Top School vs. Best Fit. Is Prestige Worth Being in the Bottom Half?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think “best fit” is defined the way you’re using it here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP — it depends on the kid’s professional aspirations.

For medicine, go where you will do well. A 3.3 from Caltech will make it hard to get into medical school, which is absurd, but that’s the reality.

Tech, finance, consulting: prestige of school can carry a kid far, even if UG academic record is mediocre.

100% agree. I’m on a med school faculty and have done some interviewing. Med schools want kids with mostly A’s. They prefer U Delaware 3.8 sociology major over Ivy 3.5 molecular biology/classics double major, which is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

My kid went to a mediocre public high school & somehow got in a T10. I was fully expecting kid to barely get through 4 years of competitive undergrad. But it all worked out well…double major, good GPA, amazing grad school fellowship. You never know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At places like top 10, half the class is going to be below the median, 25% of the class will be below top 75 percentile. That’s just how it works.

I get it that you’re still surrounded by smart people, big-name professors, and strong recruiting pipelines. But does that actually translate into good outcomes for students in the bottom half or bottom quartiel? Are they still landing solid jobs and grad school placements?

On the flip side, what if you went to a slightly less selective school and ended up in the top 10–20%? You might get more leadership roles, closer relationships with professors, stronger recommendation letters, and maybe just more confidence overall. Does standing out more beat having a big brand name on your resume?

How people think about this tradeoff. Is prestige worth it even if you’re below average there? Or is it smarter to pick the place where you’re more likely to shine?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually seen this play out.

In theory, most of the students in the bottom quarter at a place like Harvard are bright, hardworking people who aren’t academic superstars and are going to succeed, if they do, more because of their creativity, artistic talents, networking skills, raw physical charisma, or other aspects other than grades.

As long as they’re comfortable with the idea that their grades might be mediocre, they may benefit from the networking opportunities and extracurricular opportunities at a top school even more than a lot of the high-stats students. The super high-stats students might be lonelier at less selective schools but would earn high stats anywhere; the bottom-quarter students at Harvard can get opportunities at Harvard that simply aren’t available at America University or JMU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At places like top 10, half the class is going to be below the median, 25% of the class will be below top 75 percentile. That’s just how it works.

I get it that you’re still surrounded by smart people, big-name professors, and strong recruiting pipelines. But does that actually translate into good outcomes for students in the bottom half or bottom quartiel? Are they still landing solid jobs and grad school placements?

On the flip side, what if you went to a slightly less selective school and ended up in the top 10–20%? You might get more leadership roles, closer relationships with professors, stronger recommendation letters, and maybe just more confidence overall. Does standing out more beat having a big brand name on your resume?

How people think about this tradeoff. Is prestige worth it even if you’re below average there? Or is it smarter to pick the place where you’re more likely to shine?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually seen this play out.

In theory, most of the students in the bottom quarter at a place like Harvard are bright, hardworking people who aren’t academic superstars and are going to succeed, if they do, more because of their creativity, artistic talents, networking skills, raw physical charisma, or other aspects other than grades.

As long as they’re comfortable with the idea that their grades might be mediocre, they may benefit from the networking opportunities and extracurricular opportunities at a top school even more than a lot of the high-stats students. The super high-stats students might be lonelier at less selective schools but would earn high stats anywhere; the bottom-quarter students at Harvard can get opportunities at Harvard that simply aren’t available at America University or JMU.

Funny. Elise Stefanik was a friend of a friend at Harvard. She was bright and did extremely well in high school. Her Harvard grades weren’t good enough for a law school that she wouldn’t be embarrassed to attend. So she used her “charisma” to go into politics. Not sure if I’d call it a success story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At places like top 10, half the class is going to be below the median, 25% of the class will be below top 75 percentile. That’s just how it works.

I get it that you’re still surrounded by smart people, big-name professors, and strong recruiting pipelines. But does that actually translate into good outcomes for students in the bottom half or bottom quartiel? Are they still landing solid jobs and grad school placements?

On the flip side, what if you went to a slightly less selective school and ended up in the top 10–20%? You might get more leadership roles, closer relationships with professors, stronger recommendation letters, and maybe just more confidence overall. Does standing out more beat having a big brand name on your resume?

How people think about this tradeoff. Is prestige worth it even if you’re below average there? Or is it smarter to pick the place where you’re more likely to shine?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually seen this play out.

In theory, most of the students in the bottom quarter at a place like Harvard are bright, hardworking people who aren’t academic superstars and are going to succeed, if they do, more because of their creativity, artistic talents, networking skills, raw physical charisma, or other aspects other than grades.

As long as they’re comfortable with the idea that their grades might be mediocre, they may benefit from the networking opportunities and extracurricular opportunities at a top school even more than a lot of the high-stats students. The super high-stats students might be lonelier at less selective schools but would earn high stats anywhere; the bottom-quarter students at Harvard can get opportunities at Harvard that simply aren’t available at America University or JMU.

Funny. Elise Stefanik was a friend of a friend at Harvard. She was bright and did extremely well in high school. Her Harvard grades weren’t good enough for a law school that she wouldn’t be embarrassed to attend. So she used her “charisma” to go into politics. Not sure if I’d call it a success story.

That’s perfect. I believe it 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At places like top 10, half the class is going to be below the median, 25% of the class will be below top 75 percentile. That’s just how it works.

I get it that you’re still surrounded by smart people, big-name professors, and strong recruiting pipelines. But does that actually translate into good outcomes for students in the bottom half or bottom quartiel? Are they still landing solid jobs and grad school placements?

On the flip side, what if you went to a slightly less selective school and ended up in the top 10–20%? You might get more leadership roles, closer relationships with professors, stronger recommendation letters, and maybe just more confidence overall. Does standing out more beat having a big brand name on your resume?

How people think about this tradeoff. Is prestige worth it even if you’re below average there? Or is it smarter to pick the place where you’re more likely to shine?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually seen this play out.

In theory, most of the students in the bottom quarter at a place like Harvard are bright, hardworking people who aren’t academic superstars and are going to succeed, if they do, more because of their creativity, artistic talents, networking skills, raw physical charisma, or other aspects other than grades.

As long as they’re comfortable with the idea that their grades might be mediocre, they may benefit from the networking opportunities and extracurricular opportunities at a top school even more than a lot of the high-stats students. The super high-stats students might be lonelier at less selective schools but would earn high stats anywhere; the bottom-quarter students at Harvard can get opportunities at Harvard that simply aren’t available at America University or JMU.

Funny. Elise Stefanik was a friend of a friend at Harvard. She was bright and did extremely well in high school. Her Harvard grades weren’t good enough for a law school that she wouldn’t be embarrassed to attend. So she used her “charisma” to go into politics. Not sure if I’d call it a success story.

That’s perfect. I believe it 100%

[Anonymous]

Elise’s mistake was thinking that BU or GW Law would be an embarrassment but selling her soul to Trump was a wise bet.

She deserves her present loneliness.

[Anonymous]

Well, I was top of my class at a small no-name school, did great on the LSAT, went to a T14 and then to BigLaw. I have done very well. After this, nobody cared where I went to college. But many of my college friends are still living hand to mouth 30 years later. I am sure, on average, it's less true of top school grads from the same year. Is it possible to be a big fish in a small pond? Absolutely. But you better be sure you can do it and things don't go off track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I was top of my class at a small no-name school, did great on the LSAT, went to a T14 and then to BigLaw. I have done very well. After this, nobody cared where I went to college. But many of my college friends are still living hand to mouth 30 years later. I am sure, on average, it's less true of top school grads from the same year. Is it possible to be a big fish in a small pond? Absolutely. But you better be sure you can do it and things don't go off track.

This. In academic medicine I work with tons of people who did really well at non-elite colleges. Easy to conclude that UG doesn’t matter, but these colleagues represent a small sliver of their UG. I went to a top LAC. Most of us who completed premed and applied got in.

[Anonymous]

In my 10 years on faculty at a pretty famous medical school in Maryland, I’ve found that colleagues never mention their UG. We don’t even bring up our medical school very often. We chatter about residency and fellowship affiliation all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my 10 years on faculty at a pretty famous medical school in Maryland, I’ve found that colleagues never mention their UG. We don’t even bring up our medical school very often. We chatter about residency and fellowship affiliation all the time.

You successfully gamed the system and got in doesn’t mean it’s a fair system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my 10 years on faculty at a pretty famous medical school in Maryland, I’ve found that colleagues never mention their UG. We don’t even bring up our medical school very often. We chatter about residency and fellowship affiliation all the time.

You successfully gamed the system and got in doesn’t mean it’s a fair system.

This is bizarre even by DCUM standards

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my 10 years on faculty at a pretty famous medical school in Maryland, I’ve found that colleagues never mention their UG. We don’t even bring up our medical school very often. We chatter about residency and fellowship affiliation all the time.

You successfully gamed the system and got in doesn’t mean it’s a fair system.

This is bizarre even by DCUM standards

PP was right though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my 10 years on faculty at a pretty famous medical school in Maryland, I’ve found that colleagues never mention their UG. We don’t even bring up our medical school very often. We chatter about residency and fellowship affiliation all the time.

Echo this.

Fascinating that DCUM folks find it objectionable.