Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
On one hand, I think I benefited early on from being “top student at a good school” vs “good student at a top school.” Also, on the employer’s side of the interview table, I feel the “top student at a good school” makes the stronger impression (I work in academia, so this may be field-dependent).

Of all the career paths where going to the top school matters, academia is the one where it matters the most.

Not really. The most important factor in early career academic employment is the quality of the dissertation. Do students at higher ranked schools write better dissertations? Yes, on average, but that has more to do with the individual (and the thesis advisor) than the school.

Beyond the first job (in STEM, usually a temporary position), it’s the quality of the work that matters. Tenure track hiring decisions are difficult and high-stakes (the goal is to hire a colleague who will stay for their whole career), so the role played by the name of the degree-granting institution is very small. The undergraduate institution is basically irrelevant at that point.

I don’t have experience with many other fields, but in academia there is no analogue of the hiring managers I hear about who are only willing to recruit from 3 or 4 Ivy League schools.

As I said to my daughter this morning, the thing about Harvard is it's full of people who freak out who have been competing for so long that's all they know. Do any of you think a cocktail party full of high-achievers is a fun place to be? Because I have been to many and I would like to point out it is not.

A focus on zero-sum competition and rank, agonizing over the difference between a 1540 Sat and an 1580... Packing a "well-rounded" resume with a focus on creating a polished 18 year old product... Everything about that process creates deeply confirmist little worker bees. Who are also boring. Learning, real academic learning, the pursuit of real knowledge, is about research and debate. It's not competitive, and it is its own reward.

I'm still not sure where the college that caters to those kind of students is, and I'm not sure my daughter is one of those students. But I'd like to find it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

I had a heart attack in 2020. They took me to the hospital and said I would have open heart surgery the next morning. I did not even ask my surgeon what medical school she went to. I assumed she was board certified and experienced, and that was what mattered. She did her job and I’m still alive today.

So tell me, am I lying and arguing in bad faith when I say what medical school you attend doesn’t matter?

+1. If they are board certified, they passed the rigorous testing to earn that. Only time I might care is if it's a specialized treatment---and then I care about the specific doctors expertise, how many procedures they have successfully performed, what is their success vs failure rate, etc. So if they went to Bahamas U Med school and are now the top rated Heart Surgeon for my type of heart cancer/heart issue, then I'm selecting them, and it's for their expertise and work after medical school, not their work during med school

+ another. Anyone needing heart surgery who stops their research after finding out where the doctors went to college is an idiot. And that's the point: there are a lot of people with poor decision making skills who look at the superficial aspects of the decision they're making and think they've done enough. For small decisions, the consequences aren't great enough to worry about. If you prefer the Harvard doc for curing your mild acne, you can go to them, have them cure it, think you were smart for going with Harvard instead of the Caribbean, and move on. For heart surgery, those who make wise decisions about major things in their life want to know a heck of a lot more than where their doctor studied, and that additional research may end up saving their life b/c there's no one on the planet better than the Caribbean doctor, and the Harvard doc is an alcoholic with shaky hands.

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

So, all that to claim

Harvard Med. > Jimmy Buffett Academy of Podiatry

That’s a bold position. You have citations to back it up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

Medical school is very different from undergrad!!!! I don't care where my accountant went to school, as long as they are a certified CPA and passed all the certification tests.

However, for doctors, yes I care where they went at some level---I'm not keen on those who went to Caribbean medical school as I know it's not as rigorous, however if they are board certified in the USA then I don't care as much because they had to pass the same rigorous test as the Harvard grad to get that. However, if the doc went to Harvard vs UMich or Ohio State Med school (do they have one?) and are board certified, I dont' really care---I care how long they have been in practice and board certified, where they have worked, their reviews and how much of an expert they are for the type of heart surgery I am getting.

You claim to know how “rigorous” medical schools in the Caribbean are, but don’t know whether Ohio State U has a medical school? LMAO

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. It matters to the the overbearing helicopter parent that wear their kid’s college brand like a designer handbag and that we will be directionless and aimless when DC leaves the nest. But for your kid, their employer will care that they went to school but not where. The exception, of course, is on both extremes. If they go to a top 5-7 school, great, they get bonus points (except for the many employers that specifically don’t want someone with those credentials because they tend to believe that they are entitled to an accelerated journey). On the other extreme, if they went to an online school or a super esoteric school, there better be a good reason.

Other than that, schools #7-150 or so are completely interchangeable in the real world.

There are a group of employers that for all intents and purposes essentially only recruit from the top 10 schools. I agree there are also plenty of employers that don’t waste their time recruiting from those schools as well.

It’s more than just “bonus” points.

I actually believe there are many employers in tech that don’t care if you go to college at all. My kid interned at an AI company that raised $50MM+ of VC and 1/3 of the company didn’t go to college.

If you are talking about big banks and consulting, I would venture to argue that these are the jobs and institutions that are sucking the wealth from the bottom half of the population and perpetuating the wealth gap. It is all so ironic.

No…VC funds, boutique investment banks…they don’t comprise a significant number of jobs but their hiring is very insular.

Yes, but I and a few friends got jobs at them from temp agencies in NYC. I didn't stay in IB because I was young and stupid, but my friends who did made bank.

There's usually more than one way into those things, if those are truly the things that matter to you.

Every year it's the same story on these boards.

October: my kid is applying to JMU, VT, etc. as safeties. They're not schools we're actually serious about, since they should be a breeze to get into for my kid.

December: My kid is getting a series of ED rejections. Is this happening to anyone else? It appears we will have to take our safeties seriously? EA rounds are coming up...

February: How dare VT turn away my kid! It must be yield protection!

Late February: My kid is applying regular admission to this new set of schools. Finger's crossed. We should have applied to more schools earlier.

March: I'm starting to feel a bit anxious at this point. Anyone else?

June: Kid has accepted at a school that wasn't a real consideration in September. This whole process ended up being way harder than I expected it to be. I learned a lot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

I had a heart attack in 2020. They took me to the hospital and said I would have open heart surgery the next morning. I did not even ask my surgeon what medical school she went to. I assumed she was board certified and experienced, and that was what mattered. She did her job and I’m still alive today.

So tell me, am I lying and arguing in bad faith when I say what medical school you attend doesn’t matter?

+1. If they are board certified, they passed the rigorous testing to earn that. Only time I might care is if it's a specialized treatment---and then I care about the specific doctors expertise, how many procedures they have successfully performed, what is their success vs failure rate, etc. So if they went to Bahamas U Med school and are now the top rated Heart Surgeon for my type of heart cancer/heart issue, then I'm selecting them, and it's for their expertise and work after medical school, not their work during med school

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

Medical school is very different from undergrad!!!! I don't care where my accountant went to school, as long as they are a certified CPA and passed all the certification tests.

However, for doctors, yes I care where they went at some level---I'm not keen on those who went to Caribbean medical school as I know it's not as rigorous, however if they are board certified in the USA then I don't care as much because they had to pass the same rigorous test as the Harvard grad to get that. However, if the doc went to Harvard vs UMich or Ohio State Med school (do they have one?) and are board certified, I dont' really care---I care how long they have been in practice and board certified, where they have worked, their reviews and how much of an expert they are for the type of heart surgery I am getting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

I had a heart attack in 2020. They took me to the hospital and said I would have open heart surgery the next morning. I did not even ask my surgeon what medical school she went to. I assumed she was board certified and experienced, and that was what mattered. She did her job and I’m still alive today.

So tell me, am I lying and arguing in bad faith when I say what medical school you attend doesn’t matter?

Or put another way...there are a lot of important medical decisions that need to be made in response to an emergency. You don't have the luxury of waiting 30 or 60 days to identify the Harvard-trained cardiologist.

We had a family member that was rushed to the Georgetown hospital ER with what presented as a possible cardiac event (turned out to be something else that could have been serious in its right, but was not). The doctors provided great treatment and all turned out well. After the fact did some research on the doctor and the doctor we saw for a follow-up exam. Neither attended a medical school of which I had ever heard...certainly not US medical schools...possibly Caribbean, but no idea.

These are good facts but they don't address PP's thought experiment. Of course, if your choice is doctor of unknown pedigree v. death, you pick choice A. But that's the choice. The choice is given a life-or-death scenario, and given the choice, do you pick Harvard Dr. or Carribran Osteo Dr. (no offence to grads of either, but they are objectively ranked lower than Harvard).

The point of the thought experiment is to recognize whether "pedigree" matters using a very extreme case. By arguing a strawman instead of the thought experiment itself, you are arguing in bad faith.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

I had a heart attack in 2020. They took me to the hospital and said I would have open heart surgery the next morning. I did not even ask my surgeon what medical school she went to. I assumed she was board certified and experienced, and that was what mattered. She did her job and I’m still alive today.

So tell me, am I lying and arguing in bad faith when I say what medical school you attend doesn’t matter?

Or put another way...there are a lot of important medical decisions that need to be made in response to an emergency. You don't have the luxury of waiting 30 or 60 days to identify the Harvard-trained cardiologist.

We had a family member that was rushed to the Georgetown hospital ER with what presented as a possible cardiac event (turned out to be something else that could have been serious in its right, but was not). The doctors provided great treatment and all turned out well. After the fact did some research on the doctor and the doctor we saw for a follow-up exam. Neither attended a medical school of which I had ever heard...certainly not US medical schools...possibly Caribbean, but no idea.

And in the US--1 in 4 US medical students attend an Osteopathic Medical School--and they are good schools. It's not like some second rate option. While they are eligible to serve in all areas of medicine, they tend to be primary care physicians.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

I had a heart attack in 2020. They took me to the hospital and said I would have open heart surgery the next morning. I did not even ask my surgeon what medical school she went to. I assumed she was board certified and experienced, and that was what mattered. She did her job and I’m still alive today.

So tell me, am I lying and arguing in bad faith when I say what medical school you attend doesn’t matter?

Or put another way...there are a lot of important medical decisions that need to be made in response to an emergency. You don't have the luxury of waiting 30 or 60 days to identify the Harvard-trained cardiologist.

We had a family member that was rushed to the Georgetown hospital ER with what presented as a possible cardiac event (turned out to be something else that could have been serious in its right, but was not). The doctors provided great treatment and all turned out well. After the fact did some research on the doctor and the doctor we saw for a follow-up exam. Neither attended a medical school of which I had ever heard...certainly not US medical schools...possibly Caribbean, but no idea.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

So tell me, am I lying and arguing in bad faith when I say what medical school you attend doesn’t matter?

This is edging towards the Dennis Hopper scene in True Romance.

Anonymous wrote:a thought experiment for everyone: suppose you are getting heart surgery this week and there are two surgeons available. You can google them and find they are both 40-45 yo and worked in the same hospital for the last 15 years. One of them graduated from Harvard Medical and the other graduated from some osteopathic medical college in the Carribbean. You know nothing else about them. Who are you picking?

Everyone who chose the Harvard grad should accept the fact that the college name means something (however small that might be).

Everyone who chose the osteopathic merical college in the Carribbean grad is lying and making bad-faith arguments on this board.

I had a heart attack in 2020. They took me to the hospital and said I would have open heart surgery the next morning. I did not even ask my surgeon what medical school she went to. I assumed she was board certified and experienced, and that was what mattered. She did her job and I’m still alive today.

So tell me, am I lying and arguing in bad faith when I say what medical school you attend doesn’t matter?

Anonymous wrote:
On one hand, I think I benefited early on from being “top student at a good school” vs “good student at a top school.” Also, on the employer’s side of the interview table, I feel the “top student at a good school” makes the stronger impression (I work in academia, so this may be field-dependent).

Of all the career paths where going to the top school matters, academia is the one where it matters the most.