Attending an Ivy League school results in higher income

College Search & Selection
1

<p>This is a very interesting article I came upon, which draws upon a research study. It is dated about a year and a half ago. </p>

<p>"A few days ago I blogged about the NY Times article which gave very bad advice to prospective college students—that they should go to a less prestigious college that’s a better “fit.”</p>

<p>But in the comments to my post, people wondered if more prestigious schools really conferred any benefit.</p>

<p>A research paper by Stacy Berg Dale and Alan B. Krueger (1998) (link to pdf file) confirms that people who attended more prestigious schools earn more money. They looked only at students who were accepted to multiple colleges, so they were able to determine what happens if a student is accepted to a better school but attends a lesser school. From page 24:</p>

<pre><code>Based on the straightforward regression results in column 1, men who attend the most competitive colleges [according to Barron's 1982 ratings] earn 23 percent more than men who attend very competitive colleges, other variables in the equation being equal.
</code></pre>

<p>23 percent is quite a bit of money, it’s almost like getting two college degrees instead of one!</p>

<p>They also discovered that there was a benefit to attending a more expensive school. The more expensive tuition resulted in a lifetime internal rate of return of 20% for men and 25% for women.</p>

<p>THE MOST MIS-CITED STUDY EVER?</p>

<p>Whenever this study has been cited, it has always been for the exact opposite of its actual conclusion. This typical article states that the study “dropped a bomb on the notion of elite-college attendance as essential to success later in life.”</p>

<p>A third finding of the study was that when colleges were rated based on average SAT score, students who attended a school with a lower average SAT score didn’t earn any less money. Everyone used this finding to say it doesn’t matter what school a student attends. But what it really says is that the average SAT score of a school is unimportant, what’s important is how highly “ranked” it is. I suspect that in many cases, when a student attended a school with a lower average SAT score, they did so because the school with the lower score was actually the more prestigious school.</p>

<p>This demonstrates a persistent bias in which the media only reports what people want to hear instead of reporting the truth. Parents want to know that they didn’t harm their kid by sending him to a state school instead of a more prestigious private school. Unfortunately, the reality is that sending your kid to a state school instead of the best private school he can get into does irreparable harm to his future career.</p>

<p>STUDENTS WITH HIGHER SAT SCORES EARN LESS MONEY</p>

<p>The regression analysis in the Dale & Krueger study had a coefficient for the person’s SAT score and a second for the square of the SAT score. Based on these two coefficients, earnings peaks at an SAT score of 1100. People who have an SAT score higher than 1100 earn less money.</p>

<p>I would find it hard to believe if I hadn’t discovered the same thing myself. Seeing the same result in a completely different dataset confirms that I didn’t do anything wrong.</p>

<p>It seems that the only benefit of high intelligence is that it gets you into a better college and graduate school. After you get your degrees, high intelligence is of no benefit in the labor market.</p>

<p>ATHLETES EARN MORE MONEY</p>

<p>The Dale & Krueger regression analysis also included a variable indicating if the person was an athlete. Those who were athletes earned more money. This also confirms my own findings from the General Social Survey.</p>

<p>CONCLUSION</p>

<p>A kid who gets accepted to Harvard because of his athletic ability, even though his SAT score is lower than most other Harvard students', and attends Harvard, will likely earn far more money over the course of his life than an unathletic kid with a perfect SAT score who attends a state school."</p>

<p>Its a very interesting article and at least for me confirms allot of my suspicions that regardless of your intelligence, attending one of the best undergraduate universities has an immense benefit on your career and earning path. Some of the person's statements I find a little extreme, but the general gist is very insightful. Thoughts?</p>

2

<p>The article you found misconstrues Krueger's work. This is the abstract for their article:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Estimates of the effect of college selectivity on earnings may be biased because elite colleges admit students, in part, based on characteristics that are related to future earnings. We matched students who applied to, and were accepted by, similar colleges to try to eliminate this bias. Using the College and Beyond data set and National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972, we find that students who attended more selective colleges earned about the same as students of seemingly comparable ability who attended less selective schools. Children from low-income families, however, earned more if they attended selective colleges.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Three important things to note:</p>

<p>-- Barron's 'most selective' schools include a handful of publics. (e.g. UVa, Berkeley)
-- The results show that after controlling for academic ability and social class going into school, there is no significant difference in the school that you attend in terms of income. However, I suspect that there may be a difference in terms of lifestyle and social circles.
-- The type of individual who really wants to target the most selective schools are the students from lower socioeconomic classes. Attending these schools will provide them the refinement and social pedigree that their family status currently doesn't provide them. So the grade-grubbing, ranking-obsessed upper middle class should really stop freaking out.</p>

<p>Krueger is a Cornell-ILR alum, coincidentally, now a professor at Princeton.</p>

3

<p>Hmm. I wonder whether they corrected for economic status of the families before college. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that people coming from well-off families tend to make more money, and there just may be more such people at top schools.</p>

4

<p>CayugaRed:</p>

<p>You obviously never read the actual study.</p>

<p>What Dale & Krueger found was exactly was bescraze was stating. Where you got to college affects your future income, even after controlling for SAT scores. </p>

<p>One of the main conclusions of the study is:</p>

<p>
[quote]
... we still find a sizable payoff from attending more elite colleges as measured by Barron’s selectivity rankings and tuition costs.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>
[quote]
Even after adjusting for selection, however we do find that the school the student attends matters for his or her subsequent income.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>A key finding was that SAT score alone was not a good proxy for selectivity. As soon as they used a more comprehensive measure such as Barron's selectivity index, significant differences in income emerged.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The characteristics of schools that influence a student’s subsequent income appear to be better captured by Barron’s broad based measure of selectivity than the school’s average SAT score.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is not a surprising finding. The most selective colleges use more than just SAT scores for admission. </p>

<p>
[quote]
In a regression model, men who attend a the most competitive colleges earn 23% more than men who attend very competitive colleges, other variables being equal. In the self-revelation model, the gap is 13%. The estimated effect of attending a most competitive colleges is even more robust for women, 21% in the regression model and 18% in the self-revelation model.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>For both men and women, these models indicate that students who attend more selective colleges earn more after entering the labor market. </p>

<p>The 23% difference in income is just between Tier 1 and Tier 2 colleges in the Barron's rankings. Differences were even greater when comparing to lower tier colleges. Even after adjusting for the self-revelation effect, the difference was still 13% for men and 18% for women, hardly insignificant. A finer segmentation using the USNWR ranking would find a significantly greater difference between the very elite colleges and the lower Tier schools. The one such school included in the D&K study (it appears to be Yale) was off the charts.</p>

<p>An interesting but not widely publicized finding of the study was that the more the student payed in tution the more they earned.</p>

<p>
[quote]
In addition, we find that students who attend colleges with higher tuition costs tend to earn higher income years later. The internal rate of return on college tuition for students who attend colleges in the late 70’s was quite high, in the range of 20 to 30 percent.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Dale & Krueger speculated that the higher the tuition the higher the investment in education by the school.</p>

<p>
[quote]
College tuition may have a significant effect on subsequent earnings because schools with higher tuition may provide their students with more, or higher quality, resources.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>
[quote]
Finally, in the self-revelation models, the expenditure per student variables had statistically significant and positive effects on earnings that were similar in magnitude to the coefficient on tuition from the corresponding model.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Caroline Hoxby, an economist at Harvard specializing in the economics of education, has done research that confirms many of the Krueger-Dale findings. Using 1997-98 tuition figures, Hoxby concluded that a student who gave up a full scholarship at a Rank Three private college (average SATs: 90th percentile in verbal, 86th in math) to pay full price at a Rank One selective college (average SATs: 96th percentile in verbal, 93rd in math) earned back the difference in cost 3.4 times over his lifetime. Those who moved from paying average tuition at a Rank Three public college to paying average tuition at a Rank One private school earned back the difference in cost more than 30 times over. </p>

<p>So, the main conclusion from the D & K study is that which college you attend does matter and the more selective the college the greater the difference in future income. This contradicts the widespread belief that an investment in attending an expensive private colleges does not pay. Furthermore, the more you pay the more you earn.</p>

<p>So what about the seemingly contradictory results in the study that where you go does not matter? </p>

<p>That is only true if you exclude all the highly selective colleges and most private colleges. Let's say you turn down UC Riverside and attend Cal State Pomona instead, you probably won't suffer economically. But turn down UC Berkeley to go to San Francisco State and you will pay a price in lost income. Turn down Stanford and you will pay an even bigger price. </p>

<p>The differential becomes greatest at the elite college level. There the D&K model breaks down completely. There is simply no data on students that get admitted to HYPSM and attend much less selective colleges, simply because such students don't exist (at least statistically speaking). Maybe once every ten years will somebody get admitted to Princeton and decide to go to Rutgers instead. It just does't happen! The elite schools lose less than 2% of their admitted students to ALL public schools combined and the very few actually attend the most selective publics such as Berkeley, Michigan or UVA. At an average yield of around 70%, the elite colleges lose students to each other and hardly any to other schools. There could be a variety of reasons for choosing a less selective school over Harvard or MIT, but economics is not one of them. </p>

<p>A copy of the D&K report can be found here:
<a href="http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/409.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/409.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

5

<p>So, I could make a lot of money as a friggin CEO of a company and I'd be rich but miserable, bored, and hate my job.</p>

<p>Or... I could be a teacher and have fun interacting with and teaching cool kids the love of learning.</p>

<p>Also, those Ivy grads would still make plenty of money whether or not they went to Harvard or UT; they would still have the same intelligence and drive.</p>

<p>That study is, to use crude language, "stupid."</p>

<p>I know a kid with 2300's on his SAT's and a ridiculously high GPA who went to UT because he loved it; he could've gone to a more competitive institution, but he didn't, and that won'r affect how much money he makes.</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
Caroline Hoxby, an economist at Harvard specializing in the economics of education, has done research that confirms many of the Krueger-Dale findings. Using 1997-98 tuition figures, Hoxby concluded that a student who gave up a full scholarship at a Rank Three private college (average SATs: 90th percentile in verbal, 86th in math) to pay full price at a Rank One selective college (average SATs: 96th percentile in verbal, 93rd in math) earned back the difference in cost 3.4 times over his lifetime. Those who moved from paying average tuition at a Rank Three public college to paying average tuition at a Rank One private school earned back the difference in cost more than 30 times over. </p>

<p>So, the main conclusion from the D & K study is that which college you attend does matter and the more selective the college the greater the difference in future income. This contradicts the widespread belief that an investment in attending an expensive private colleges does not pay. Furthermore, the more you pay the more you earn.

[/quote]

Economist tends to leave a lot of details out that could potentially change the entire big picture.<br>
The example given, Rank 1 private vs. Rank 3 private, is so stupid it's beyond me. So the potential cost difference would be 200k. SHe said you can make back 3.4<em>200k over the lifetime of the student. (most ivy league graduate make about 3 millions over his lifetime, whereas lower tier make more than 2 millions but shouldn't be that much less than 3 millions) If you factor in tax and the type of salary that the student is making it would easily go up to 40%. So technically the multiplier is only around 2.<br>
Now, if you put 200k in some kind of mutual fund for the life of the student when he started college until he retire (18-65), the multiplier when he retire could easily go up to 27.<br>
200,000</em>exp(0.07*47) = 5.37 millions. This is with 7% return, a very conservative number for most mutual fund in the long run. But this is a woman from Harvard doing the math, what did I expect. Talking about la vie en rose.<br>
What an idiot!</p>

7

<p>Cellar -- </p>

<p>I read the article, but about six years ago, and the take away I had at the time was that after controlling for a lot of student-input factors, college didn't really matter for most upper-middle class kids. The funny thing was that my adviser held the exact opposite view, so we disagreed over this topic a lot.</p>

<p>Looking at the article again, I always found the most compelling evidence to be columns 3-6 on Table 4A, showing that after controlling for all of the different factors through the matched and selection models, the average SAT of a school does not matter.</p>

<p>The Barron's results are interesting, but the "most selective" category included schools like Wesleyan and Notre Dame, which were admittedly a little bit easier to get into than Stanford and Harvard during the time frame of the study. Coincidentally, the PDF you provide doesn't seem to contain these tables.</p>

<p>I have not read the Hoxby article you cite. But it sounds like it would be interesting to read, particularly if it focuses on a different generation of college students. That said, a multiple of 3.4 is nothing to write home about. It might be around $200k in post-tax lifetime earnings at the end of the day, and isn't going to change the socioeconomic class of an individual in the slightest.</p>

<p>I still maintain my belief that as long as you attend one of top 20-30 schools in the country you are great shape, and you shouldn't be stressing over whether or not you went to Stanford. People often focus on the means as opposed to the variance of outcomes, and the single most important factor in success is hard work and a little bit of serendipity.</p>

<p>I would love if they would be able to control for graduate schools in these types of studies. I genuinely believe that the graduate school you attend does matter, especially for doctors and lawyers. Medical school less so -- If you are attending a top 50 school, I think you are fine. Needless to say, I think graduate school would explain a lot.</p>

<p>The tuition result is interesting; I think it serves as a rough proxy for endowment per student or resources spent per student. So it's not really a surprise. But under this factor, students should be turning down UPenn for Grinnell in droves, which isn't really happening.</p>

<p>I think my major point is this: I still haven't seen any evidence to the contrary that a student should have regrets about turning down Yale for Rice, or Cornell for Berkeley, or Penn for the good programs at Michigan.</p>

8

<p>Here's a good article summarizing the controversy. The jury is still out.</p>

<p>Does</a> an Elite College Really Pay? - MSN Encarta</p>

<p>
[quote]
</p>

<p>The economist Alan B. Krueger teaches at Princeton University, but in his view, it's probably not worth the money it takes to send your kid there.</p>

<p>Not in terms of future earnings, anyway. Krueger ignited a minor furor when he and Stacy B. Dale, a researcher at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, concluded in 1998 that elite colleges do not pay off in higher earnings. They only appear to do so, the researchers contended. Krueger and Dale claimed that, in most cases, the higher earnings piled up by graduates of elite schools were attributable to elite individuals, not their college education. In other words, if you're smart enough to get into Princeton, you're smart enough to make a lot of money wherever you go to school.</p>

<p>Whether or not Krueger and Dale's research holds up--and the jury is still out--tuition-paying parents will want to follow the debate closely.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the answer isn't so clear. If your kid is going to be a social worker or a minister, going to Harvard will probably never pay off financially. And if you live someplace with a truly great state university (the universities of California, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia are good examples), only the very best private colleges are even worth considering as an alternative. Mediocre private schools, on the other hand, are almost never worth the money.</p>

<p>Beyond this there is confusion. Plenty of experts, for instance, think Krueger and Dale are flat-out wrong. "Alan is a former student of mine, and I love him," says Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute in Ithaca, New York. Nevertheless, Ehrenberg insists, "on average, there is significant gain in going to a top private school," both in access to better graduate schools and in higher lifelong earnings.

[/quote]
</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
especially for doctors and lawyers.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Whoops. I meant for financiers and lawyers.</p>

10

<p>Cayuga;</p>

<p>I did not suggest that turning down Cornell for Berkeley would actually have a noticeable impact on future income or even Yale for Rice or Penn for Michigan (except possibly if you are prelaw or premed). All of these schools are highly selective schools and a finer analysis may be required as to which one may be a better match for your intended major. Some schools are clearly more pre-professional than others and many offer a much easier access to their own students for their graduate school (MIT is a good example). </p>

<p>My main point was adressing the myth that attending a highly selective did not matter, even for students who were admitted to the more selective colleges and decided not to. It certainly does and the D&K actually confirms that. </p>

<p>The biggest problem with the D&K study is the fact there is virtually no data at the most selective levels because of the huge referral bias. How many students can you find that were admitted to an elite college that then decided to go a second tier school? There are so few of them, the likelihood they will show up in a longitudinal survey is virtually zero. </p>

<p>While attending Harvard or MIT is no guarantee of success it certainly makes it a lot easier to get into a top graduate school. Several studies show a much greater likelihood to get into a top PhD program for students from elite colleges. With 70%+ of PhD students never getting a degree, it can make a huge difference in outcome.</p>

11

<p>For PhD programs, I actually agree with you. A large part of getting into a selective graduate program is faculty recommendations, and the reputation of the faculty member who is writing a letter for you. I've always wondered how academically less reputable schools (e.g. Wake Forest) compare to more academically well-known schools (e.g. Northwestern).</p>

<p>Of course, for most graduate programs, you would have to be crazy to think you have a good chance of carving out an academic career from anything other than a top 10-15 program.</p>

12

<p>Cellardweller made some very insightful points about the article. I would just like to echo the fact that I have repeatedly stated before, that people who can attend an elite undergraduate university choose too do so. I have heard way too many times on these forums, go for what you like best or what is the best fit. This is fine, but if the schools are significantly different in prestige and rankings, it is usually not worth it. This study simply confirms that in life there is a benefit to attending the most elite universities in the nation. That is exactly why so many kids apply there each year and so many people aspire to attend them. They are the best and a large part of that is the opportunities they confer on their graduates. </p>

<p>Cayuga your examples, as cellardweller pointed out seem to miss the point about elite colleges taking up a range of schools. Turning down Penn for Michigan may be rare, but turning down Penn for say Wake Forest is statistically unheard of. That is exactly what this study shows, kids who are accepted to elite universities choose to go there, as shown by the lack of referral information at the most selective schools.</p>

13

<p>CayugaRed:</p>

<p>The data shows this extends beyond just PhD programs which are notoriously incestuous. It is just the same with law and med school admission. It is often repeated that only your LSAT or MCAT score and GPA matters to get into law or med school. That may be true for AN AVERAGE professional school, but definitely not for the elite law and medical schools. Harvard gets between 20 and 25% of its law school class from Harvard College. Harvard is a great school, but that much better so as to take a quarter of all slots? I don't think so. Same thing with its medical school. Once past the first selection step, the interview is the real determinant. It certainly helps if your medical advisor happens to be on the HMS faculty. While surveys from feeder schools such as the WSJ may be based on a very narrow set of professional schools but the conclusions are very definitive. Other studies have all shown the same effect. Top professional schools get the majority of the students from elite colleges. If you think that any two law or medical degrees are the same think again. Top law firms hire from a very limited group of law schools and many physician practices do the same. I have actually found major private practices in high income specialties such as radiology or cardiology to nearly exclusively hire from top medical schools. They know the signaling effect to their client base of having another HMS grad in their practice. You go to their web site and they just about pimp their new partners through their resumes. Academic medicine is even more selective. </p>

<p>Your first job often has a major influence on the next step in your career. It is a key stepping stone, and if you miss that step you may have a tough time catching up afterwards. Many top jobs at investment banks or major corporations are only obtained after an internship. This process is also highly incestuous with alumni of a fairly narrow range of colleges already filling the top ranks. Getting that plum internship out of nowhere, just on grades is just extremely hard. </p>

<p>You can call it the brand effect, the signaling effect or whatever, the fact remains that graduates of elite colleges are a fairly rare commodity and they will often get a first pick at key entry positions. You still have to be good to get the job, but is still fairly rare that the applicant from the elite college is unqualified. Getting to the interview is not the first thing, it is sometimes the only thing. The bright student from your second tier school wil never even see the job posting.</p>

14

<p>We're discussing whether or not the elite encompasses the best 5-10 colleges, or the best 40-50 colleges in the country. You seem to be suggesting that the later gives you a huge boost in the game of life, I suggest it doesn't.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Your first job often has a major influence on the next step in your career. It is a key stepping stone, and if you miss that step you may have a tough time catching up afterwards. Many top jobs at investment banks or major corporations are only obtained after an internship. This process is also highly incestuous with alumni of a fairly narrow range of colleges already filling the top ranks. Getting that plum internship out of nowhere, just on grades is just extremely hard.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>America isn't Japan, and among my generation there is a fair amount of lateral movement across professions when individuals are in their twenties. And within my own group of peers from Cornell and other selective schools across the country, I have already seen a lot of movement. Investment bankers choose to run non-profits, consultants become journalists, government workers go into industry. Domestic abuse shelter workers become real estate developers. And as long as you have a degree with a solid academic record from a good university, activities that show you have an interest in the field, and a good personality. It's not that hard.</p>

<p>Maybe I am biased and only selectively viewing my peer group, which is a highly performing peer group. But I don't think any top student should lay awake at night agonizing over how they won't get the top investment banking internship they covet because they went to the University of Michigan over Harvard. They should lie awake agonizing over their performance on their recent test and how they can make themselves a better person.</p>

<p>Quite frankly, I noticed you are from Connecticut, and I think you are bringing a significant East Coast establishment mentality to this discussion. A lot of people on these boards live outside the Northeast Corridor and do not have to deal with the biases and expectations that such a locale brings with it.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I have actually found major private practices in high income specialties such as radiology or cardiology to nearly exclusively hire from top medical schools. They know the signaling effect to their client base of having another HMS grad in their practice. You go to their web site and they just about pimp their new partners through their resumes. Academic medicine is even more selective.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Don't get me started on the horrors and idiocies of medical care and its organization in America, but again, I think you have a heavily East Coast bias where individuals with money and with relatively health minor problems seek out "prestigious" doctors because they think they will get a better health outcome as a result. </p>

<p>If you look at some of the best departments in the country -- say the JHU Department of Rhuematology or the Mayo Clinic -- you will see that the researchers and clinicians come from medical schools far and wide. Only one at JHU comes from a "premier" medical school -- Columbia -- the others came from South Africa or New Mexico. The surgeon who is going to perform the surgery on Teddy Kennedy went to Purdue and UI-Chicago. And now he's at Duke.</p>

<p>Research</a> Program</p>

<p>While it has its faults, I believe the practice of medicine is still a meritocracy, and the best researchers and clinicians will end up at the better hospital and research centers. The rest will cling to their degree and pimp their Ivy name to people with extra cash.</p>

<p>
[quote]
That may be true for AN AVERAGE professional school, but definitely not for the elite law and medical schools. Harvard gets between 20 and 25% of its law school class from Harvard College.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>At the same time, Harvard Law enrolls students from over 250 different undergraduate institutions in any given year. If you have the LSAT, the GPA, and the committed activities or job experience, it's not that hard to get in.</p>

<p>** </p>

<p>In the end, I think you are overestimating the leg up that the top tier schools provide in anything but a very slim sliver of the universe, and most reasonable people would agree that any one of the top 20-30 schools in the country provide more than enough access to the world at large. </p>

<p>(As I have mentioned, Harvard probably goes far in Hollywood, and Princeton in the Foreign Service, Cornell in the hospitality industry, but at the same time, the American meritocracy works pretty well at picking up the top-performers from this country's other schools.</p>

<p>Even Hoxby herself attributes 75 percent of a student's outcome to their own wherewithal, and says the other 25 percent may be attributed to things such as a school's own reputation and resources, but seems to draw the line at the top 50.</p>

<p>Who</a> Needs Harvard?</p>

<p>
[quote]
For instance, a study by Caroline Hoxby, a Harvard economist who has researched college outcomes, suggests that graduates of elite schools do earn more than those of comparable ability who attended other colleges. Hoxby studied male students who entered college in 1982, and adjusted for aptitude, though she used criteria different from those employed by Krueger and Dale. She projected that among students of similar aptitude, those who attended the most selective colleges would earn an average of $2.9 million during their careers; those who attended the next most selective colleges would earn $2.8 million; and those who attended all other colleges would average $2.5 million. This helped convince Hoxby that top applicants should, in fact, lust after the most exclusive possibilities.</p>

<p>"There's a clear benefit to the top fifty or so colleges," she says. "Connections made at the top schools matter. It's not so much that you meet the son of a wealthy banker and his father offers you a job, but that you meet specialists and experts who are on campus for conferences and speeches. The conference networking scene is much better at the elite universities." Hoxby estimates that about three quarters of the educational benefit a student receives is determined by his or her effort and abilities, and should be more or less the same at any good college. The remaining quarter, she thinks, is determined by the status of the school—higher-status schools have more resources and better networking opportunities, and surround top students with other top students.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Should we, as responsible adults, really be trumping the benefits of attending a "top tier" school like Harvard or Stanford to naive, impressionable students when the net benefit amounts to less than $2,000 a year?</p>

<p>You should read Easterbrook's article in full. It gets a lot of things right.</p>

15

<p>How do naive, impressionable students get into top schools? A simple math will sort all kind of questions at this level. Anyway, I guess doing tax return for my parents since I was 14 helped.</p>

16

<p>There are naive, impressionable students everywhere.</p>

<p>Please note: I'm not saying you shouldn't go to Dartmouth or Columbia if you get in. I'm just saying that if you end up at Purdue or Texas-Austin due to certain considerations you shouldn't think yourself less worthy of anything in life.</p>

17

<p>Why only Ivy Leagues?</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon has a sterling job network and has top companies as well as unmatched salaries for its postgrad surveys across the board (CS/Engineering/Business).</p>

18

<p>Carnegie Mellon is a great school, but if you look at the data this research gives, it does not confer the same advantage as an IVY. It is not as selective and does not have the same "brand name" or prestige level that provides such a tremendous boost on job applications. </p>

<p>Cayuga my question to you is this, why do students have to be "naive and impressionable" to want to attend a top university and believe that they receive certain opportunities not found elsewhere. I know plenty of rich people who attended a top schools, but barely any who attended a third tier school and got there. Maybe thats a factor of who my family knows or maybe thats life? This research makes me think it is just life.</p>

19

<p>
[quote]

The data shows this extends beyond just PhD programs which are notoriously incestuous. It is just the same with law and med school admission. It is often repeated that only your LSAT or MCAT score and GPA matters to get into law or med school. That may be true for AN AVERAGE professional school, but definitely not for the elite law and medical schools. Harvard gets between 20 and 25% of its law school class from Harvard College. Harvard is a great school, but that much better so as to take a quarter of all slots?

[/quote]
Wrong, wrong , wrong. Harvard law is a school that anyone with high enough numbers can get into. The fact that there are more Harvardians there is because the average LSAT for Ivy and other comparable schools is 160+, so a large majority of those students are going to get in. Harvard does favor it's own undergards strongly when there are ties between borderline applicants, as Harvard undergrad is one soft factor they favor greatly. Attending a top school is a great soft factor, and evidence supports that most borderline candidates come from Ivys etc.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
Harvard does favor it's own undergrads strongly when there are ties between borderline applicants, as Harvard undergrad is one soft factor they favor greatly.

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<p>That my exact point. If you have a 175 on the LSAT and 4.0 GPA you may have a chance from anywhere. That is a fairly rare applicant, probably from another top school anyway. With most applicants bunched in a narrow range of LSAT scores and GPAs the tie-breaker often happens to be the link to the school. Not surprisingly Harvard law is one of the few schools with a formal interview process for its applicants.</p>