What would anyone work so hard to get into a top college if it doesn’t lead to a better career?

[Anonymous]

Many on DCUM seek whatever they perceive as prestige. Not so many F-150 millionaires here as some other places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many on DCUM seek whatever they perceive as prestige. Not so many F-150 millionaires here as some other places.

Not sure what this means…but the Forbes 400 is heavily skewed towards elite schools grads…especially the top 10.

[Anonymous]

So too the top levels of government.

[Anonymous]

I would argue that if your parents are rich and well connected, it doesn’t matter if you go to Towson or Harvard, you are going to land a top job somewhere. Mom and Dad are going to make sure you are at Harvard though after they finish paying for Sidwell since it’s expected in their social circles.

If you aren’t in those well connected circles, your child can work hard and still end up at Towson. If they are lucky enough to hit the lottery and get into Harvard on their own merit, the top job of Wall Street may come down to how well they network while attending Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I attended a flagship state university. Some classes were large or low-quality. Fortunately I found small high-quality STEM honors courses. A provost temporarily blocked some transfer credits to stop me from graduating early, so I switched majors in my third and last year.

Some state university friends went on to business school and Wall Street. Others bounced around before finding direction. I went to a good private graduate school and worked with Nobel prize winners. In graduate school I learned from the galley proofs of the first textbooks in my area.

You take around 40 3-credit semester courses in college. There are standard courses like freshman composition or microeconomics. But one or two professors will make a memorable and potentially life-changing impression. A good school has more of those. Great art and science movements are concentrated in small communities. That is what you want.

Expensive schools also have students with connections. They will be doing internships on Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Their friends know about resumes, cover letters, and job networks. Remember when Lori Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade was busted as a fake athlete accepted to USC? Olivia Jade had vacationed on the yacht of the Chairman of USC's Board of Trustees! Those are the type of connections I want my kid's friends to have.

If that's the case, then I wonder why the Chairman didn't just flag the kid as a VIP to get her in?

[Anonymous]

If you can't manage a better career then you didn't have the chops to be there in the first place.

[Anonymous]

To be around smarter people.

[Anonymous]

I think when most people say that it doesn’t matter where you go to college, they mean that it’s not the only deciding factor. All else equal, someone who went to a more prestigious college will probably be more successful financially.

In short, where you go to college isn’t everything, but it isn’t nothing either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep reading that where you go to college doesn’t matter for jobs. If that’s the case why would anyone bend over backwards to get into a good college?

[b]

To use it as a springboard for future education, jobs, relationships, friends, colleagues and sometimes marriage. Later in life the alumni group and career center will still support you if you need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep reading that where you go to college doesn’t matter for jobs. If that’s the case why would anyone bend over backwards to get into a good college?

Oh but it does, and for competitive phd, MD, JD, Vet school even.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that if your parents are rich and well connected, it doesn’t matter if you go to Towson or Harvard, you are going to land a top job somewhere. Mom and Dad are going to make sure you are at Harvard though after they finish paying for Sidwell since it’s expected in their social circles.

If you aren’t in those well connected circles, your child can work hard and still end up at Towson. If they are lucky enough to hit the lottery and get into Harvard on their own merit, the top job of Wall Street may come down to how well they network while attending Harvard.

Rich and connected does not help one get a lucrative job at MBB, JP Morgan, Jane Street. You have to be from a target school and have the goods.
Same with medical and law school, and phD: you have to have the intelligence and talent. Wealth and connections do not help on MCAT, LSAT, or getting the 3.9 at college. 3.9 at Ivies and the like will always be far more impressive that 3.9 at Rutgers. Employers and professional schools favor certain undergrads due to the relative talent pool of the peers.
A mediocre kid whose wealth and connections get him into Harvard will not be able to compete for med school in that environment, likely will be bottom quarter 3.6, but can use the connections and the school name to help with job and could get more of a sales or admin type role at a big name company. However the non-connected student who belongs at the ivy academically will run circles around the connected one with regard to careers that evaluate for intelligence(med, law, phD, quantitative finance)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One reason to aim for T20 is that some kids feed off of the motivation/energy of the kids around them.

DD went T20 and is surrounded by bright, motivated kids like her who study hard but also enjoy their lives outside of their studies. This was the vibe we were hoping for, and she is really happy.

I hope you realize that you can get that same vibe at many schools in the 25-50/60 range as well. My kid is at one ranked ~40 (used to be low 30s for decades before class sizes didn't matter anymore). Of their group of 20+ friends, EVERYONE was WL/Spring Start/Fall Soph start at a minimum of 2 T25 schools. Same goes for over 40-50% of the students they are in classes with (and engineering kids are already very smart). They are surrounded by bright, motivated kids, but they just were part of the 90-95% who don't get admitted to T25 schools. Same goes for my kid's 2nd choice. Both schools are literally known for this---it's a running joke, and there are articles every year in the school newspapers/etc about this. You don't have to attend a T25 to be surrounded by bright, motivated kids.

If your student is a 99th%ile-99.99%ile student, they cannot get the same vibe at a school as you describe.
They would not fit in with 20+ friends who all were WL at T25. The 40-50% of students are the average kids there: by the data they are mostly 90th-95%ile kids, "bright and motivated" compared to the average student at MSU, Auburn, but would all be significantly below average at a T15/ivy and the rest of the T20 or T5-8 LACs. Great they found their fit, but academic and motivational fit is all relative. Ours know enough students from their HS who go to T50 level and they simply would not fit academically.
Our older 2 kids private school and their sibling's public top magnet each have median SAT around 1400. Based on WISC scores at the private and similar nationally normed test ranges shared by colleagues at the magnet, the 1400 (superscored) correlates well to the fact that we know the median IQ range is around 122. Of course SAT is not IQ but the two correlate, with the SAT skewed higher percentile-wise due to superscoring and extra time.
The ability level of the top 15% is 99%ile or higher. The median students are TWO math levels below the top 15-20%kids and do not get into AP Physics C or AP chem because they do not do well enough in the first physics and chem classes at these high schools, taught and tracked by many phD teachers who lead the departments and have decades of experience teaching the 85-99.9 to understand the wide variety of intellectual ability in that range.
The level of writing of a 93%ile student is different than a 99+%ile. Ask any teacher or professor. A 93rd%ile student is not in the same league with a 99%ile.
There is nothing at all wrong with the very top students wanting to be surrounded by predominantly similar intellects. Only on DCUM do parents have to brag about finding "fit" at lower ranked schools and curse the parents who know their kids best fit is at the ivy/elite schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To be around smarter people.

THIS.
Though I would phrase it as to be around similar-smarts people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep reading that where you go to college doesn’t matter for jobs. If that’s the case why would anyone bend over backwards to get into a good college?

Agree to an extent. Some could argue its to build critical thinking skill and network at T10. My advice to my kid was forget trying to game the system, apply for a major that helps with job placement or grad school placement, and choose a chool that has a pre professional bone in its curriculum.

No East Asian studies at yale here...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep reading that where you go to college doesn’t matter for jobs. If that’s the case why would anyone bend over backwards to get into a good college?

DCuM is obsessed with perceived “prestige”,

Where one goes to college matters a lot more for some specific degrees than for many other degrees.