<p>@ChoatieMom:</p>
<p>LOL. What year was this, and where?</p>
<p>Late '80s. (Yeah, a while ago.) I was a principal in a successful computer services startup outside Detroit. Those were the days.</p>
<p>To whom is this shocking?</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan
While not obvious, kid #3 had the right mind of a tech entrepreneur. He was the right case of “smart yet underachiever” in HS, but later in life he trumped everyone else.</p>
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<p>A base Rabbit in 1975 was $2,999, according to the Road and Track review found at <a href=“http://www.therustyrabbit.com/brochures.html”>http://www.therustyrabbit.com/brochures.html</a> .</p>
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<p>Of course, the comparison here is exaggerated by the audience of these forums, who tend to worship elite-selectivity private schools like Harvard and MIT while disdaining state flagships like Rutgers and UMass, as well as disdaining computer gaming. Outside of these forums, attending the state flagship is hardly a mark of “underachievement”.</p>
<p>@Fredjan:</p>
<p>Yep. Intense dedication to his passion. Though a quick mind was also required.</p>
<p>So kids, if there’s a lesson here, it’s to follow your passion. Or rather, follow your work. If you’re smart and have interpersonal skills, if you care more about something than 99% of the people out there and are willing to work harder at it than 99% of the people out there, you’ll probably go farther than kids doing stuff just to impress people.</p>
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<p>automatic or manual? </p>
<p>@ucbalumnus - the point is - the tuition (not COA) of Penn was pretty close to the cost of a stripped down basic car - not a luxury vehicle. </p>
<p>Yes. And that’s a decent measure of things, since the idea of paying cash for a new car…even a modest one, for four years in a row isn’t something that an average upper middle class family can do. And they couldn’t do it in the 60s or 70s either. </p>
<p>I find it interesting that the tuition/COA numbers seem to track the S&P 500 better than they do the CPI. Makes you wonder if somehow the pricing rubric followed is something they back into based on endowment values.</p>
<p>@dadx:</p>
<p>Actually, the pricing rubric probably tracks the growth in income of the top 2-3% (which is probably the median family income of an Ivy Leaguer, considering that about half or more are full-pay).</p>
<p>With increasing income/wealth disparity, that income probably has tracked the S&P.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
Indeed. I’d be surprised if someone considered attending UIUC, UMich, Purdue, UT Austin, Cal, GaTech, UMD-CP, Penn State, SUNY, to be cases of underachievement. All of them attract top-tier students overall.</p>
<p>If I wanted to find tomorrow’s billionaires, I’d look for kids who were well prepared for college, smart enough, and those who also had something extra—courage. It takes self-confidence and courage to take risks in life; applying to a very selective college demonstrates daring. </p>
<p>Wai lists the colleges he used for comparisons; it seems those colleges with combined Math and Critical reading scores at or over 1400 fit the bill. So it’s not “the Ivies;” there are 29 schools on the list, with CalTech at the top. If you had access to all the colleges the billionaires had applied to, I bet you’d find more billionaires who applied to the same set of elite colleges, but had either not gotten in or elected not to attend. It’s not the colleges–it’s the fact that intelligence, good preparation, and the willingness to take risks can pay off.</p>
<p>Agree with Periwinkle, but it also begs the question - why do I want / need to find tomorrow’s billionaires anyway? I don’t have as my life goal to be a billiionaire (or to have my kids be billionaires), so it’s of no concern to me which colleges “produce” them (so to speak, since a college doesn’t produce billionaires). </p>
<p>Pizzagirl: I think in the 1930s or so, I’d expect the established colleges to have graduated a significant percentage of the most wealthy, because most of the most wealthy people owned factories and industrial firms. Now a smart kid with the right skills can build a thriving business without inherited wealth. Many tech firms began as founders’ ideas. </p>
<p>I glanced at the papers, but didn’t read them in detail. The no college/not disclosed portion was very large. I would have looked at the same articles, then chosen titles such as, “billionaires come from all backgrounds.” </p>
<p>If one wanted to attend any particular college in the hopes of hobnobbing with billionaires’ children, I think it wouldn’t go well. </p>
<p>Right, but that’s not because those colleges “made” people billionaires. That’s simply because those colleges sought wealthy, connected, most-often WASP families. It’s like saying that owning a Bentley makes you more likely to be a billionaire and offering as your proof that many billionaires own Bentleys and very few non-billionaires own Bentleys. That may be true, but the cause and effect doesn’t work that way. </p>
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<p>I would hardly call it “daring” to apply to the same 15 schools everyone else does. It’s the height of conformity, actually. I will grant that it sometimes involves self-confidence, but “courage”? Hardly.</p>
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<p>Especially if it’s done in the following manner:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qSkaAwKMD4”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qSkaAwKMD4</a></p>
<p>Monks = billionaires’ children</p>
<p>Vikings = middle & lower SES children</p>
<p>Enjoy :D</p>
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You know what’s daring? Taking the money at a low-ranked university riding on your faith in yourself knowing you could’ve relied on the name at an expensive, well-known university. </p>
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<p>Are you kidding me, Sally - of course, this is daring! Not everyday, I dare to take $1200 (15 x $80 per application) and flush it down the toilet. 
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<p>I totally agree - out of 7 billion people on this green earth, there are less than 200 billionaires. I am sure there is nothing in any studies about this population that can remotely apply to me.</p>
<p>From <a href=“Forbes Billionaires 2023: The Richest People In The World”>http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/</a>
“The ranks of the world’s billionaires have swelled to a record 1,645 including 268 newcomers.” </p>
<p>There are far more billionaires in the world than 200. While most worked to create their fortunes, many (about 1/3) inherited billions or inherited 100s of millions and parlayed their fortunes into the billions. There are a lot of Waltons on the list. </p>
<p>If you look at the billionaires under 40, about half inherited their fortunes. How many self-made billionaires went to top tier elite schools? Not as many as you would think. Facebook accounts for five young billionaires, all Harvard. The Dropbox founder went to MIT, but there are schools like Ohio State, Vanderbilt, UCSD, UCLA, Stony Brook. These are all good schools but not the “instantly recognizable” top 10.</p>