https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-colleges-produce-more-fortune-500-ceos-than-any-others/
It’s a good list to be on, but it means nothing when evaluating schools.
To apply some sense of “value” to the list, you need to adjust for student population. Undergrads at Bucknell are over 3X more likely to be a Fortune CEO than a UW undergrad.
[quick math: UW is 10X larger than Bucknell, and has 14 CEO’s vs. 5. If you divide 14 by 10 (to normalize population), it’s 1.4 vs. 5]
Ivy League undergraduate enrollment is approximately .25% of the 20 million students nationally. Consequently a 9.2% Ivy alum population of Fortune 500 CEOs represents a 37 times over representation versus group size.
No you don’t have to go Ivy to become a CEO but it is clearly the best educational path for those that aspire to a corner office.
I think the argument in post #2 is flawed. First, is the data for CEOs from their undergraduate or graduate degree? For example, John Morgridge was the CEO of Cisco Systems, he did his undergrad at UW Madison but has an MBA from Stanford. Both institutions will claim him in their CEO numbers. If a CEO did their undergrad at a state school then went to an IVY for their MBA then there is a confound in the logic. Also, many students that attend IVY league schools come from VERY privileged families (they have to have the financial resources to pay for the education) so it’s possible that their family connections lead to their having the opportunity to become a CEO more so than the fact that they received their education from an Ivy League school. It’s the conundrum of causation vs correlation.
I think that it is pretty clear that whatever caused a person to go to a top school 30 years ago is highly correlated with whatever caused a person to be a CEO today.
I have seen a few students who certainly had the grades and test scores and LORs for Harvard or Stanford choose to instead go somewhere that was a better fit for them (where they are happy and doing very well). My guess is that the same characteristics that caused them to not want to attend an Ivy League school are quite likely to cause them to be a success in life as they define it (money in the bank, healthy kids, good marriage, no debt), but will cause them to not want to be a CEO or high level manager or investment banker.
It is interesting to see U.Wisconsin at the top of this list. I did think highly of the school when I visited years ago, but not any more so than some other very good schools.
Oboemom65- In response to your first question, the article says undergrad (buried last sentence first paragraph). In terms of “many Ivy students come from very privileged backgrounds” yes some do. The proximity to these individuals and the connections made amongst Ivy students of all backgrounds creates future opportunities.
You can argue correlation vs causation in many ways. Perhaps the ivies are so dramatically over represented in CEO ranks because the schools just attract the brightest kids, perhaps the education uniquely prepares them for success (I doubt it), maybe the access to alumni does it, etc. It is likely some element of all good of the above.
The results however are irrefutable, and the statistics speak for themselves. “Flawed” is willfully ignoring the fact that Ivy League kids (and other elite schools) excel professionally at greater rates then non elite college attendees.
Lastly fortune 500 companies are shareholder Owned and CEO are appointed by boards.
Source?
The article this thread is based upon and the disproportionate number of CEOs relative to population size that I comment on above.
In politics same thing with 16 of 45 US presidents Ivy grads. All recent chairpeople of the Federal reserve bank. President of the World Bank. Shall I continue?
You can hate, dismiss or diminish the reality but it makes it no less real. Ivy graduates are .25% of the college under graduate population. Do you really think they don’t outperform any other group? What is a better predictor of future professional success if not any Ivy degree?
Don’t think you can make a broad based claim of fact “that ivy league kids (and other elite schools) excel professionally at greater rates then non elite college attendees” based on this one study, conducted at one point in time, looking at CEO level only.
To my knowledge no study (done in a rigorous, scientific manner) has ever shown a correlation with level of professional achievement or career dollars earned based on undergrad school selectivity, athletic conference, or other subsets of undergrad schools one might look at.
Try and google it. There are numerous articles and studies that confirm elite grads make more. The degree of difference depends on chosen profession but exists in a meaningful way.
Here is an example…
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/22/study-finds-graduates-most-selective-colleges-enjoy-earnings-payoff
Just also as a quick check look at the WSJ avg salaries. I know it might not be popular but it is the reality.
Let’s ask differently. If you had to bet on the career prospects of a Harvard graduate versus a graduate of a no name school, who would you actually bet on? You may want to claim indifference but all things being otherwise equal and with real money at stake you would bet Harvard all day.
I have looked at dozens and dozens of studies, in fact at one point we did a pretty thorough case study in a class at my M7 MBA school. You are the one making a very broad based claim of fact and I am asking you to cite your source. I am more than willing to consider studies that support your claim.
Adding that for some very specific career paths there does seem to be a connection to selectivity of undergrad institution (e.g., IB), but overall, not so.
Let’s see your source then. I provided mine and can offer more. Several others embedded in the one I provided.
Why an M7 MBA if it doesn’t have a bearing on result?
One more for your review…
I was talking about undergrad only, and was very careful about stating that above.
The Attewell study you cited is a good study, but didn’t control for the fact that students self-select into colleges. This article has a synopsis of this topic, along with a number of study citations, including Attewell.
http://www.challengesuccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Challenge-Success-White-Paper-on-College-Admissions-October-2018.pdf
Starting on page 12 the authors discuss the problem of student self-selection: “…researchers have not found a simple and commonly agreed upon way to account for the fact that students self-select into selective colleges. Because students aren’t randomly assigned to colleges, it’s difficult to determine whether the benefits of attending a more selective college result from attending that college, or rather reflect the kinds of students who attend those colleges in the first place. Is the value added by the college or by the individual student?”
This paper also cites the Dale and Krueger work that did try to select for the above, and which are among the most cited articles in this area. I will leave it to you to read some of the other studies cited in this paper, it is interesting stuff with no doubt more data and insights to come over time.
Higher percentages versus numbers- MORE UW grads. This means more than a huge percentage at a small school- UW possibly has more students with similar credentials as many of the elite schools since it has the elite/honors tier plus the rest. There is much better life outside the eastern corridor- who cares about living there? So much more can be said.
So now you aren’t refuting whether or not graduates of elite schools “benefit” professionally, but instead suggesting that the “benefit” is a function of self selection?
Your citation: “it’s difficult to determine whether the benefits of attending a more selective college result from attending that college”. So there are benefits…
My statement that you disagreed with; “the fact that Ivy League kids (and other elite schools) excel professionally at greater rates then non elite college attendees”.
Seems like we both agree there are benefits just room for debate as to which factors underlie the “benefit”. The financial and professional benefits of an elite education is well established. I don’t wish to debate the underlying causes but still happy to see any evidence from you contradicting this view.
This was also within the article you cited and reinforces my initial statement…
“There is evidence to suggest that institutional selectivity is associated with long-term nancial outcomes. In one seminal study, Zhang (2008, 2012) nds that the graduates of “high quality” (Zhang’s term) institutions have salaries approximately 6 to 8% higher directly out of college than graduates from what he calls “low quality” institutions (which refers to “non-selective” colleges that admit almost any student who applies), with that percentage rising to 16 to 19% a decade after college.9 While the average earnings of a graduate of these “high quality” colleges are higher than those from non-selective colleges”.
Once again you can argue over what contributes to the disparity of results but you can’t change the results. Elite school graduates out perform non elite.
The so called benefits may not be on the radar for everyone. Many do not want that lifestyle. Most elite students will not attend the few “elite” colleges. So many are not on the radar- and do not offer a better education. I feel sorry for those on the east coast who lack the great flagships found elsewhere. Obviously I am not east coast centric. Quality of life, including intellectual stimulation, is to be had elsewhere. There are reasons most from the Midwest- including top students- do not bother with east coast applications.
btw- there is so much more to life than being in business. Only a small percentage will major in that or want to run a business, large or small.
There has been a great deal of research showing that students accepted to Ivies but who choose to attend other institutions do as well as students who attend Ivies. In other words, it’s the kid that counts most, not the school.
That is not to say there isn’t value in attending an elite school, just that attending an elite school is not, in most cases, the factor that makes the difference in rates of success.
I am going to bow out now. I did not disagree with you, I very reasonably asked for your source. I am not arguing or refuting anything, nor do I want to debate. Selectivity of undergrad school and identification/quantification of benefits is a complex issue that does not lend itself to an easy collection or analysis of data, as we can see the best social scientists in the country do not agree on inputs, techniques or conclusions.