Does where you go to college actually matter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Matter? No. Help? Yes.

Some of the top schools alumni associations are amazing at helping grads find their first jobs. It also does give you the edge if applying to medical, dental, law or graduate school.

+1. Dartmouth and University of Notre Dame grads here. Huge boost in getting into Harvard med (where we met) and various professional organizations with other undergrad alum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to think so. Then the internet and sites like coursera and edx were invented, allowing anyone on this planet with an internet connection to access the course content offered by elite institutions.

Quirky question-

If someone graduates from Harvard/Yale/Princeton but marries someone from a state school, which one of you loses? State school spouse gains a lifetime of discussions with an Ivy-educated spouse while the Ivy-educated spouse gets a lifetime of discussions with someone who went to (gasp) a state school.

Some people would flip that -- the state school spouse gets stuck with a lifetime of discussions with an Ivy-educated spouse who thinks that makes them smarter or more interesting. The Ivy-educated spouse gets a lifetime of discussions with someone who went to school with a more representative swath of people and may well have acquired different perspectives. Or maybe the state-school educated spouse gets an Ivy-educated spouse and their educational debt.

The Ivies don't actually offer a better education. They offer brand-name recognition, and connections and networks and prestige. There are plenty of fields where a state school might well offer the best program. (And I'm married to an Ivy-educated person, who fortunately does not think that makes him better or smarter or more interesting.)

I'm sure there are quite a few schools that match or exceed the classroom and extended education of Ivy League schools, but you learn a lot from the students you go to school with, and that is where they have a significant advantage save for a smaller set of schools (e.g. MIT, Stanford).

[Anonymous]

Only white people worry about this sh*t.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it absolutely matters. It follows you for your whole life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Matter? No. Help? Yes.

Some of the top schools alumni associations are amazing at helping grads find their first jobs. It also does give you the edge if applying to medical, dental, law or graduate school.

+1. Dartmouth and University of Notre Dame grads here. Huge boost in getting into Harvard med (where we met) and various professional organizations with other undergrad alum.

Source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from the midwest and we would find if odd if a person lived here and went to an Ivy league school. Funny even. We all went to state schools, got jobs and no one cares.

But that's only if you want to stay in the Midwest. Plus the Ivy Leaguers generally don't come back, they stay on the East Coast.

Well, yeah. It's a regional thing. If you want to live in TX and work in a big city then a degree from UT, A&M, and more and more Texas Tech, are going to do just fine. Better maybe than a Harvard or Yale grad (undergrad) who will be perceived as snobby.

Same in the South where Vanderbilt and then all the big state schools are king.

[Anonymous]

Didn’t Colin Jost attend Harvard while Michael Che grew up in the projects in N.Y.?

And they both have the same exact jobs. 🤣

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an example. I have several friends who were smart and went to W&M or UVA but majored in education and became teachers. Had they gone to Longwood instead that wouldn’t have changed a thing for their job. But UVA majorly changed their selection of spouse. And all three of them married high earners and none of the wives work any longer.

This is disgusting. This is everything I don’t want for my daughter.

I'm 50 this year - graduated college in 1994. The MRS degree was alive and well then. It surprised me, but out of the half-dozen girlfriends I am in fairly close touch with, only one works full-time other than me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an example. I have several friends who were smart and went to W&M or UVA but majored in education and became teachers. Had they gone to Longwood instead that wouldn’t have changed a thing for their job. But UVA majorly changed their selection of spouse. And all three of them married high earners and none of the wives work any longer.

This is disgusting. This is everything I don’t want for my daughter.

I'm 50 this year - graduated college in 1994. The MRS degree was alive and well then. It surprised me, but out of the half-dozen girlfriends I am in fairly close touch with, only one works full-time other than me.

This was true in 1994, less true in 2004 and even less in 2014. 2024 have the tables turned and now men go for their Mr. degree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a pop-science guy (name escapes me at the moment) who said there was some data showing that the ranking of the college you went to was less important for your prospects than being in the top half of whichever college you ended up choosing.

Sure, if an unknown pop-science guy says it, must be true.

No, not because a pop science guy said it. It’s true obviously because it was published in the World Wide Web.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t Colin Jost attend Harvard while Michael Che grew up in the projects in N.Y.?

And they both have the same exact jobs. 🤣

Hollywood is a mix of high school dropouts and Ivy grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I say no. I went to SUNY Binghamton and am a partner at a law firm with someone who went to Duke undergrad. We both got to the same place.

(In case you're wondering he went to Yale for law school and I went to Boston Univ.)

That’s kind of like saying a trash collector or a bus driver that makes $200,000/year is in the same place as someone with an ivy degree who makes $200,000 per year. Didn’t POTUS at one point make only $200,000 per year? And Trump only made $1 per year as president. Who is to say he’s was in the worse place than a minimum wage day laborer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband, who barely graduated high school and was in a gang at one point, joined the military and then got a degree from the local public university after doing 10 years of pt undergrad.

I was the overachiever goody-two shoes who went to a top 25 liberal arts school.

He makes 2.5X what I do.

Our oldest child has ADHD and we'll be happy if she gets into a 2nd or 3rd tier state school.

I just don't think it matters anymore. I wouldn't take back my experiences - I made good friends and had fun in college. The name on my resume got me in the door in my first couple jobs. As long as you get a degree and find something you enjoy doing for money in the end.

Kids don’t fall too far from their parents. Sounds like your husband and his lifestyle and personality did play a huge role in where your kids are at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband, who barely graduated high school and was in a gang at one point, joined the military and then got a degree from the local public university after doing 10 years of pt undergrad.

I was the overachiever goody-two shoes who went to a top 25 liberal arts school.

He makes 2.5X what I do.

Our oldest child has ADHD and we'll be happy if she gets into a 2nd or 3rd tier state school.

I just don't think it matters anymore. I wouldn't take back my experiences - I made good friends and had fun in college. The name on my resume got me in the door in my first couple jobs. As long as you get a degree and find something you enjoy doing for money in the end.

Kids don’t fall too far from their parents. Sounds like your husband and his lifestyle and personality did play a huge role in where your kids are at.

Well aren’t you a treat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband, who barely graduated high school and was in a gang at one point, joined the military and then got a degree from the local public university after doing 10 years of pt undergrad.

I was the overachiever goody-two shoes who went to a top 25 liberal arts school.

He makes 2.5X what I do.

Our oldest child has ADHD and we'll be happy if she gets into a 2nd or 3rd tier state school.

I just don't think it matters anymore. I wouldn't take back my experiences - I made good friends and had fun in college. The name on my resume got me in the door in my first couple jobs. As long as you get a degree and find something you enjoy doing for money in the end.

Thank you for being a voice of reason.