Reply to get over name brand / prestige obsession

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I happen to know a lot of people with PhDs from top schools and most of them did not go to HYPSM for their undergrad degrees. Just a personal anecdote but I suspect it mirrors whats out there. Perhaps all the HYPSM students are headed off to lucrative banking or consulting firm careers instead of aiming for intellectual prestige.[/quote]

Two (maybe 3) factors at work here. (1) a few prestigious/relatively small schools (like HYPS) can be grossly overrepresented in PhD admissions and still constitute a minority of all PhD students (globally, at elite schools, or in a particular program) (2) admissions (which is where the prestige advantage functions most strongly) does not = outcome (who finishes, who gets which jobs). Once you’re in grad school, you’re on your own wrt performance. (3) depending on where you are in your profession, who you see/what seems normal might be skewed. A Big Law firm, for example, may have a different mix of undergrad degrees than a DA’s office, even if both have lots of (or the same percentage of) JDs from prestigious law schools.[/quote]

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