What’s the point of going to a top school if you end up in the same place as someone who didn’t

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t matter.

Maybe if you’re going for a Wall Street job it will be easier. Or top-tier consulting. That’s about it.

If you want to go to law school or medical school go to the easiest school we’re getting the best grades as possible.

I say this with two kids at T15.

This is solid advice for law school. Look at the list of schools from admitted students that Harvard Law shares. Seeing the variety of schools was an eye opener for me.

From the Harvard website:

The following is a list of the 146 undergraduate institutions represented by the 1L class in the J.D. program at HLS for the 2024–2025 school year.

American University

American University of Armenia

Amherst College

Arizona State University

Auburn University

Augustana University

Barnard College

Bates College

Baylor University

Boston College

Boston University

...
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

Fordham University – Rose Hill

Fordham University – Lincoln Center

Fordham University – Gabelli School of Business

George Washington University

Georgetown University

Georgia Institute of Technology

Grand Valley State University

Grinnell College

Hamilton College

Hampden-Sydney College

Harvard College

Hillsdale College

These lists are useless because law schools admit like 60%-70% from top 20 schools (and a ton from their own undergrad) and then 1 from each of like 100 schools.

+ 1

Went to Harvard Law - there were like 10+ kids from Yale, Harvard, Princeton EACH in my class! It was eye-opening.

If DC wants to do law and they get into one of the schools you mentioned, then yes, it'd make sense. But spending a fortune on Duke or such is meaningless.

You are out of date. Duke has had 4-8 in each class the past couple of years go to each of the top 5 law schools, and more than half of all pre-law students there end up at T14.

Sure they did, Duke booster.

DP. my kid is there, it is consistent with data the prelaw advising there has... duke may not be as overrepresented as HYP at top5 law, but it is in the next handful of over-represented undergrad schools along w Stanford, Penn, Chicago, Columbia...

Causation or correlation? If you have a ton of money, there is absolutely no downside to going to Duke. Above average DC with a good strategy would still have a pretty good shot at T5 law even if they went to a public flagship.

Get your hands on the UVa prelaw data. Very few UVA undergrads make it to top law considering the top25% of UVA undergrads are generally correlated to the top75% of ivies/Duke.
Elite schools offer a boost, not a huge one, but it is there. Put your head in the sand and pretend it is not true, but it is. Over half of ivy/elite students are on need based aid for the past 5 yrs or more. They are no longer a more wealthy cohort than UVA, which itself is much more wealthy than other publics. Well over half who apply from ivies/Duke/Stanford end up at T14. Less than 10% of uva students who apply end up at T14.

This is not true if you actually compare top 25% at UVA to 75% at Duke.

[Anonymous]

To all of you saying, that the Indians that end up working in consulting in London come from the top Indian universities - you are delusional and don’t know what’s up.

Go on LinkedIn, look up PwC, for example, and you’ll see a lot of people who have graduated from no-name Indian/etc universities that now work in London. Majority did not attend IIT. It appears most of them first landed a consulting job in their home country and then moved to that firm’s London office.

The PP was right - our kids compete in a global market place!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To all of you saying, that the Indians that end up working in consulting in London come from the top Indian universities - you are delusional and don’t know what’s up.

Go on LinkedIn, look up PwC, for example, and you’ll see a lot of people who have graduated from no-name Indian/etc universities that now work in London. Majority did not attend IIT. It appears most of them first landed a consulting job in their home country and then moved to that firm’s London office.

The PP was right - our kids compete in a global market place!

PWC is a massive firm that one could argue is as much a global BPO vs. a consulting firm.

Admittedly, OP never mentioned if her sister is a partner at Bain or McKinsey or Accenture (which is similar to PWC).

I mean, TATA Consultancy has "Consultancy" in the title but is really much more of a BPO as well.

[Anonymous]

Pedigree. Resume starter….jking

I’m reading a summer beach read and every character first introduced had in parentheses following their name (grammar school/high school/college, etc). They are all the Ivies and the well-known boarding schools and NYC exclusive elementary/prep schools, etc. it made me laugh. My kid’s Ivy is the one the main characters all attended-where they met.

I’ve since noticed many of the fictional characters on Netflix series I watched also are portrayed as alum from this Ivy. I think it’s more of a case of noticing after the fact- having a kid attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cue the parents who say it’s all about the journey.

That doesn't apply as much in college when you're mostly "developed" as a person already. There are many kinds of great college experiences. For some the great experience is rah-rah football, for other's it's the time spend with Greeks, for others it's the relationships with professors, for others its the research they got to do, for some it is being in the big city wild and free as a college student, for a few it's the blissful grind of being around hundreds of other grinders, and so on. For any of these there is nothing particularly superior to one or the other journey at any given school that offers the same.