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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
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.

Revealed preferences work both ways.

If you legitimately think it’s T20 or bust then a couple of grand on SAT prep is not enough.

You should be spending hundreds of thousands (in addition to private school tuition) on personalized coaching, prep, school donations, your own networking, nonstop prep for elite ECs, whatever it takes because the lifetime difference in salary and success is going to be much more than that for your kid, right? 24/7 project for three years because it’s the difference between success and failure for life, right? IT MATTERS.

Alright folks raise your hands if you are willing to drop $250,000 more to get your kid much better odds at getting into Vandy or Notre Dame!

Some people did but they went to prison. They thought it mattered so much they would do anything even though they were already very rich.

[Anonymous]

Of course it matters. You go to these schools for the connections and peer group. Rich people

https://nyti.ms/3PxRhVD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course it matters. You go to these schools for the connections and peer group. Rich people

https://nyti.ms/3PxRhVD

Mark Zuckerberg’s college roommate was offered the chance to co-found Facebook and he said NO. His dad didn’t want him to drop out of Harvard.

When that call comes home to you, are you saying drop out and start the company or stay at Harvard?

He wound up with a good job, but not billions of dollars and global-level success.

He had exactly the right connection at the exact right time. But he had to take a huge risk to capitalize on it.

Are you encouraging your kid to take that risk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

For the entertainment. You people are a trip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

Revealed preferences work both ways.

If you legitimately think it’s T20 or bust then a couple of grand on SAT prep is not enough.

You should be spending hundreds of thousands (in addition to private school tuition) on personalized coaching, prep, school donations, your own networking, nonstop prep for elite ECs, whatever it takes because the lifetime difference in salary and success is going to be much more than that for your kid, right? 24/7 project for three years because it’s the difference between success and failure for life, right? IT MATTERS.

Alright folks raise your hands if you are willing to drop $250,000 more to get your kid much better odds at getting into Vandy or Notre Dame!

Some people did but they went to prison. They thought it mattered so much they would do anything even though they were already very rich.

Everyone here has a 7 figure salary + trust fund. Dropping 250k is chump change. Most of us are planning to buy our preferred school a new building.

[Anonymous]

NP.

It really doesn’t matter where your kid goes.

[Anonymous]

It matters to me. I want my child to experience a bigger world than the one she’s grown up in, and I hope she doesn’t come back to the suburbs. I never wanted to end up there but I did. Almost all of the people I know who went to state schools came back home and live boring 2.5 kids soccer lives. Maybe they’re happy. I think some of them are. But I think a lot of them just never thought any bigger. She doesn’t have to go to an Ivy League school. She wouldn’t get in. But I want her to go somewhere where she’s exposed to a lot of different people and has options to experience things she wouldn’t otherwise. And you can tell me that’s not true and give me examples but I see it all around me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It matters to me. I want my child to experience a bigger world than the one she’s grown up in, and I hope she doesn’t come back to the suburbs. I never wanted to end up there but I did. Almost all of the people I know who went to state schools came back home and live boring 2.5 kids soccer lives. Maybe they’re happy. I think some of them are. But I think a lot of them just never thought any bigger. She doesn’t have to go to an Ivy League school. She wouldn’t get in. But I want her to go somewhere where she’s exposed to a lot of different people and has options to experience things she wouldn’t otherwise. And you can tell me that’s not true and give me examples but I see it all around me.

UVA and VT can give your kid the opportunity to meet a lot of people and see the big world. There are many out of state kids, and many many graduate students from everywhere.

[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.

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.

I live in Burke and I like to shop at Target, livin’ the dream.

Learn to relax, you’ll live longer.

+1.

Yale, Sloan and Cambridge here with consulting and i-banking under our belts.

15 years later: literally shopping at Target in the suburbs alongside our friends who went to HBS and Tuck. Degrees and jobs aren’t magic. Your life might still be a little average. Thank god we realized that before we frog-marched our kids toward an attempt to be the 1% of the 1%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

I think a lot of us post that kind of thing here because we’re trying to keep other parents from panicking.

Going to Harvard matters. Going to Harvard can be a lot of fun.

But, if your kid’s best option ends up being GMU or UMBC, that’s fine, too. Kids just have to make the most out of wherever they go.

[Anonymous]

It mattered for me and it matters for a lot of kids. You can tell there aren’t a lot of people on here from cities with shit economies. Yeah, I know people who went to my state school and still managed to pull out with good careers and good lives. But it’s certainly harder. My kid who is probably smarter than me and definitely better educated will not get into my alma mater. It does matter, I think. But it’s not the end of the world. Lawyers would say it’s relevant but not dispositive. Saying it doesn’t matter at all seems silly to me.

[Anonymous]

The problem is looking for a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, when the correct answer is clearly “It depends. There are many variables involved, & sometimes it matters & sometimes it doesn’t.”

Variables such as major, how well you do, connections you make, & especially career you choose all move the needle in one direction or another.

I have 2 kids, born a year apart. One went to a top 10 university people here are dying to get into. Got a 3.7 gpa, 4-year athlete.

Second kid went to a school ranked LOWER than the arbitrary 150 people keep mentioning. Got a 3.3 gpa. No ECs.

Both kids are now in their late 20s. First kid doing very well. Great career. Second kid makes more than sibling, even more than my spouse & I combined.

In the end, people want to believe it generally doesn’t matter where your kid goes, but it matters where mine goes.

[Anonymous]

So much really depends on how hard you work it. A kid can go to Harvard and pretty easily get a posh gig in IB. The same kid could go to U of Arkansas and end up a Rhodes Scholar (big fish, small pond) and use it as a launch pad for even more exclusive opportunities than they would have had at Harvard.

I ended up turning down a T20 for lack of funds and going to a Tier 4 that you've probably never heard of. I worked my butt off to find opportunities and made it happen. Being a big fish in a small pond absolutely helped. I now work in a senior leadership role at a global company (with many who went to elite schools). It's worked out for me. I think if I'd gone to the T20 I may not have stood out as much academically or pushed myself as hard. Who knows.

[Anonymous]

My husband went to a no name college and is doing well. No different from better school. Doctors, law, finance it matters. Other stuff not so much.

[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.

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.

Thank you for posting the above, PP. You have said exactly what I think, only better.
We are immigrant parents, graduate degrees, homeowners etc. But lack the exposure and knowledge of possibilities that white MC people have. Look at their self-belief that no matter which college their kids go they will be fine! I know it is not true for my kids. Anywhere they go they will have to prove they are better than the average mediocre white American.

And anyway I want more than « fine » for my kids!