook I will give you.

IIT isn’t equivalent to HYPSM, not even close. Don’t tell me you are concluding this based on the acceptance rates.

Huh? They are even more determinant of one’s fate in India compared to HYPSM in the US…but they likely are less meritocratic in terms of acceptances.

Thats how it goes in most Asian countries. You have to attend a top school.

I don't know how things are in India but Korea is pretty merit driven. We recently impeached and removed a sitting president in part for using her influence to get a friend's daughter into a top women's college.

You can pretty much predict which school you will go to based on your test score.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

Eh. Given admission priorities these days, the Ivy League ain't all that in 2026. For smart + emotional IQ, there are a lot of other schools, as everyone who has toured universities over the past three years has discerned. The Harvard Man is a myth today. Things have changed a lot.

They're test required now. All is well.

If you believe that test required is going to give anyone a better chance you are naive. They are still admitting the class that they want to build, it the one that you believe they should build.

Test scores are definitely changing who they are admitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

bingo.

Parent of a current Ivy student who describes all of his classmates as "cracked" and says it has made him better.

Same. It can cause angst but boy does it push them all.

If you aspire for your child to be a societal and environmental menace, by all means these schools with a statistically higher concentration of sociopaths will push them.

Some people aspire to more than that, however.

A disproportionate number of medical breakthroughs come from their grads, a disproportionate number of NGOs are run by their grads.

Doesn’t disprove what I said.

Also, LOL to your naivete if you think there isn’t a significant amount of personal financial gain in these alleged medical breakthroughs and NGOs.

Your criticism want that these kids had successful careers (that would be a very strange criticism). Your criticism was that their success was at the expense of our environment and society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

bingo.

Parent of a current Ivy student who describes all of his classmates as "cracked" and says it has made him better.

Same. It can cause angst but boy does it push them all.

My Ivy kid is actually surprised by how unimpressive many of their classmates are--can't do math, can't write, etc

You gotta be in the top quartile in the Ivy plus schools . That’s true crème de la crème… hope Harvard institutes capped grade policy so we know who are swimming naked.. ( the donor-legacy - faux sports mafia)

More like the test optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

Eh. Given admission priorities these days, the Ivy League ain't all that in 2026. For smart + emotional IQ, there are a lot of other schools, as everyone who has toured universities over the past three years has discerned. The Harvard Man is a myth today. Things have changed a lot.

They're test required now. All is well.

If you believe that test required is going to give anyone a better chance you are naive. They are still admitting the class that they want to build, it the one that you believe they should build.

Test scores are definitely changing who they are admitting.

Only at the margins which means they are still admitting who they want to admit. There will never be a system in the US where top schools admit by exam. It completely goes against their ethos.

[Anonymous]

I subscribe to the Atlantic, and love many of their pieces but this is essentially an opinion piece where the author mentions many potential hypothesis that aren't definitively backed up in a meaningful way. There is some discussion of data but the relationship to that data and interpretation is a stretch IMO.

So many unbacked assumptions that seem very questionable but are stated as if they have been proven or clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's true. I went to an Ivy and I'm a Fortune 500 CEO.

Everyone should send their kid to an Ivy 25 years ago so they can be a Fortune 500 CEO too!

Look at Sundae Pichai, Satya Nadella, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook...

Sundai did attend UPenn and Satya attended an ITT school in India which are the equivalent of HYPSM.

Jensen has a graduate degree from Stanford and gives tons more to Stanford than Oregon where he did undergrad.

Tim Cook I will give you.

IIT isn’t equivalent to HYPSM, not even close. Don’t tell me you are concluding this based on the acceptance rates.

Huh? They are even more determinant of one’s fate in India compared to HYPSM in the US…but they likely are less meritocratic in terms of acceptances.

Thats how it goes in most Asian countries. You have to attend a top school.

I don't know how things are in India but Korea is pretty merit driven. We recently impeached and removed a sitting president in part for using her influence to get a friend's daughter into a top women's college.

You can pretty much predict which school you will go to based on your test score.

dp... I'm Korean American.

I think the Korean system isn't great either, but it largely works there because there has been no system racism in Korea, so they don't really need DEI for college admissions, whereas in the US, elite universities were only for WASPs for over a hundred years, up until the 1960s. White legacies are still the majority at elite colleges.

Even so, the workplace for women is awful in Koreao, and it doesn't matter whether the woman went to a SKY uni.

But, yes, to the impeachment of the president. Wish we did that here.