Does where you go to college actually matter?

[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.

My husband and I met at medical school at Hopkins. I went to a dinky Christian school for undergrad and he went to a second (or even third?)tier state school.

[Anonymous]

I will take this to the grave: K-12, especially 9-12, education matters 1000x more than which college you attend. ex.

Sidwell + UMich > public lifer + Ivy

Georgetown Prep + Villanova > public lifer + UChicago

Boarding school + UVA > public lifer + Duke

I've seen dozens of kids squander "elite" college because their crummy public school made them a fish out of water. And I've seen polished private school kids come out of public flagships and set the world on fire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will take this to the grave: K-12, especially 9-12, education matters 1000x more than which college you attend. ex.

Sidwell + UMich > public lifer + Ivy

Georgetown Prep + Villanova > public lifer + UChicago

Boarding school + UVA > public lifer + Duke

I've seen dozens of kids squander "elite" college because their crummy public school made them a fish out of water. And I've seen polished private school kids come out of public flagships and set the world on fire.

So be born rich, kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will take this to the grave: K-12, especially 9-12, education matters 1000x more than which college you attend. ex.

Sidwell + UMich > public lifer + Ivy

Georgetown Prep + Villanova > public lifer + UChicago

Boarding school + UVA > public lifer + Duke

I've seen dozens of kids squander "elite" college because their crummy public school made them a fish out of water. And I've seen polished private school kids come out of public flagships and set the world on fire.

So be born rich, kids.

Last I checked financial aid is avail at any half-decent private school.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NO.

Unless -

1. You wanted to specifically be with a certain organization in the legal, medical or academic profession where the name of your education is paramount
2. You wanted to start in management v. work your way up in which case you go get your MBA from a top B school
3. You wanted to specifically open up networking opportunities at a school - ie you wanted specifically to work for a company that you know does college recruiting out of that school
4. You want to work within corporate finance or CIA/Foreign Service/public sector organization that college recruits specifically from a list of preferred top schools

Otherwise it does not matter where you go to college, from a community college to a college that nobody's heard of -

1. You can absolutely work your way to the top in almost any field.
2. You can absolutely be happy and successful in any industry.
3. You can absolutely earn a TON of money by being successful in your industry. Better yet, own your own business and hire people out of the college you want!
4. You can absolutely be a smart, good or educated person and even all three to boot!

- Signed, a VP of Talent Acquisition, with 20+ years of experience hiring in tech, finance and sales/marketing industries for corporate F100 global and national companies. I have recruited both Harvard MBA morons who despite whatever title they had will always be moron and can't write a resume, and highly motivated, street smart and hard worker community college grads who became C level executives

Bringing this Back. This person makes the most sense out of anybody on this board. It’s so obvious who had the I really go to Quetion here. Their justifying themselves way too much. I trust somebody who actually hires people vs somebody who thinks they should be hired.

[Anonymous]

If you go to grad school (law, medicine, PhD), it probably doesn't matter. At least, I don't care to argue with all of the "I went to a dinky Christian school and then Hopkins med school and I turned out fine!" posters here.

But for everyone else, the name of the game is on-campus recruiting.

Many of us are too old to really understand the importance of OCR; in my day it was fairly optional unless you are going into certain fields like i-banking or consulting.

But now it is much more important; jobs that are offered through OCR simply aren't offered to the general public or even to students outside of a small number of chosen schools.

Tech firm A may recruit at both School X and School Y, but the School X positions may be core engineering positions while the School Y ones are support positions at a regional office.

OCR is important in tech, finance, management consulting and other fields. See this (highly critical) HBR article for how it works: https://hbr.org/2015/10/firms-are-wasting-millions-recruiting-on-only-a-few-campuses

Yes, where you go to school absolutely does matter if you're not going to be a doctor, lawyer or professor - the vast majority of kids; including the vast majority of those who intend to be doctors, lawyers or professors (those fields have a nasty cut).

[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. 🤣

Michael Che went to one of NY's prestigious application-only public high schools, which is an argument for the poster who said secondary eduction is more important.

Also, Colin Jost was a writer for SNL before he was a performer. Not many writers for NBC comedy are high school graduates-only (although I'm sure there have been a few).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NO.

Unless -

1. You wanted to specifically be with a certain organization in the legal, medical or academic profession where the name of your education is paramount
2. You wanted to start in management v. work your way up in which case you go get your MBA from a top B school
3. You wanted to specifically open up networking opportunities at a school - ie you wanted specifically to work for a company that you know does college recruiting out of that school
4. You want to work within corporate finance or CIA/Foreign Service/public sector organization that college recruits specifically from a list of preferred top schools

Otherwise it does not matter where you go to college, from a community college to a college that nobody's heard of -

1. You can absolutely work your way to the top in almost any field.
2. You can absolutely be happy and successful in any industry.
3. You can absolutely earn a TON of money by being successful in your industry. Better yet, own your own business and hire people out of the college you want!
4. You can absolutely be a smart, good or educated person and even all three to boot!

- Signed, a VP of Talent Acquisition, with 20+ years of experience hiring in tech, finance and sales/marketing industries for corporate F100 global and national companies. I have recruited both Harvard MBA morons who despite whatever title they had will always be moron and can't write a resume, and highly motivated, street smart and hard worker community college grads who became C level executives

These unlesses are doing a lot of work, especially as many Ivy Leaguers would rather be a mid-level grunt at Goldman Sachs, Amazon or the CIA than work their way up at a random F100 company. Money is good but prestige means a lot too.

I highlighted "almost" too because it's also doing a lot of work. Bulge bracket banks and bigtech are areas where it is not really possible to work your way to the very top from the community college level. Maybe there is a counterexample or two, but there are not many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This. The ivy education only matters if you stay in the careers and locations where it matters. I moved back to the Midwest, and my ivy grad degree + top-25 undergrad are actually a disadvantage when the people doing the hiring went to Indiana Tech or Oklahoma State or something. The number of rude comments making fun of my education from coworkers is astounding. People definitely want to "put me in my place".

I'm also a minority woman who has always worked in overwhelmingly white workplaces, so that definitely plays into people seeing my ivy degree as "uppity" and wanting to put me in my place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will take this to the grave: K-12, especially 9-12, education matters 1000x more than which college you attend. ex.

Sidwell + UMich > public lifer + Ivy

Georgetown Prep + Villanova > public lifer + UChicago

Boarding school + UVA > public lifer + Duke

I've seen dozens of kids squander "elite" college because their crummy public school made them a fish out of water. And I've seen polished private school kids come out of public flagships and set the world on fire.

The douchebaggery lives … at least until we burn down the country clubs and get heads on pikes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you make friends and connections during college? Did you stay in touch with those people? If not, it doesn’t really matter once you are 5yrs out of school.

Where you go matters for connections and opportunities.
You can go to a prestigious school and fail recognize or to take advantage of ample opportunities. You can go to a mediocre school and bust your butt to find and take advantage of opportunities.

THIS! My biggest regret was not taking advantage of opportunities to make connections with professors and other students. Spent my 4 years intoxicated with my small circle of friends.

[Anonymous]

100% yes; It stays on your resume and influences your circle. I know a 40+ year old never married because UVa taught him he's hard to live with. Racist bullying scars you and effects your confidence. You get rejected from jobs and are seen differently at competitions. You can learn at home free, but go to school with best experience and best payment system.

[Anonymous]

Law school or politics ..yes. Otherwise..no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will take this to the grave: K-12, especially 9-12, education matters 1000x more than which college you attend. ex.

Sidwell + UMich > public lifer + Ivy

Georgetown Prep + Villanova > public lifer + UChicago

Boarding school + UVA > public lifer + Duke

I've seen dozens of kids squander "elite" college because their crummy public school made them a fish out of water. And I've seen polished private school kids come out of public flagships and set the world on fire.

So be born rich, kids.

Or spend the college money you were saving for an elite private high school? And then hope that they get scholarships or something?