Selingo WSJ Essay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

Can you give me an example of how it matters, that you cannot find at another school, that is not related to making money?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

I feel sorry for your kid if that is your top parenting goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

Can you give me an example of how it matters, that you cannot find at another school, that is not related to making money?

I see this in action with my siblings. They all went to large flagship schools and I went to private T10. They do not have friends in the same social class that we do. I’m sorry to be so blunt. Their friends are not as successful.

My siblings have great well paying jobs (due to grad degrees) but just don’t have access to the networks that we do. Could they create that or find it themselves through things like YPO and private clubs? Yes absolutely. But it is much much harder. They complain about it nonstop. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s probably been some time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

Can you give me an example of how it matters, that you cannot find at another school, that is not related to making money?

I see this in action with my siblings. They all went to large flagship schools and I went to private T10. They do not have friends in the same social class that we do. I’m sorry to be so blunt. Their friends are not as successful.

My siblings have great well paying jobs (due to grad degrees) but just don’t have access to the networks that we do. Could they create that or find it themselves through things like YPO and private clubs? Yes absolutely. But it is much much harder. They complain about it nonstop. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s probably been some time.

lol. I went to a top SLAC and Ivy law and my brothers went to public college. Guess who is more successful by your metric?

But sure - if you and your family are obsessed with the social class of your friends and somehow they cannot find any satisfactory life path after graduating from UMD or UVA or UF … I guess it makes sense you are obsessed with that for your kids. But I hope you understand how bizarre and frankly sad that sounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

Can you give me an example of how it matters, that you cannot find at another school, that is not related to making money?

I see this in action with my siblings. They all went to large flagship schools and I went to private T10. They do not have friends in the same social class that we do. I’m sorry to be so blunt. Their friends are not as successful.

My siblings have great well paying jobs (due to grad degrees) but just don’t have access to the networks that we do. Could they create that or find it themselves through things like YPO and private clubs? Yes absolutely. But it is much much harder. They complain about it nonstop. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s probably been some time.

This is absurd. My husband and I went to state honors programs. Our college friends are all highly successful and indistinguishable from our DC professional, neighborhood, country club and 55K private school friends.

To echo a pervious poster, unless your aim is working at Goldman Sachs directly out of undergrad you can find as much network as you need at any top100 (or even below) college and then you will build your network via your professional career and social life. How much college "network" does any one person need? Answer: not much.

[Anonymous]

Princeton was the cheapest of all our options. Why wouldn't we do that?

[Anonymous]

Not going to sell books if you just say what has already been established. Have to give the common man some hope…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

Can you give me an example of how it matters, that you cannot find at another school, that is not related to making money?

I see this in action with my siblings. They all went to large flagship schools and I went to private T10. They do not have friends in the same social class that we do. I’m sorry to be so blunt. Their friends are not as successful.

My siblings have great well paying jobs (due to grad degrees) but just don’t have access to the networks that we do. Could they create that or find it themselves through things like YPO and private clubs? Yes absolutely. But it is much much harder. They complain about it nonstop. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s probably been some time.

This is absurd. My husband and I went to state honors programs. Our college friends are all highly successful and indistinguishable from our DC professional, neighborhood, country club and 55K private school friends.

To echo a pervious poster, unless your aim is working at Goldman Sachs directly out of undergrad you can find as much network as you need at any top100 (or even below) college and then you will build your network via your professional career and social life. How much college "network" does any one person need? Answer: not much.

We have the GS/PE/HF type of jobs. That’s our circle.

Listen, your experiences may differ.

There’s no one right way, but I’ve seen firsthand. There is a large cohort difference .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Both former low-income, heavily aided students who met at an ivy, went to med school at a different but top school, and earn top2%. Most of our adult friends are in medicine or law. About half came from no money and did not marry into significant (top-5%)money. We are younger than the ave college parents, just turned 50, college '97. Our friends are all similar. In fact the smartest two from '97 are a top lawyer and a research MD-phD.about 40% of my ivy was on need-based aid when I attended now it is 55%. parents on dcum who went to college in the 80s have a very different understanding of college compared to people from the late 90s. The legacy friends in my adult involved alum group are predominantly new to the top incomes, and were not legacies ourselves. My ivy absolutely changed my trajectory and it continues to do the same for a larger and larger portion of the undergraduate population.

This is a powerful defense of Ivies as institutions but it is hardly an argument that full-pay families not already in the top 1-2% should shell out an unlimited amount of money for these schools. The top 10-20% of American households is a pretty comfortable place to be, especially if you’re not hellbent on living in the center of an expensive city and you don’t saddle your kid with massive unnecessary debt. Obviously if you have functionally unlimited money, it doesn’t matter how you spend it. Good for Ivies, for redirecting a lot of that excess wealth to poor kids. But there’s absolutely no reason families in the 85th-95th percentile should voluntarily subject themselves to that tax.

Well said. We're at a private HS in CA and most of our class is in the top 1%. I've noticed for the truly wealthy, who come from generational wealth, they are less focused on ivies or Stanford because their kids will succeed in life regardless of where they go. Many of them are happy to ED at Middlebury and call it a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

Can you give me an example of how it matters, that you cannot find at another school, that is not related to making money?

I see this in action with my siblings. They all went to large flagship schools and I went to private T10. They do not have friends in the same social class that we do. I’m sorry to be so blunt. Their friends are not as successful.

My siblings have great well paying jobs (due to grad degrees) but just don’t have access to the networks that we do. Could they create that or find it themselves through things like YPO and private clubs? Yes absolutely. But it is much much harder. They complain about it nonstop. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s probably been some time.

This is absurd. My husband and I went to state honors programs. Our college friends are all highly successful and indistinguishable from our DC professional, neighborhood, country club and 55K private school friends.

To echo a pervious poster, unless your aim is working at Goldman Sachs directly out of undergrad you can find as much network as you need at any top100 (or even below) college and then you will build your network via your professional career and social life. How much college "network" does any one person need? Answer: not much.

We have the GS/PE/HF type of jobs. That’s our circle.

Listen, your experiences may differ.

There’s no one right way, but I’ve seen firsthand. There is a large cohort difference .

I regret to inform you, likely to your great dismay, that there are many people from state colleges in those circles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Princeton was the cheapest of all our options. Why wouldn't we do that?

Princeton stays atop the USNWR list by making itself the cheapest option for just about every student it accepts. It has extremely generous financial aid, and its sticker price is low compared to other Ivies. But none of that generalizes to HYSM, let alone other elite private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Both former low-income, heavily aided students who met at an ivy, went to med school at a different but top school, and earn top2%. Most of our adult friends are in medicine or law. About half came from no money and did not marry into significant (top-5%)money. We are younger than the ave college parents, just turned 50, college '97. Our friends are all similar. In fact the smartest two from '97 are a top lawyer and a research MD-phD.about 40% of my ivy was on need-based aid when I attended now it is 55%. parents on dcum who went to college in the 80s have a very different understanding of college compared to people from the late 90s. The legacy friends in my adult involved alum group are predominantly new to the top incomes, and were not legacies ourselves. My ivy absolutely changed my trajectory and it continues to do the same for a larger and larger portion of the undergraduate population.

This is a powerful defense of Ivies as institutions but it is hardly an argument that full-pay families not already in the top 1-2% should shell out an unlimited amount of money for these schools. The top 10-20% of American households is a pretty comfortable place to be, especially if you’re not hellbent on living in the center of an expensive city and you don’t saddle your kid with massive unnecessary debt. Obviously if you have functionally unlimited money, it doesn’t matter how you spend it. Good for Ivies, for redirecting a lot of that excess wealth to poor kids. But there’s absolutely no reason families in the 85th-95th percentile should voluntarily subject themselves to that tax.

Well said. We're at a private HS in CA and most of our class is in the top 1%. I've noticed for the truly wealthy, who come from generational wealth, they are less focused on ivies or Stanford because their kids will succeed in life regardless of where they go. Many of them are happy to ED at Middlebury and call it a day.

Totally. That’s us. Private non-DMV too.

Happy with Midd, Wake or for a truly bright kid - Northwestern, Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown…

Not looking for HYPSM - our kid won’t find their ppl at those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Sure if your only goal for your kids is that they enter the 1% and marry rich - you should sweat getting them into Princeton. I don’t think that is the only goal most parents have for their kids. Maybe I am wrong.

It isn’t marrying rich for me. It’s being around the right cohort. It matters in the long run.

Can you give me an example of how it matters, that you cannot find at another school, that is not related to making money?

I see this in action with my siblings. They all went to large flagship schools and I went to private T10. They do not have friends in the same social class that we do. I’m sorry to be so blunt. Their friends are not as successful.

My siblings have great well paying jobs (due to grad degrees) but just don’t have access to the networks that we do. Could they create that or find it themselves through things like YPO and private clubs? Yes absolutely. But it is much much harder. They complain about it nonstop. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s probably been some time.

This is absurd. My husband and I went to state honors programs. Our college friends are all highly successful and indistinguishable from our DC professional, neighborhood, country club and 55K private school friends.

To echo a pervious poster, unless your aim is working at Goldman Sachs directly out of undergrad you can find as much network as you need at any top100 (or even below) college and then you will build your network via your professional career and social life. How much college "network" does any one person need? Answer: not much.

We have the GS/PE/HF type of jobs. That’s our circle.

Listen, your experiences may differ.

There’s no one right way, but I’ve seen firsthand. There is a large cohort difference .

I regret to inform you, likely to your great dismay, that there are many people from state colleges in those circles.

I’m sure. At the MD level though, I don’t see it in my circle in a large metro area.
Maybe elsewhere, yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Both former low-income, heavily aided students who met at an ivy, went to med school at a different but top school, and earn top2%. Most of our adult friends are in medicine or law. About half came from no money and did not marry into significant (top-5%)money. We are younger than the ave college parents, just turned 50, college '97. Our friends are all similar. In fact the smartest two from '97 are a top lawyer and a research MD-phD.about 40% of my ivy was on need-based aid when I attended now it is 55%. parents on dcum who went to college in the 80s have a very different understanding of college compared to people from the late 90s. The legacy friends in my adult involved alum group are predominantly new to the top incomes, and were not legacies ourselves. My ivy absolutely changed my trajectory and it continues to do the same for a larger and larger portion of the undergraduate population.

This is a powerful defense of Ivies as institutions but it is hardly an argument that full-pay families not already in the top 1-2% should shell out an unlimited amount of money for these schools. The top 10-20% of American households is a pretty comfortable place to be, especially if you’re not hellbent on living in the center of an expensive city and you don’t saddle your kid with massive unnecessary debt. Obviously if you have functionally unlimited money, it doesn’t matter how you spend it. Good for Ivies, for redirecting a lot of that excess wealth to poor kids. But there’s absolutely no reason families in the 85th-95th percentile should voluntarily subject themselves to that tax.

Well said. We're at a private HS in CA and most of our class is in the top 1%. I've noticed for the truly wealthy, who come from generational wealth, they are less focused on ivies or Stanford because their kids will succeed in life regardless of where they go. Many of them are happy to ED at Middlebury and call it a day.

because they know their kids cannot get in. The uber wealthy who do get kids into ivies/stanford send them there. Sure they may care less but if they have the option they’ll pick the better school