Do Prestigious Schools Matter for Future Success?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest attended Ivies, and they were both jobless after graduation, and worked at Starbucks. My youngest DS was a D1 recruited athlete at UNC Chapel Hill, and he got a job in IB after graduation because the EVP was an alum at UNC. My DS was able to secure jobs for his older brother and sister because he contacted the EVP to help his siblings. Going to Ivies is not going to help you if you do not have the "right" connections. Therefore, in my children situation, it is a resounding NO. It is not how much you know but who you know, or who knows you.

UNC is ranked in the top 30...and with Duke, UVA, Stanford, and Vanderbilt it has a unique combination of top D1 athletics and prestige.

Something also tells me that the siblings wouldn't have been considered at all if they had attended say VCU

PP here. My DS was also able to secure a spot in the IB division for one of his cousins who attended GMU, just like he did for his older siblings. FWIW, I am an SES Fed, and I routinely reject Ivies candidates over candidates who attended JMU, VCU, or VT. It is because I know their parents, and I want to help them out. As I've said before, it is not going to do you any good if you attend a prestigious university, but you do not build any connections when you are there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prestige is a great substitute for talent. Ask me how I know

Sure. But prestige + talent is killer. Those who get in RD unhooked 3% acceptance rates

The question was about future success.

That's what I'm talking about. The kids that are naturally very smart AND hard workers. They got in on their own moxy and hard work---not a hook, not early, etc. Those types have a lot of future success as they keep working.

Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Clinton, Obama where prestige met talent. Didn't come from privilege. Attended prestigious university, worked hard.

Most of the names on your list have a degree from Harvard

For undergrad Obama transferred to an Ivy from Occidental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prestige is a great substitute for talent. Ask me how I know

Sure. But prestige + talent is killer. Those who get in RD unhooked 3% acceptance rates

The question was about future success.

That's what I'm talking about. The kids that are naturally very smart AND hard workers. They got in on their own moxy and hard work---not a hook, not early, etc. Those types have a lot of future success as they keep working.

Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Clinton, Obama where prestige met talent. Didn't come from privilege. Attended prestigious university, worked hard.

Gates, Zuckerberg and Obama all went to top private schools. Obama got into Occidental and later transferred to Columbia. Bezos went to River Oaks school for middle school which again is in an expensive part of Houston. So they all came from privilege.

People need to distinguish between privilege like Larry Ellison's kid who received several hundred million of investment from Larry for Skydance...and Mark Zuckerberg who's dad was/is a dentist and had little to nothing to do with the creation or success of Facebook.

I don't think Mark Zuckerberg or really anyone believes Facebook would exist if he had decided to attend a SUNY school as an example.

I think one has to be delusional to be from mark zuckerbergs generation and not think going to Philips Academy isn’t immense privilege. It had a lot more weight then than it does today, and he was guaranteed at minimum an upper middle class lifestyle as long as he was mediocre at a minimum. Most people do not have private boarding school safety nets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is a conversation about success focused on billionaires and presidents? That's all that counts?

+1. The obsession with Wall Street and executive types on this forum is obnoxious

[Anonymous]

Attending the top law school, I noticed that there were lots of students who had come from all sorts of colleges and universities. Just graduating from HYPS doesn't get you that far unless you work hard and are talented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest attended Ivies, and they were both jobless after graduation, and worked at Starbucks. My youngest DS was a D1 recruited athlete at UNC Chapel Hill, and he got a job in IB after graduation because the EVP was an alum at UNC. My DS was able to secure jobs for his older brother and sister because he contacted the EVP to help his siblings. Going to Ivies is not going to help you if you do not have the "right" connections. Therefore, in my children situation, it is a resounding NO. It is not how much you know but who you know, or who knows you.

UNC is ranked in the top 30...and with Duke, UVA, Stanford, and Vanderbilt it has a unique combination of top D1 athletics and prestige.

Something also tells me that the siblings wouldn't have been considered at all if they had attended say VCU.

As do UCLA and Michigan. (Could add Cal/Northwestern here, but their athletics haven't quite been "top" in recent years...)

[Anonymous]

Over here eating my popcorn and chuckling at the number of threads that want to debate the importance of prestige at the undergraduate level with huge majority of posts coming down on the side of - you can do great things even if you do not attend HYPS. Which is of course a reasonable and well supported position, thank you Malcolm Gladwell.
What has me cracking up is I’m betting there is a huge overlap between these posters who say you can go to a range of schools and be successful and the “Big 3” brigade. All the DC posters who ague 24/7 if it is Sidwell GDS STA NCS Maret or whatever because they desperately need their kids school to be in the Big 3. Only the Big 3 have prestige and this makes them feel like their kid will achieve great success in life. But alas even if your kid is at Sidwell or Exeter or whatever not all the kids get in ivies. So now those folks are arguing that elite prestige is not just a small handful of ivies but a bigger list.
So which is it? If greatness can be developed at Harvard, UVA, and Middlebury, to name a few, then it works the same if it is Sidwell, Bullis, STA, Landon, GDS, Potomac, Whitman or Churchill! Because there are kids from all those schools going to Princeton, Penn, Georgetown, Bucknell and SMU and so on and so on. Bottom line the bickering over prestige is ridiculous. Find schools (high school and undergrad) where your kid fits and thrives because that is their best chance to max their potential and be successful. Stop obsessing over prestige and whether that school bumpersticker on your car validates you are best parent in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Over here eating my popcorn and chuckling at the number of threads that want to debate the importance of prestige at the undergraduate level with huge majority of posts coming down on the side of - you can do great things even if you do not attend HYPS. Which is of course a reasonable and well supported position, thank you Malcolm Gladwell.
What has me cracking up is I’m betting there is a huge overlap between these posters who say you can go to a range of schools and be successful and the “Big 3” brigade. All the DC posters who ague 24/7 if it is Sidwell GDS STA NCS Maret or whatever because they desperately need their kids school to be in the Big 3. Only the Big 3 have prestige and this makes them feel like their kid will achieve great success in life. But alas even if your kid is at Sidwell or Exeter or whatever not all the kids get in ivies. So now those folks are arguing that elite prestige is not just a small handful of ivies but a bigger list.
So which is it? If greatness can be developed at Harvard, UVA, and Middlebury, to name a few, then it works the same if it is Sidwell, Bullis, STA, Landon, GDS, Potomac, Whitman or Churchill! Because there are kids from all those schools going to Princeton, Penn, Georgetown, Bucknell and SMU and so on and so on. Bottom line the bickering over prestige is ridiculous. Find schools (high school and undergrad) where your kid fits and thrives because that is their best chance to max their potential and be successful. Stop obsessing over prestige and whether that school bumpersticker on your car validates you are best parent in the DMV.

The hair splitting about a bunch of top 100 colleges is stupid. It’s not even an issue most of the time for the OPs, just a bunch of adults obsessed with discussing Wall Street futures no matter the major. Most students land in careers where prestige isn’t even the top 10 concern of a recruiter.

[Anonymous]

No, what matters is the student, not the school.

[Anonymous]

For engineering, any ABET E school will be rigorous. ABET also means curricula will be similar.

When hiring an engineer, I care much more about specific engineering skills and the student's choice of upper-level engineering electives, rather than which E School or even the GPA. One of our engineers with a lowish GPA (and not from a large or highly ranked E school) actually is one of the best at finding creative solutions to hard problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title says it, but if I hear things like "My kid didn't go to an ivy and he turned out fine, he went to Duke undergrad and Stanford for an MBA." OBVIOUSLY that doesn't count if you're including two very prestigious schools that are better than most of the ivy league. I'm talking about going to regular schools (not top privates or flagship state schools) and having a great career. Thanks!

It depends on what they want to do. If they want to be a professor at Harvard, it probably matters, but if they simply want a high paying joe job i.e. doctor, lawyer or even tech leadership. Most colleges will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prestige is a great substitute for talent. Ask me how I know

Sure. But prestige + talent is killer. Those who get in RD unhooked 3% acceptance rates

The question was about future success.

That's what I'm talking about. The kids that are naturally very smart AND hard workers. They got in on their own moxy and hard work---not a hook, not early, etc. Those types have a lot of future success as they keep working.

Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Clinton, Obama where prestige met talent. Didn't come from privilege. Attended prestigious university, worked hard.

Gates, Zuckerberg and Obama all went to top private schools. Obama got into Occidental and later transferred to Columbia. Bezos went to River Oaks school for middle school which again is in an expensive part of Houston. So they all came from privilege.

People need to distinguish between privilege like Larry Ellison's kid who received several hundred million of investment from Larry for Skydance...and Mark Zuckerberg who's dad was/is a dentist and had little to nothing to do with the creation or success of Facebook.

I don't think Mark Zuckerberg or really anyone believes Facebook would exist if he had decided to attend a SUNY school as an example.

I think one has to be delusional to be from mark zuckerbergs generation and not think going to Philips Academy isn’t immense privilege. It had a lot more weight then than it does today, and he was guaranteed at minimum an upper middle class lifestyle as long as he was mediocre at a minimum. Most people do not have private boarding school safety nets.

Nobody is saying he would be starving on the street…but it had nothing to do with Facebook, other than giving him a straight line to Harvard (he did have a 1600 SAT) that assembled this group.

BTW, Chris Hughes went to Andover on a 100% scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Over here eating my popcorn and chuckling at the number of threads that want to debate the importance of prestige at the undergraduate level with huge majority of posts coming down on the side of - you can do great things even if you do not attend HYPS. Which is of course a reasonable and well supported position, thank you Malcolm Gladwell.
What has me cracking up is I’m betting there is a huge overlap between these posters who say you can go to a range of schools and be successful and the “Big 3” brigade. All the DC posters who ague 24/7 if it is Sidwell GDS STA NCS Maret or whatever because they desperately need their kids school to be in the Big 3. Only the Big 3 have prestige and this makes them feel like their kid will achieve great success in life. But alas even if your kid is at Sidwell or Exeter or whatever not all the kids get in ivies. So now those folks are arguing that elite prestige is not just a small handful of ivies but a bigger list.
So which is it? If greatness can be developed at Harvard, UVA, and Middlebury, to name a few, then it works the same if it is Sidwell, Bullis, STA, Landon, GDS, Potomac, Whitman or Churchill! Because there are kids from all those schools going to Princeton, Penn, Georgetown, Bucknell and SMU and so on and so on. Bottom line the bickering over prestige is ridiculous. Find schools (high school and undergrad) where your kid fits and thrives because that is their best chance to max their potential and be successful. Stop obsessing over prestige and whether that school bumpersticker on your car validates you are best parent in the DMV.

+1
I think it’s the same dope who keeps starting these threads about “prestige” so s/he can dump on schools they find “unworthy.” If everyone would just report them, maybe they’d go away.

[Anonymous]

In my field, when someone from an Ivy is concerned, they succeed because they think they can do anything and have a load of self-confidence. The self-confidence translates into developing their skills and gaining more experience than someone who might let self-doubt slow them down.

They also need emotional intelligence, ability to network, financial security, and at least some charisma.

And a top student at any school can do well if they have self-confidence.

I’ve seen top students at schools flounder due to lack of emotional intelligence or charisma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my field, when someone from an Ivy is concerned, they succeed because they think they can do anything and have a load of self-confidence. The self-confidence translates into developing their skills and gaining more experience than someone who might let self-doubt slow them down.

They also need emotional intelligence, ability to network, financial security, and at least some charisma.

And a top student at any school can do well if they have self-confidence.

I’ve seen top students at schools flounder due to lack of emotional intelligence or charisma.

What field are you in?