<p>@DrGoogle
Wow, that’s a strange couple. They must have piled debt onto debt due to all that prestige.</p>
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<p>Also, many engineering, computer, or technology companies have differing ideas of what constitutes an “elite school” if hiring engineering/CS majors. With a few exceptions, it wouldn’t be the Ivies. </p>
<p>In fact, even if one graduated from Ivies with great engineering/CS programs like Cornell, Princeton, and Columbia SEAS, some engineering/tech firms still have a culture where such graduates need to do more to prove they have the techie/STEM creds than counterparts from MIT, Caltech, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, UMich, UIlinois-UC, UW, etc.</p>
<p>I think they didn’t know what they want, one started out premed at Emory and then medical school, but dropped out because she didn’t like bio. Than got a MS at Stanford for EE/CS but not working in the field for long before the tech bubble crashed. One had a EE/CS at Cornell, MS at Stanford for EE/CS, then applied to Phd at Stanford and was accepted and going there for a few years. Then found investment banking is a hot area so got an MBA at Haas.I think their parents are low income so they got all these free schooling but now as parents of two young kids I wonder what they do to pay for the schooling(but I don’t dare ask). I think they forgot that it’s beneficial to spend time building a career, not jumping around.</p>
<p>@DrGoogle
Interesting. Their story is quite the exact opposite of the slacker who became a millionaire through video games. They clearly were pretty smart but their passions withered. Meanwhile, the slacker had a passion and therefore life became very generous to him.</p>
<p>I guess Gtbguy feels the need to justify the tuition he spent.</p>
<p>Mind you, some schools do have tremendous alumni networks (Princeton, Dartmouth, & USC come to mind), but there are also peers of those schools with alumni networks are not as tremendous. Also, “4 years means better network” seems like flawed thinking to me. Kids around 20 change a lot. Few will have the same friends as seniors that they had as freshmen. Many don’t bother to keep in touch (unless they’re in a greek organization).</p>
<p>Also, this is also locale dependent. The Ivies seem to hold more of a mystique in the Northeast. Go out to CA, and while Stanford is well represented at the top, you’ll also find a ton of UC grads of various stripes in top positions. Also, in certain circles, USC is as highly regarded as an Ivy (while in other circles, Cal is more highly regarded than USC).</p>
<p>In any case, some companies do have mostly elite school grads at the top and some do favor Ivy grads. Some other companies actually favor state school grads more (or don’t seem to care about the Ivy brand). As an example, Cargill (one of the biggest players in commodities) recruits from a ton of Midwestern schools that most people have not heard of as well as many Midwestern flagships, but recruits from no Ivy. Yet Cargill is so respected in commodities trading that one guy I met (who had been a strategist for a British bank in the City) said he would pay Cargill to work as a junior trader for them because your education as a commodities trader at Cargill would be unparallelled.</p>
<p>BTW, I don’t have to trot out my story about the Harvard hockey player again, do I? (Harvard hockey guy seemed dumb; he wasn’t hired; some guy from New Mexico St. was, though he was also an Olympic-level skier).</p>
<p>“You have student A from a state school and student B from an Ivy League school, guess who is LIKELY be picked for the job?”</p>
<p>The person who presents himself / herself best during the interview. Duh. </p>
<p>How naive do you have to be not to get that industries are different and reputation is regional? </p>
<p>DrG I have a cousin like that with many degrees and not a pot to put them in. Has never stayed the course at any level of work before trying to pad his resume some more on his way to become one the world’s rich and powerful. . In any case about the low income parents, I don’t think that crutch lasts much longer than undergrad. However for many PG programs you don’t pay tuition and you also get a more or less decent stipend (I know someone that gets $25k/year at a $50-60k school).</p>
<p>J’adoube, I’m glad it works out for your cousin. I know a hedge fund guy of a very successful one(not in US) and he told me where he went to school but I can’t even remember what the name of it was, not be a big name school. So maybe it’s all luck regardless of school. </p>
<p>Not all school, but in the hedge fund world, definitely not all luck (though that really does help). There are personality qualities and skill involved as well.</p>
<p>Luck that they meet these people and with great personal skills, ability to take risk, problem solving, and excellent math skills, well at least that’s what the wife told me, her husband often had deep thoughts regarding math.</p>
<p>Yawn. The hedge fund world is one of about a thousand fields, so “how they do it in hedge funds” just isn’t terribly meaningful. </p>
<p>Sign me up, I am willing to “take risks” with other peoples’ money.</p>
<p>Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed</p>
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<p>Hang out your shingle and get your offering memo together…:)…there’s no certification or license or anything else required. You just need to be able to persuade people to let you invest their money.</p>
<p>DrG, I guess I wasn’t clear: it really hasn’t worked out for him as he is in his upper 40’s and very far from being rich or powerful (or finding a job, period, even less one commensurate with his expectations), hence no pot to put his multitude of diplomas in.</p>
<p>Mmmmmmm… Come to think about it, hedge funds is one thing he hasn’t tried that I know of.</p>
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<p>That’s too risky for me, I prefer to do it within the security of a big company and an already fat paycheck.</p>
<p>J’adoube, thanks for the clarification, I reread your post twice but I wasn’t sure what you wrote about he’s on his way of being rich and famous.</p>
<p>As for taking risk, I didn’t mean other people’s money, but his own career, branched out and take jobs that improved his skills, there was a time he was laid off and unemployed with kids, so I’m glad it worked out well for him.</p>
<p>Not that shocking to me I guess. Keep in mind that many of these individuals went to elite schools for graduate studies, not necessarily for their undergrad. </p>
<p>Another good reason for becoming rich and famous: It may not help you getting into an elite, but it will help your progeny getting into one, undergrad that is.</p>
<p>From where I sit, the more interesting question is how to separate the well connected from the truly able. If the person is a graduate of one of those grandes écoles, Oxbridge, or CalTech, no additional question is necessary. I know.</p>
<p>If the person graduated from other American elites, or a Canadian school, I would also need to know the major, but for different reasons.</p>
<p>My general rule is simple: If I want to check for SES, look at the school; if I want to check for ability, look at the major.</p>