My child attends an elite college. It is overrated.

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's too early to tell or maybe she just didn't capitalize on all the opportunities (I suspect very few do) but it most certainly has not changed her life. The thing I do notice is overall a higher percentage of deeply committed pre-med students than my son's peers at the state flagship. Other than that there's this laughable idea that an elite college is a golden ticket to a $150,000 job offer and a rich spouse and that's just not accurate. The plum six-figure job offers are scarce and go to the connected and elbowy overachievers with perfect grades. And generally the rich socialize with the rich. If you want your child in that orbit they need to be in that orbit by 9th grade at some ritzy prep or boarding school.

I have a niece at Cornell who is close with my daughter and she has had a similar experience. At Cornell the rich are in the rich kid sororities and fraternities.

A few years back we were caught up in the admissions frenzy but in retrospect it seems so nutty. I'm [now] far more impressed with a parent who tells me their kid is at a less selective school but just got into medical school than some Ivy League parent who tells me their ubiquitous kid is going into "consulting" for $60,000 a year or some second rate grad program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's too early to tell or maybe she just didn't capitalize on all the opportunities (I suspect very few do) but it most certainly has not changed her life. The thing I do notice is overall a higher percentage of deeply committed pre-med students than my son's peers at the state flagship. Other than that there's this laughable idea that an elite college is a golden ticket to a $150,000 job offer and a rich spouse and that's just not accurate. The plum six-figure job offers are scarce and go to the connected and elbowy overachievers with perfect grades. And generally the rich socialize with the rich. If you want your child in that orbit they need to be in that orbit by 9th grade at some ritzy prep or boarding school.

I have a niece at Cornell who is close with my daughter and she has had a similar experience. At Cornell the rich are in the rich kid sororities and fraternities.

A few years back we were caught up in the admissions frenzy but in retrospect it seems so nutty. I'm [now] far more impressed with a parent who tells me their kid is at a less selective school but just got into medical school than some Ivy League parent who tells me their ubiquitous kid is going into "consulting" for $60,000 a year or some second rate grad program.

Your points are valid and you could have chosen to make them and tell this story many other ways which would have been positive and affirming. But the way you chose seems embittered and jealous, and it will be much less effective as a result.

[Anonymous]

Was your goal to get your child into certain social circles, op? Because that is what your post sounds like.

[Anonymous]

I went to Duke and this is a pretty accurate (and bitter) summary. I wish I had gone to a cheaper school close to home, and maybe done pre med or something. But I wasn’t really organized enough to take advantage of the opportunities available. Oh well. I did end up going to law school on the cheap with scholarships so I learned my lesson!

[Anonymous]

Of course it's not a golden ticket. They don't just hand out vouchers for $150,000 jobs upon graduation when you arrive. You still have to work hard. I attended one of these, I got plenty of rejections from jobs I applied for, and I bounced around for a bit before settling into my career. Most kids I know did too. We worked hard, we paid dues.

It was life-changing for me because I didn't come from this UMC/UC elite world; it was entirely new to me.

You seem really entitled in that you seem to think that all you kid had to go was get admitted, then everything would be handed to her. Not so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's too early to tell or maybe she just didn't capitalize on all the opportunities (I suspect very few do) but it most certainly has not changed her life. The thing I do notice is overall a higher percentage of deeply committed pre-med students than my son's peers at the state flagship. Other than that there's this laughable idea that an elite college is a golden ticket to a $150,000 job offer and a rich spouse and that's just not accurate. The plum six-figure job offers are scarce and go to the connected and elbowy overachievers with perfect grades. And generally the rich socialize with the rich. If you want your child in that orbit they need to be in that orbit by 9th grade at some ritzy prep or boarding school.

I have a niece at Cornell who is close with my daughter and she has had a similar experience. At Cornell the rich are in the rich kid sororities and fraternities.

A few years back we were caught up in the admissions frenzy but in retrospect it seems so nutty. I'm [now] far more impressed with a parent who tells me their kid is at a less selective school but just got into medical school than some Ivy League parent who tells me their ubiquitous kid is going into "consulting" for $60,000 a year or some second rate grad program.

You got taken for a ride. You just realize what a shitty ROI your kid is getting. Your expectation was all messed up from the get-go.

[Anonymous]

OK

[Anonymous]

Which "elite" college is this? UChicago's initial ROI is around $60,000 per year.

[Anonymous]

Op are you just figuring out that rich people hang outside with other rich people? That’s why people send their kids to private school.

[Anonymous]

YMMV, at the SLAC I went to people generally mingled and people only had vague ideas who was how rich. Maybe Facebook/IG has changed that, but if you put a couple of thousand kids in an isolated freezing environment and then add alcohol, and give them no outsiders to socialize with, maybe it hasn't

[Anonymous]

Northwestern? That's not elite, elite.

[Anonymous]

Your niece went to Cornell hoping to meet rich people?

[Anonymous]

My kids also went to “elite” colleges. I think your reference to “elbowy overachievers” is gross. My DD definitely is a grind it out kind of student but also made plenty of close friends, was involved in a couple of clubs and in a sorority. Not elbowy at all. Her starting salary out of college was in the range you referenced. Even if it was half that, I would think she is doing well - but I never thought that her college was supposed to be a path to a high paying career. She had a great education and that was the goal. I think your take that it’s the well-connected or elbowy overachievers who benefit from the education is ridiculous, and you sound like you need to tear other kids down to feel better better about where your own kid has landed.

[Anonymous]

It is true. There are some schools that are elite enough that you can use that brand to your advantage when you leave (Harvard) but the reality is, all those rigorous application processes do is allow the schools to discriminate in favor of the genteel, inbred elites, while letting a few plebeians in who know their place: to increase test scores, to feel inferior to the rich kids, and, to one day be the brainpower behind (but never the leadership of) major institutions in this country.

. I know, I know, you will say, but look at Mr. Free Lunch Program, he is a CEO. But the dirty secret of these universities is he would have been just as successful at a state u as an elite one, because that kind of drive is unstoppable. He used them and they used him to keep the myth alive that elite Universities are worth it for the kind of people who need to take out college loans.

Remeber that for the supperrich, of course, it matters not a bit where they send their kids. Will Blue Ivy be any less powerful if she attends Stanford vs Hamilton?

[Anonymous]

Reads like a parody. Sad if it’s not.