<p>Hi, I'm a sophomore in high school</p>
<p>My question is, does the prestige of the undergraduate school you attend affect where you get your job and how much you get paid? How is prestige is even determined? (selectivity figures from CollegeBoard, USNews ratings, etc)</p>
<p>tHANK YOU</p>
<p>It might get you a starting job, but if you want a raise or want to be promoted, it takes much more than college “prestige”</p>
<p>i doubt it will matter, its a good indicator in terms of recruiting suggesting that if you worked hard enough in high school, you probably worked hard in college, so you will probably work hard in your job</p>
<p>but if i was an employer, that would be the dumbest way to assign a salary to an employee</p>
<p>i read in a book somewhere about the former Harvard president saying - “its true that harvard is a warehouse of knowledge - the freshman bring so much, and seniors graduate with so little”</p>
<p>Thank you
that’s what I thought but my parents insist that going to the good school will determine your life forever and stuff like that</p>
<p>How do you determine the so-called “prestige” of schools?</p>
<p>they are partially right. a good school will help you greatly. But remember that good schools may not the be ones with the most prestige.</p>
<p>it’s a good school vs bad school thing. if you look into schools, look into the schools that will nurture you best. Going into a very prestigious school but hating the people there will prove disastrous for your job prospects and your life. Look at recruitment stats for each school you consider. What is the median income of fresh graduates? How many go on to grad school? How available and effective are employment resources in these schools? These are the data you should be looking at very seriously.</p>
<p>for me, prestige has 2 definitions</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Absolute prestige - where your grocer has heard of it, the Wall Street Trader has heard of it, the average high school teacher has heard of it.</p></li>
<li><p>Selective prestige - absolute prestige in the region (e.g. state flagship university), academic world acknowledgement, employers in respectable firms who know it. However, your grocer may not know, your aunty may not know, and yes, even your friends.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But remember to draw the line. Prestige is important to consider for jobs. But it only plays a limited role. A lot of it has to do with how well you do in college.</p>
<p>yeah… you should go to the school where you know you will feel most comfortable and mature and learn, not necessarily the ivy league schools… I know a woman with three sons… Two of her sons got into harvard and MIT, respectively and the third got into NYU. The one who got into harvard is now a high school teacher, the one who got into MIT has some financial dificulties, and the one at NYU is now a doctor making much more money than the other two combined…</p>
<p>“I am a graduate of Harvard. I see you hired my friend from Stony Brook for one of the management trainee positions you are advertising at 50K per year. This means I should expect to be paid 75K I would assume?”</p>
<p>Sorry, it doesn’t work that way in the real world.</p>
<p>timely analysis (not without issues but good graphic)</p>
<p>[PayScale</a> - 2008 March Madness Predictions](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/2008-march-madness-predictions.htm]PayScale”>PayScale - 2008 March Madness Predictions)</p>
<p>@ squelchy451 </p>
<p>College prestige only matters in a few industries (business, law, medicine, top government positions, etc.). It’s great for networking. You still need to have excellent work experience, leadership positions, and extracuriculars to get your foot through the door.</p>
<p>@tenisghs</p>
<p>All of the industries you named typically require a graduate degree. So your undergrad degree really won’t matter in those cases, and OP specified undergraduate.</p>
<p>A prestigious undergrad degree is helpful in getting accepted to top grad programs. Granted, you need to have stats in range, but the undergrad degree does have some significance. In certain industries straight out of undergrad, the degree is very important, i.e. finance, consulting. </p>
<p>An important thing to remember is that resources are usually much more available to an individual student at any given prestigious school as opposed to one thats not.</p>