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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]they have many, many paths to success[/quote]
This is the part that always bugs me though.

OF COURSE there are many potential paths to success.  But it sounds like you and Bruni would have people to believe that the odds of success are going to be exactly the same no matter which path you take.

So you really believe that the odds of success are the same if you go to an Ivy than if you don't?  Bruni's thesis (Ivy degrees don't reliably predict success), even assuming for the sake of argument as true, doesn't answer this question.[/quote]

"A student with a 1,400 SAT score who went to Penn State but applied to Penn earned as much, on average, as a student with a 1,400 who went to Penn." This was the finding of a couple researchers, Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger. One was, ironically, a Harvard grad and a current Princeton professor. So there's that.

This was a key finding: "He points out that the average SAT score at the most selective college students [b][i]apply to[/i][/b] turns out to be a better predictor of their earnings than the average SAT score at the college [b][i]they attended[/i][/b]."

This matches the point Bruni makes in his excellent book. Perhaps the fixation with prestige is actually a positive marker in its own way. But the disparaging of schools outside the most prestigious is unfortunate. Because it ultimately doesn't matter nearly so much as many think. Sure, shoot for the elite schools. Just don't make it the be-all and end-all. There really is life outside the elite schools.

Now when you read the summary of the study, it does find that selective schools make a difference for these groups: black students, Latino students, low-income students and students whose parents did not graduate from college. Note: these represent some of what are called URMs and/or hooks when it comes to college admissions.

Link to story about the study: 
https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/

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