Come in if you are "successful" today but didn't go to an elite school

[Anonymous]

Not willing to go into debt was why I couldn't take advantage of top school offers. I regret we didn't try harder now that passing along that legacy would have helped my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to an Ivy (lower tier back then) but honestly the most "successful" people from my small town are not those who went to the fanciest universities. Great people skills seem to pay off better in the long run.

Yep academic strivers from the sticks have NO IDEA how to make money. Those chatty jocks hook up with the right people and have their goal as making money fast rather than have a 'successful career' or advanced degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody would ever claim there aren't successful alums from gigantic 10,000-40,000 student universities.

But it's like, great, you know one person from Indiana University who is a multi-millionaire? Good for him. Really. That's awesome. But that's one person. On average, from which school (Harvard or Indiana) would you say their respective graduates are enjoying better relative success? Since that data is readily available, let's take a look:

Kelley: https://kelley.iu.edu/recruiters-companies/graduate/_files/GCSEmploymentReport17-18.pdf
Harvard: http://ocs.fas.harvard.edu/files/ocs/files/final_20152016_annual_report.pdf

It's clearly Harvard. To say that "it doesn't matter where you go to school" is objectively idiotic. So, brush up on those logical reasoning skills, too. Ever hear of a small sample size? An anecdote doesn't combat hard data.

Sharp parents pay big bucks to live in the tippy top public districts or claw their way into expensive premier privates to get a shot at the creme de la creme colleges. The "only grad school matters" and "we're not into the rat race" memes are what parents tell themselves after they've raised merely average children. You're just trying to rationalize your underachieving kids.

God you really suck at this human being thing. Really really suck.

I love you.
You win the Internet.

When you have to work for someone else, I guess where you went to school matters. I went to a third-tier state school in the Midwest. DH comes from a developing country and went to graduate school at the same school, where we met. He picked whichever school would give him the biggest scholarship that would get him to the US. He's a serial tech entrepreneur who has founded and sold three companies and is now a VC, making seven figures a year. I'm also an entrepreneur in a different field who is slowing growing my profitable company. I come from working-class immigrants who were also small business-owners.

Immigrants - we get the job done! And like to work for ourselves.

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP - I'm an entrepreneur from State U and call my own shots. I will be able to retire early because I made a lot of money in my 30s/40s and invested well. The notion of busting your ass for years and years to end up working for the man- whether it is government, academia, big law or a consulting firm- is totally depressing, and quite frankly would seem a failure to me. Nothing is more elite than freedom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Big Ten all the way. I feel fine about it. People tend to underestimate me, which often works to my advantage.

Big 10 is not a school. It's a conference. And it has three good schools. Northwestern. And then, to a lesser extent, Michigan and Wisconsin. Cow colleges after that.

[Anonymous]

DH went to Radford. He makes high six figures, and we live a comfortable life. He started off at a low level at the company that he has worked at for 25+ years but really has worked his way to the top based off merit. No one cares where he went to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH went to Radford. He makes high six figures, and we live a comfortable life. He started off at a low level at the company that he has worked at for 25+ years but really has worked his way to the top based off merit. No one cares where he went to school.

That's because he is a white dude that worked in Va back when racism and sexism winnowed his competition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both my husband and I went to the same Big 10 school undergrad. You're right, when we were young we used to run into a lot of snobbery AND we even run into it now again as our kids are applying to / attending college.

But did it stand in our way? No. Are we proud of our school? You betcha! Do we fly our flag on game days? Yup.

I'm not sure if it ever bothered us that people were snobby snots about their elite schools and looked down on our Big 10 pedigree. We attended a school we loved, we thrived there and we have been successful in life beyond our wildest dreams. We have no complaints and would do it all again.

My advice to you, OP, if you encounter people who are snobbish about their school is for you to own it for your school. Don't let little people with little minds negatively impact the way that you talk about your school. Hopefully, in matriculating there, you made the best choice you could under the circumstances you had.

Keep in mind, that people can be like wolf packs when they sense weakness. So the more robustly and happily you talk about your non-elite school the less inclined the pack will be to attack you and the more likely they will be to go after easier prey.

+1

[Anonymous]

Those persuing elete education tend to be non elite in physical appearance. You don't need to waste your time when you're hott and have interpersonal skill.

Human desirability lowest to highest (men)
1) mentally challenged and ugly
2) low IQ , obnoxious and ugly
3) educated, ugly and obnoxious
4) elite educated ugly and obnoxious
5) good looking and mentally challenged, friendly
6) average educated, ugly, friendly
7) elite educated ugly, friendly
8) trade school , good looking obnoxious
9) trade school, good looking friendly
10) good looking elite education
11) good looking, people skills , any level of education


Scale for women
1) any women that doesn't match #2 and #3
2) physically beautiful
3) physically beautiful with a high pitched and sweet voice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not willing to go into debt was why I couldn't take advantage of top school offers. I regret we didn't try harder now that passing along that legacy would have helped my kids.

Isn't white privilege enough?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not willing to go into debt was why I couldn't take advantage of top school offers. I regret we didn't try harder now that passing along that legacy would have helped my kids.

Isn't white privilege enough?

I'm not white.

[Anonymous]

I will say this - look at the 100 richest people in the United States. Far less than half went to schools considered "elite."

[Anonymous]

doesn't really matter in my field, which is dominated by entrepreneur types and self-made folks. went to a state school, then abroad for grad school. in my field, nobody cares once you've demonstrated success in your career.

[Anonymous]

I'm not in a high-paying field, and I'm probably not as successful as I could be if I were more disciplined and ambitious. But I think my friends and college classmates would say I'm successful -- I'm still in my career field (rare for my area of study) and I work in one of the most competitive markets in the country. Went to a big state school. I have no shame in that; I'm proud of my school and like the Big 10 poster fly the flag on game days etc. But I was a piss poor high school student so I wasn't getting anywhere close to an Ivy or even the fairly prestigious flagship state school where I graduated HS.

Honestly it's never really occurred to me to be embarrassed about where I went to school. My shortfalls are my own. They have nothing to do with where I went to school. I'm not a millionaire for lots of reasons but college isn't one of them.

[Anonymous]

You can easily physician coming from any undergrad as long as you do well in the pre-requisite science classes and on the MCAT.

I went to a small christian college as a biology major and my all college friends were accepted into medical school (I chose not to apply but went to PT school instead).

My husband went to medical school at Hopkins and his class was a mix of a few Ivy league grads, a lot of state school grads and a bunch of people from completely no-name institutions.
Hopkins and similar med schools are not looking to assemble classes of only Ivy League grads. He (my husband) went to a second-tier state school for undergrad.