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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a Yale graduate.  I was a regular middle class kid from a public high school (both my parents were teachers, so maybe on the lower edge of upper middle class).  I had a very good experience at Yale, got good grades, married a classmate, went to an R1 state university for my PhD, and I have a nice professional life.

Most of my friends from Yale are like me.  MC or UMC kids who became professionals.  We mostly married each other and we have nice lives.

But, there was another Yale that we had nothing to do with.  The Yale that was filled with rich, well-connected kids who all knew each other from prep schools, summer camps, country clubs.  They pretty much hung out with each other at Yale and with their high school friends from other colleges.  After graduation, they got jobs through connections, worked for family companies, married each other.  Where they went to college didn’t really matter.  The ones from Yale and the ones who went to Michigan or Emory are all still rich and all still friends.

If your kid wants to go to an Ivy, that is a nice dream and they should pursue it. But, it’s not likely to be transformational.  Upper middle class kids are mostly going to become upper middle class adults.  Rich, well-connected kids are mostly going to become rich, well-connected adults.  A few from each group will float up or down.

I don’t get the obsession with who gets into the Ivy League schools.  That is not where class change happens. A Yale full of nice upper middle class kids will mostly produce professionals and academics but not an outsized number of the rich or powerful in society.  That is fine but I’m not sure it’s worth fighting each other over.  [/quote]

I went to Dartmouth and this is spot on. A few people crossed boundaries due to sports teams but most of us stayed with the social classes we were born into and are now UMC professionals.[/quote]

Someone who went to HYPS here and agree. Athletics and engineering were the only real driver of class change that I saw. Hardworking good athletes did extremely well after college. Engineering students also changed course.

But otherwise, no. [/quote]

Dh went to Yale. I went to Harvard. I do agree that the uber rich kids hung out together and married one another. Dh and I are children of poor immigrants and we ended up marrying one another.

DH is very successful and earns a seven figure income. He is well connected and I don’t think he would have had the same opportunities had he gone to Penn State. We live a very UMC lifestyle. Some people may think we are rich. All would not have been possible had we not done so well academically. This may be an Asian way of thinking. We are taught that education is our ticket.[/quote]

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