My limited context is the tech world, comp sci, Silicon Valley, and the big players on the west coast. </p>
<p>I think a mediocre grad from a great tech school has a substantial boost over a similar one from a lower tier school at least for the first several years. Many of the latter group that I know didn’t go far from home; the majority in the first set headed to where the action was, and even if they didn’t stay put at one company, they lived and networked in a more dynamic world for their subsequent career moves.</p>
<p>Top tier grad school admissions - agree that an elite undergrad is far less of a factor.</p>
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I will never be as entertaining a poster as you. BTW, don’t confuse yourself by thinking what I state are necessarily facts; perhaps I just think they are.</p>
<p>As I said, re Kristopherson, don’t confuse me with the facts. “When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor . . . .” The names may have changed, but the point is more or less the same - Occidental provided half of Obama’s undergraduate education (of course, he transferred to Columbia). </p>
<p>I was an English Lit major turned attorney in the silicon valley world for a little over a decade in the 80’s and early 90’s when everyone seemed to be job hopping and staying at one place seemed to suggest failure rather than success. I suspect that you (Dad<em>of</em>3) know the ins and outs of that world far better than I do and do not doubt your premise. </p>
<p>Tech and finance seem to be where the high paying jobs are. Those of us who are uniquely unqualified for such positions must creatively use our talents to find alternatives. Recent history show considerable instability in those sectors as bubbles rise and burst, and lots of well educated and talented tech and finance people have had to reinvent themselves in ways that they did not foresee. The start is important, but the performance thereafter is more important - more often than not, talent will be recognized regardless of the pedigree.</p>
<p>I am optimistic that high performing high school students will find avenues for success as long as they attend an institution where their intellectual gifts are not wasted; i.e. somewhere having no, or few, intellectual peers in the class and a mediocre faculty or wholly inadequate facilities or a combination of the above. My optimism about that could be misplaced, but Andy DuFraine (phonetic) from “Shawshank Redemption” is one of my heroes so I remain stubborn about it.</p>
<p>Agreed! You don’t need an elite school. Our daughter graduated from an average HS 4th in her class. She had SAT’s in the 1300’s and got into the top undergrad state school where we live. (We saved tons of money with state schools.) She graduated from there summa cum laude with an excellent gpa. Took the LSATS and got into a private top 20 law school with a $25K per year scholarship. Graduated law school top 11 percent of her class. Worked very hard, landed the right internships, and networked. She secured a job with big law out in silicon valley this year and started recently as an associate attorney with a salary of $160K. We would have preferred to keep her on the east coast where we live, but you go where the jobs are. We’re hopeful she won’t burn out before she can save some money up. She has some debt from law school, but not much in the realm of things and that will be paid off by 529 plans. In essence, by our sending her to a state school, we saved $$ for her 529 to pay off her law school loan. She worked very hard, had the right internships and networked like crazy. While it worked out well for her, there are many who did the same things in her graduating law school class that still do not have jobs. This was her goal (law school) and she did it with hard work and determination. She had many frustrations along the way, but she did it, and we’re very proud of her. She’s 25.</p>
<p>Having attended, as an undergraduate, three selective universities, along with a semester abroad, I’ve come to believe the nature of your fellow classmates is a huge factor in what a student takes away from their undergraduate years. </p>
<p>In a nutshell, in general, I found students possessed greater intellectual vigor and curiosity at NYU and University of Copenhagen than at University of Albany and University of California San Diego. </p>
<p>For me, the overall homogeneous background of the students attending the two top state universities didn’t measure up when compared to the more heterogeneous student bodies I found elsewhere.</p>
<p>The most highly motivated students will, of course, flourish anywhere. It’s the rest of the pack who I found benefited the most when presented with the more vibrant student
Petri dish.</p>
<p>BTW, though it isn’t for everyone, my itinerant undergraduate journey served me well. </p>
<p>My own D is a freshman at a top UC school and I’ve been doing my best to encourage her to spend a year abroad.</p>
<p>In the particular Silicon Valley context, Berkeley and Stanford are prime recruiting targets. For other schools, it helps to be local (e.g. San Jose State or UC Santa Cruz), or at a school considered worth traveling to for recruiting (a school well known to be good in CS or whatever major is being recruited for, like MIT, CMU, UIUC, Texas, UCLA, USC, Cal Poly SLO, etc.).</p>
<p>A lot of the local advantage in hiring, or the tendency of some employers to look locally, is that most jobs don’t need the best of the best employee to perform it competently. A local person with a good enough education to do an ordinary enough job, more committed to living in the area, and cheaper as well, can be the best choice.</p>