What an Ivy league education gets you - the Atlantic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1000
Though honestly I tried a free trial of the Atlantic and my take was most of the articles are vapid trolling attempts.

[Anonymous]

From the research paper cited by the Atlantic:

Attending an Ivy-Plus college has an especially large effect on students’ chances of reaching the upper quantiles of the income distribution. The impact of Ivy-Plus
admission on reaching the top quartile of the distribution is small and statistically insignificant, while the impact on chances of reaching the top 1% far exceed what one would predict based on a constant percentage treatment effect across the income distribution."

In other words, going to an Ivy League doesn't help you succeed in most jobs. Just the ones that pay obscene (and IMO immoral) amounts of money.

[Anonymous]

I can't read all 21 pages but 1) Atlantic is clickbait for overeducated and anxious UMC people, and 2) this article's premise has been argued ad infinitum on here and and for the last 25 years since I graduated from my Ivy.

Despite two Ivy degrees I've worked in the real world and now have a fairly senior role in corporate America and the Ivy obsession and Ivy presence is marginal. I've seen plenty of Ivy grads flop in adulthood and people from no name schools rise to the top. There can ne tracks from the Ivy league to certain, very specific and narrow industries like NYT journalism or certain consulting firms, and in law the T1 law schools dominate biglaw and the top few SCOTUS. But some of those tracks are vanity routes that speaks more to self important delusions (NYT for example), while others are reflection of genuine brilliance and the Ivy League having the highest concentration of such brilliance.

Last but not least, the world, and the Ivy League, has changed greatly in the last 25 years and much of such surveys will be of alums from the past, not the current generation.

[Anonymous]

Ivy helps you get into Old Money oriented clubs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

White legacies are not the majority on campus, ivy or any T20. Whites total are not the majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t prove Ivy League schools matter. You can argue it’s the high student caliber in those schools that led to the results.

Ivy and peers are where the high caliber students are concentrated. It's the same thing. Did you even read the article? and understand it? Seems like you did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t prove Ivy League schools matter. You can argue it’s the high student caliber in those schools that led to the results.

Ivy and peers are where the high caliber students are concentrated. It's the same thing. Did you even read the article? and understand it? Seems like you did not.

DP

Did you read the actual research article? What you are describing is a theory developed by Harvard alums and described as facts by an Atlantic troll.

What was in the research article is that going to an Ivy League school does increase the probability of being a 1%er. If making obscene amounts of money by working for grifters like McKinsey doesn't appeal to you, then going to an Ivy League school doesn't help you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't read all 21 pages but 1) Atlantic is clickbait for overeducated and anxious UMC people, and 2) this article's premise has been argued ad infinitum on here and and for the last 25 years since I graduated from my Ivy.

Despite two Ivy degrees I've worked in the real world and now have a fairly senior role in corporate America and the Ivy obsession and Ivy presence is marginal. I've seen plenty of Ivy grads flop in adulthood and people from no name schools rise to the top. There can ne tracks from the Ivy league to certain, very specific and narrow industries like NYT journalism or certain consulting firms, and in law the T1 law schools dominate biglaw and the top few SCOTUS. But some of those tracks are vanity routes that speaks more to self important delusions (NYT for example), while others are reflection of genuine brilliance and the Ivy League having the highest concentration of such brilliance.

Last but not least, the world, and the Ivy League, has changed greatly in the last 25 years and much of such surveys will be of alums from the past, not the current generation.

I don’t disagree with you if that’s your goal

If your goal is to be financially comfortable WHILE also self-actualzing in your profession, I see the Ivy premium massively helping

It’s like how yls kids don’t actually want to be biglaw attorneys

They all want to be in public service or academia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't read all 21 pages but 1) Atlantic is clickbait for overeducated and anxious UMC people, and 2) this article's premise has been argued ad infinitum on here and and for the last 25 years since I graduated from my Ivy.

Despite two Ivy degrees I've worked in the real world and now have a fairly senior role in corporate America and the Ivy obsession and Ivy presence is marginal. I've seen plenty of Ivy grads flop in adulthood and people from no name schools rise to the top. There can ne tracks from the Ivy league to certain, very specific and narrow industries like NYT journalism or certain consulting firms, and in law the T1 law schools dominate biglaw and the top few SCOTUS. But some of those tracks are vanity routes that speaks more to self important delusions (NYT for example), while others are reflection of genuine brilliance and the Ivy League having the highest concentration of such brilliance.

Last but not least, the world, and the Ivy League, has changed greatly in the last 25 years and much of such surveys will be of alums from the past, not the current generation.

I don’t disagree with you if that’s your goal

If your goal is to be financially comfortable WHILE also self-actualzing in your profession, I see the Ivy premium massively helping

It’s like how yls kids don’t actually want to be biglaw attorneys

They all want to be in public service or academia

Whatever. Which is the correct response. Any bright kid can do well. It's about drive. You don't need the Ivy degree to accomplish a lot (and most successful people do not have Ivy degrees).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't read all 21 pages but 1) Atlantic is clickbait for overeducated and anxious UMC people, and 2) this article's premise has been argued ad infinitum on here and and for the last 25 years since I graduated from my Ivy.

Despite two Ivy degrees I've worked in the real world and now have a fairly senior role in corporate America and the Ivy obsession and Ivy presence is marginal. I've seen plenty of Ivy grads flop in adulthood and people from no name schools rise to the top. There can ne tracks from the Ivy league to certain, very specific and narrow industries like NYT journalism or certain consulting firms, and in law the T1 law schools dominate biglaw and the top few SCOTUS. But some of those tracks are vanity routes that speaks more to self important delusions (NYT for example), while others are reflection of genuine brilliance and the Ivy League having the highest concentration of such brilliance.

Last but not least, the world, and the Ivy League, has changed greatly in the last 25 years and much of such surveys will be of alums from the past, not the current generation.

I don’t disagree with you if that’s your goal

If your goal is to be financially comfortable WHILE also self-actualzing in your profession, I see the Ivy premium massively helping

It’s like how yls kids don’t actually want to be biglaw attorneys

They all want to be in public service or academia

The research article says Ivy League degrees don't increase the probability of reaching the top quartile. What they do is increase the probability of reaching the top 1% (still a low probability). If your goal is "financially comfortable" then choosing an Ivy over a state flagship doesn't help you. Also the notion that Ivy leagues increase the extent to which you "self actualize" in your profession is a theory being promoted by people who directly benefit from making people think Ivy League alums are better than everyone else (because they are themselves Ivy League alumni)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

PP

Tell me how systemic racism in America harmed hispanic immigrants more than it harmed Asian immigrants?

If the elite colleges were meant for wasps, how come there are so many asians? There are more asians than legacies at every ivy+ college other than SLACs

America doesn't have a monopoly on being shitty.

Koreans from the former Silla Kingdom were quislings that cooperated with Japan during the Japanese occupation to oppress the Koreans from the parts of korea that were formerly the Paekchae and Koguryo kingdoms. And that privilege continued through the korean war and military dicatorship and even survives today.
Unless you truly believe that the koreans from the western half of korea (the ones that are the majority of the korean disapora) from the areas around Kwangju and jeunju are less capable and talented than the ones from around busan, you probably have to admit to systemic regional bias.

College admissions, jobs, promotions, lending, licensing, everything was built to create a preference for peoplle from the busan region and a detriment for the people from the Kwangju region.

And yet we impeached and REMOVED a president in part for giving an unfair advantage to aher friend's daughter in college admissions.

So we are not built the same in how we value merit.

Tell me again how oppressed korean women are compared to american women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization

But yes I agree, gender roles are still a big thing in korea. Men get a raise when they get married, women are expected to quit when they get pregnant.

[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.

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.

We will see how long that survives the death of affirmative action.

Affirmative action was carrying a loit of water for admissions preferences. It provided a shield to other admissions preferences. Now that it is gone, you see a lot of liberals suddenly discovering how unfair legacy admissions are. It was an unholy bargain struck between colleges and leftists. you get affirmative action and we get legacy et al.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

White legacies are not the majority on campus, ivy or any T20. Whites total are not the majority.

There are more asians than legacies at pretty much every Ivy+ college.

[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.

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.

We will see how long that survives the death of affirmative action.

Affirmative action was carrying a loit of water for admissions preferences. It provided a shield to other admissions preferences. Now that it is gone, you see a lot of liberals suddenly discovering how unfair legacy admissions are. It was an unholy bargain struck between colleges and leftists. you get affirmative action and we get legacy et al.

They have found a new shield for the rich and incompetent. We are seeing stronger emphasis on fgli this year.

[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.

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.

Disagree. Ivy leagues are all test required now. Of course they have institutional priorities, but they all submit scores. The majority of other schools are test optional, AND give the same if not more preference to priorities.

These tests are meaningless when we all know that the little Larlos of the world studied with tutors for years AND had to take the tests multiple times to achieve their “superior” scores.

These tests are the single most valid and predictive indicators of everything from future college performance to likelihood of publishing research that will be cited.

Again, correlation =/= causation.

Yes, the privileged kids who benefit from private tutors and infinite chances end up being privileged adults.

Honestly, the level of discourse in this thread (and the complete lack of understanding of statistics and to be blunt, how the world works) just reinforces the point that the average Ivy admit is NOT the best and the brightest, but just another privileged spawn of striving, prestige obsessed parents who couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag…

OMFG

"correlation =/= causation" is not a substitute for reading comprehension or thinking.

Test scores are not causing these results, tests are MEASURING the thing that is causing these results.

Tests measure cognitive ability and cognitive ability improved outcomes. It doesn't matter that Larlo has higher cognitive ability because Larlo had the ability to develop their cognitive ability because mommy and daddy invested a crap ton into his human capital, the end result is that Larlo has better cognitive ability. And, that higher cognitive ability means that Larlo is going to have better lifetime outcomes.

But the population of people with high cognitive ability is not limited to wealthy Larlos. It also includes the children of immigrant families that believe in education and are willing to make smart investments in their own children. And a tiny number of kids that are so talented that they would have blossomed in almost any environment.

I understand that some kids have advantages in achieving high cognitive ability because they have parents that are rich or parents that are willing to make sacrifices, but ultimately that is what test scores measure.