Degrees where college prestige matters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the legal field, the prestige of your law school is what matters, not undergrad. And going to a fancy undergrad doesn’t give you an admissions boost for law school except maybe on the very edges. It’s all LSAT and GPA. In fact for someone targeting a T14 law school it might be a better strategy to go to a state school for undergrad if you can do better there (less competition).

Everyone gives this advice, but I have never seen anything that supports it...at all. Yale law school is 70% kids from just 20 undergraduate schools (all top schools), and then 30% come from 150+ other schools (i.e., 1 kid from each school).

The #1 feeder to any T14 school by far, is the undergraduate school. So, Harvard undergrad has the most kids at Harvard law, same for Northwestern, same for UVA.

I wish someone could show a link to an analysis or really anything to support the position that law school is only GPA and LSAT.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I went to Penn Law, so I can’t comment on Yale. My class of ~250 at Penn comprised at least 50% of public and non-elite college alums. If you look at stats for admitted students (Law School Numbers is one source, although it’s self-reported), the common trend is that they are either at or above both medians for GPA/LSAT or have at least one of GPA/LSAT above the 75th percentile for those schools. The medians now are something like 3.9 GPA/171 LSAT and 75ths are obviously higher. Maybe attending an elite undergrad helps on the margin, like if they’re choosing between two applicants and it’s an “all else equal” situation, but otherwise those two numbers are the key factors. Often a high GPA and a high LSAT (required to get into any of those schools) means that the student is a strong academic performer and a strong standardized test taker, which sometimes/often correlates with the prestige of their undergrad institution. Obviously there are good reasons why it might not, and in my experience and also as borne out by empirical evidence if you look at T14 admits, students who are able to perform at that level (regardless of undergrad school) are not left out.

I would posit that the correlation between YLS admissions and T20 undergrad institutions is mostly just a correlation. The students admitted to YLS are, in all likelihood, lifelong high academic achievers. It makes sense that those students disproportionately attend T20 undergrad schools. Also, for what it’s worth, YLS is well known in law school admissions to be more “black box” and to value soft factors (i.e., not LSAT/GPA) more than their peer schools do. So maybe undergrad institution is a factor for them, I don’t know.

So many people don't understand the difference between correlation and causation. Stereotyping can be useful if used scrupulously by employers, like in this case. It's all about the additional context and individual circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MBB Consulting - Bachelor's AND MBA prestige matter

Engineering - Literally any college, get the degree, can you do the work. A kid from Cal Tech can be working alongside UC Irvine .

By the same logic, a kid from UC Irvine can be working alongside a local community college student. No reason to overpay for a nameless UC Irvine degree when a CC Irvine does the same job.

Reductio ad absurdum is a silly response.

One does actually need a 4 year degree in engineering, either from a very top engineering school (which might ignore ABET) or from literally any ABET-accredited E School. CCs do not offer those 4 year ABET accredited degrees. PP is fundamentally right. An MIT or CalTech engineering grad often will work next to someone from UMBC or ODU or GMU or WVU, doing the exact same work.

Within academia, where one obtained one’s PhD really does matter. The politics of academic publishing mean those CalTech or MIT or CMU PhD/ScD grads will have a leg up in getting the right publications — and getting NSF funding — which can be important for tenure and advancement.

Ok, now we know PP's kids didn't get into Caltech or MIT. It's really a convoluted way of say it.

[Anonymous]

Here is the Harvard Undergrad list for Law school for last year:

https://hls.harvard.edu/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/jdapplicants/hls-profile-and-facts/undergraduate-institutions/

[Anonymous]

For nursing, it does not matter at all where you get your degree. Some programs are even online

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is the Harvard Undergrad list for Law school for last year:

https://hls.harvard.edu/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/jdapplicants/hls-profile-and-facts/undergraduate-institutions/

This isn't helpful because you don't know how many from each school.

Yale used to produce a report showing how many kids enrolled in Yale Law School came from what feeder schools and in how many numbers. They discontinued it, likely because it showed 70% came from only 20 schools.

If you didn't see the numbers, it would look identical to this link because there are 175-200 total institutions represented.

[Anonymous]

And here is Penn - top 14 Undergrads all look about like this - very diverse - you have to be at the top of your game wherever you go to school to get in.

https://www.law.upenn.edu/admissions/jd/entering-class-profile.php

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:if your kid has to major in the humanities - classics, literature, history, sociology - try to go to an ivy. The degree with will be likely useless, by the name of the ivy on his/her resume will not.

I still do regret studying literature, but because I did it at Yale and Harvard (BA through PhD), I managed to make the transition from academia pretty painlessly. It shocked me how much the name impressed potential employers even though I felt woefully unqualified in terms of experience. People just assumed that I was smart enough to pick up new skills and fields of knowledge very quickly.

In the 30 years I've been working (half the time for a very well known tech company), I have learned that not every smart person can do any job. People, no matter how smart they are, are not plug and play where they can pickup new skills that quickly.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, even ivy grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if your kid has to major in the humanities - classics, literature, history, sociology - try to go to an ivy. The degree with will be likely useless, by the name of the ivy on his/her resume will not.

I still do regret studying literature, but because I did it at Yale and Harvard (BA through PhD), I managed to make the transition from academia pretty painlessly. It shocked me how much the name impressed potential employers even though I felt woefully unqualified in terms of experience. People just assumed that I was smart enough to pick up new skills and fields of knowledge very quickly.

In the 30 years I've been working (half the time for a very well known tech company), I have learned that not every smart person can do any job. People, no matter how smart they are, are not plug and play where they can pickup new skills that quickly.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, even ivy grads.

yes but if the job is about writing this person can learn it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Must we keep doing variations of this ridiculous game?

Must you join threads you have no interest in? Are you aware you're not required to read or respond?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if your kid has to major in the humanities - classics, literature, history, sociology - try to go to an ivy. The degree with will be likely useless, by the name of the ivy on his/her resume will not.

I still do regret studying literature, but because I did it at Yale and Harvard (BA through PhD), I managed to make the transition from academia pretty painlessly. It shocked me how much the name impressed potential employers even though I felt woefully unqualified in terms of experience. People just assumed that I was smart enough to pick up new skills and fields of knowledge very quickly.

In the 30 years I've been working (half the time for a very well known tech company), I have learned that not every smart person can do any job. People, no matter how smart they are, are not plug and play where they can pickup new skills that quickly.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, even ivy grads.

A lit. major from an ivy has a better chance of moving up and running a tech company than a code monkey. The latter are a dime a dozen from 3rd world countries. To move up, you need to be able to communicate. Can a code monkey write like a novelist? That's golden in management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the legal field, the prestige of your law school is what matters, not undergrad. And going to a fancy undergrad doesn’t give you an admissions boost for law school except maybe on the very edges. It’s all LSAT and GPA. In fact for someone targeting a T14 law school it might be a better strategy to go to a state school for undergrad if you can do better there (less competition).

Everyone gives this advice, but I have never seen anything that supports it...at all. Yale law school is 70% kids from just 20 undergraduate schools (all top schools), and then 30% come from 150+ other schools (i.e., 1 kid from each school).

The #1 feeder to any T14 school by far, is the undergraduate school. So, Harvard undergrad has the most kids at Harvard law, same for Northwestern, same for UVA.

I wish someone could show a link to an analysis or really anything to support the position that law school is only GPA and LSAT.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I went to Penn Law, so I can’t comment on Yale. My class of ~250 at Penn comprised at least 50% of public and non-elite college alums. If you look at stats for admitted students (Law School Numbers is one source, although it’s self-reported), the common trend is that they are either at or above both medians for GPA/LSAT or have at least one of GPA/LSAT above the 75th percentile for those schools. The medians now are something like 3.9 GPA/171 LSAT and 75ths are obviously higher. Maybe attending an elite undergrad helps on the margin, like if they’re choosing between two applicants and it’s an “all else equal” situation, but otherwise those two numbers are the key factors. Often a high GPA and a high LSAT (required to get into any of those schools) means that the student is a strong academic performer and a strong standardized test taker, which sometimes/often correlates with the prestige of their undergrad institution. Obviously there are good reasons why it might not, and in my experience and also as borne out by empirical evidence if you look at T14 admits, students who are able to perform at that level (regardless of undergrad school) are not left out.

I would posit that the correlation between YLS admissions and T20 undergrad institutions is mostly just a correlation. The students admitted to YLS are, in all likelihood, lifelong high academic achievers. It makes sense that those students disproportionately attend T20 undergrad schools. Also, for what it’s worth, YLS is well known in law school admissions to be more “black box” and to value soft factors (i.e., not LSAT/GPA) more than their peer schools do. So maybe undergrad institution is a factor for them, I don’t know.

Once more, 50% of the class is coming from 20 schools and 50% is coming from 200+ schools. So, once more...even your example doesn't support your conclusion.

People can "posit" anything they want to pull out of their a**. Show me a true independent analysis that either proves you right (or proves me wrong).

I’m telling you this as someone who actually went through the law school admissions process and attended one of these schools. This is the advice I’d give my own kid. Multiple posters at this point have explained that there’s an obvious correlation between high academic achievers (counting both standardized test scores and GPA) and elite undergrad institutions, which partially explains why those institutions are overrepresented at elite law schools. I’m not going to spend any more time looking for evidence for you, but there’s plenty available if you care to do any research on this. You can start by looking at admitted student profiles on LSN, Reddit, and the TLS forum. The overriding factors in law school admissions are LSAT and GPA, prestige of undergrad institution is really not meaningful except insofar as it correlates to the obvious fact that these schools tend to produce students with extremely high GPAs (because those students were already exceptional academic achievers) AND 97th+ percentile LSAT scores of 170 and above.

If you have, and want to throw away, $400k on an elite college because you think it’s a good investment for elite law school admissions, it’s your money. You’re still incorrect about it.

+1

This is correct.
PP is having trouble separating causation from correlation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if your kid has to major in the humanities - classics, literature, history, sociology - try to go to an ivy. The degree with will be likely useless, by the name of the ivy on his/her resume will not.

I still do regret studying literature, but because I did it at Yale and Harvard (BA through PhD), I managed to make the transition from academia pretty painlessly. It shocked me how much the name impressed potential employers even though I felt woefully unqualified in terms of experience. People just assumed that I was smart enough to pick up new skills and fields of knowledge very quickly.

In the 30 years I've been working (half the time for a very well known tech company), I have learned that not every smart person can do any job. People, no matter how smart they are, are not plug and play where they can pickup new skills that quickly.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, even ivy grads.

A lit. major from an ivy has a better chance of moving up and running a tech company than a code monkey. The latter are a dime a dozen from 3rd world countries. To move up, you need to be able to communicate. Can a code monkey write like a novelist? That's golden in management.

you dont need to degrade people--they all have the same human worth--writing is nice but many writers would not know how to manage people and I certainly know many writers that are A..holes and have very bad people skills---people skills are not correlated to what country you are from nor where your degree is from

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will play:

Nursing-absolutely not, same salaries for Ivy or CC trained nurses, same options for NP/PA school(many which are online).

Lawyers--seems this one is the most important to land high paying jobs, though still think being connected(through family or friends) and good social skills come a long way

Medicine-absolutely not, MD/DO the same, i guess if you are a cash pay derm/psych r plastic surgeon and Ivy will get you more customers but charisma. how you do your work and patient referrals do more for you.

Social work--not really-cash pay patients seeing online degree therapists also a thing here, more about your marketing skills than therapy skills.

Nursing -- correctish. You can get higher paying jobs from top programs in specialties that are not open to most.

Lawyers -- connected not a help at all in biglaw. They have taken that all out of the process. If a partner came and said take a look at kid X he is a family friend, most firms would not look at or would and dismiss. Law school and law school grades most important. Undergrad secondary but still counts when interviewing.

Medicine -- agree

Social work ---- agree but when it comes to running non-profits, donors are still impressed with a Harvard or Stanford.

Not true at all about nursing. You don't get higher paying jobs with a more elite degree. I know nursing hiring inside and out in a ton of different settings. It does not matter if you went to Penn or the directional campus of a random state school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will play:

Nursing-absolutely not, same salaries for Ivy or CC trained nurses, same options for NP/PA school(many which are online).

Lawyers--seems this one is the most important to land high paying jobs, though still think being connected(through family or friends) and good social skills come a long way

Medicine-absolutely not, MD/DO the same, i guess if you are a cash pay derm/psych r plastic surgeon and Ivy will get you more customers but charisma. how you do your work and patient referrals do more for you.

Social work--not really-cash pay patients seeing online degree therapists also a thing here, more about your marketing skills than therapy skills.

Disagree about medicine. It does matter- depending on what specialty and where you want to work. Where you go to school can absolutely affect what type of residency you match with (and if you get your first choice) and what institution hires you afterward. Most doctors are not private practice, therefore they are subjected to the hiring process by a panel like other professionals, where they do consider your credentials.

You get into a desired residency based on usmle 2 scores-they got rid of scoring for part 1 due to equity LOL. What really gets you into a good residency is research and being published in selective med journals (this is hard to do when you are volunteering cleaning poop in the hospital so you can get into med school)-which can be done also by foreign trained docs(who didnt have to clean poop in their foreign countries to become docs)-have foreign med school derm friend who went research way to derm residency-making 1mil doing botox and fillers is so cal now....life is good

Large research based hospitals are more likely to hire doctors from more prestigious academic institutions, same with research opportunities while in med school. That doesn’t mean super high salary necessarily.

So…it just depends what you what to do and where you want to practice. You can be a no name state med school graduate and make 800k taking out gall bladders all day as a general surgeon in North Dakota. But maybe you want to make 500k at Hopkins or Duke

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain to me what “speciality” is accessible only to nurses who come from a top school??

Nurse here. NIH research positions. The internal hiring people (NOT the HR staff who determine cert via USAJobs) love Hopkins-trained nurses.

Suburban Hospital— also a Hopkins property— likes Hopkins and Maryland grads. They also discriminate on the basis of age (prefer the under-27 set who is likely to be moving on soon to CRNA anyway)

Georgetown Hospital seems to have more CUA grads than any other undergrad.

This is just not true. Suburban would hire any nurse with a pulse tomorrow. They have 80+ openings.
Hopkins in general has open houses for new grads twice a month. They will take anyone. I work in nursing education. It is an employee market.