Reply to Top School vs. Best Fit. Is Prestige Worth Being in the Bottom Half?

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Reply to "Top School vs. Best Fit. Is Prestige Worth Being in the Bottom Half?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At places like top 10, half the class is going to be below the median, 25% of the class will be below top 75 percentile. That’s just how it works.

I get it that you’re still surrounded by smart people, big-name professors, and strong recruiting pipelines. But does that actually translate into good outcomes for students in the bottom half or bottom quartiel? Are they still landing solid jobs and grad school placements?

On the flip side, what if you went to a slightly less selective school and ended up in the top 10–20%? You might get more leadership roles, closer relationships with professors, stronger recommendation letters, and maybe just more confidence overall. Does standing out more beat having a big brand name on your resume?

How people think about this tradeoff. Is prestige worth it even if you’re below average there? Or is it smarter to pick the place where you’re more likely to shine?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually seen this play out.[/quote]

In theory, most of the students in the bottom quarter at a place like Harvard are bright, hardworking people who aren’t academic superstars and are going to succeed, if they do, more because of their creativity, artistic talents,  networking skills, raw physical charisma, or other aspects other than grades.

As long as they’re comfortable with the idea that their grades might be mediocre, they may benefit from the networking opportunities and extracurricular opportunities at a top school even more than a lot of the high-stats students. The super high-stats students might be lonelier at less selective schools but would earn high stats anywhere; the bottom-quarter students at Harvard can get opportunities at Harvard that simply aren’t available at America University or JMU. [/quote]

Funny. Elise Stefanik was a friend of a friend at Harvard. She was bright and did extremely well in high school. Her Harvard grades weren’t good enough for a law school that she wouldn’t be embarrassed to attend. So she used her “charisma” to go into politics. Not sure if I’d call it a success story.[/quote]

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