Current parents, how hung up were you on prestige when looking at colleges for yourself/your child.

Parents Forum
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I think there is some confusion on this thread because different people are using “prestige” to mean two different things: some mean name recognition and some mean the selectivity/resources/etc. of a college.

My family does not care much about name recognition. If we wanted the local dry cleaner or barber to exclaim, “Wow!” when my son says where he is going to college, Williams would be a terrible choice because that sure won’t happen!

But, as @blossom noted above, the word “prestige”

I would argue that one’s fellow students are the most important aspect of the college experience. @ucbalumnus said,

I think that almost any college will have some very bright, motivated, intellectually oriented students. But at some schools, almost every student fits that description! Above all, that is what my son wanted.

Quality indicators also include small classes, friendly dorms, great professors, extensive opportunities… and, at each of the 20 colleges my son would have applied to had he not been accepted ED, most or all these factors would have been present. Maybe not everyone would consider the (slightly) less competitive colleges on that list to be prestigious, but by our definition, they are. At all but his safeties, we also were amazed at the opportunities and resources available to the students. And, although in CC debates, I always favor love of learning and stimulating conversations for four years above pre-professionalism, it also is reassuring to know that a college has a great success rate in graduate school placement and job placement at the places that afford students the very best opportunities.

So, by that definition of prestige, “prestige” and “fit” corresponded for my son. We were going for “fit,” but the two went together.

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However, some posters have a notion of “fit” defined by a high enough level of “prestige”/selectivity that makes only unrealistic reaches appear to be good “fit”. For example, someone with a 3.6-3.7 GPA who believes that only HYPSM, UCB EECS, and UCLA CS are good “fits”.

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@jzducol This thread is about undergraduate level not MBA or PhD levels.

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Prestige did not matter to me when I applied to college. I wanted a college where I could learn stuff and have good intellectual environment. I ended up at Reed on the recommendation of an uncle of mine who was a college professor (at Caltech). I then went on to the University of Wisconsin for my PhD, a top 10 doctoral program that also had an “area studies” minor that suited my interests. So “fit” (defined as learning environment) was especially important to me.

I kept that same approach when helping my own kids to find colleges. I’ve reported on this elsewhere so I’ll just say that #1 himself defined his goal as attending a college “where it is safe to be a thinker,” preferably in a “major league city” (think sports). He ended up in a perfect location: University of Chicago. He majored in economics. #2 was looking for a stand-alone art college, preferably in a “real city the East.” She ended up in the perfect location for her: RISD, with a major in industrial design. After several years in the economy she went back to school to earn an MBA (at University of Michigan) as well as an MS in Sustainable Systems (to follow up on her interest in sustainable design). Of course Chicago, Providence, and Ann Arbor are great “college towns” (though for my daughter, when she was at RISD the 2-3 hour access to NYC was important b/c that’s where some of her closest friends from high school were attending college).

In short, for us and for our kids it was all about fit – intellectual above all, but also recreational/environmental. “Prestige” was not the main goal of the college search, but it doesn’t hurt!

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@bighero8 “This thread is about undergraduate level not MBA or PhD levels.”

Its about the same thing—whether school’s prestige matters in career success. The examples you give about Cook and Nadella showed that its very helpful to have a degree from prestigious schools like Duke and Chicago. If you cannot get it in undergrad you’d better plan to get it in graduate school.

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What does hung up on prestige mean?

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I agree. The rising, and in my opinion, ridiculous cost of a college degree is turning the pressure up on an already stressful situation - a high school student’s transition to adulthood. People are frustrated and I think some seek validation that the choices they’re making are “right”. I think that’s understandable from both sides of the ‘prestige discussion’. Too many variables make the topic circular in nature.

I found post #102 interesting. Will increasing competition/selectivity at HYPSMC result in a greater appreciation/demand for these graduates? Or will resentment to perceived unfairness (family connections/wealth/diversity) create a backlash? I don’t know. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Many parents who say prestige doesn’t matter cite fit and rigor as alternative reasons for their school choices. But those criteria are also reputation based. Fit can be determined by its reputation for attracting serious students, and rigor can be assessed through its reputation for attracting star faculty in a particular field of study or industry awards/research breakthroughs. Varying only in degree,everyone judges schools by their reputation for something. Everyone is hung up on “prestige” or public perception of a certain facet of the target school. Disregarding reputation or public perception completely, because prestige doesn’t matter, is inconceivable to me. If I’m going to cough up $250,000 for an education at Campus X, I’d want to make sure I’m not alone in thinking Campus X is worth it. It’s like investing in an antique vase, there has to be a perceived value (by others in the marketplace) to justify paying $250,000 for it.

That the neighbors are duly impressed by my child’s school reputation doesn’t do anything for me. However, if people I admire dismiss my child’s school as a party school that churns out worthless degrees, I’d feel like a sucker, and it would take me a long time to recover from buyer’s remorse.

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“For someone super-smart with low income, they are the only colleges that are both need-blind and meet 100% need.“

It should be irrelevant to applicants whether a school is need aware or need blind; meeting full need is the important thing. A school’s being need blind or aware doesn’t affect how much you like a school, but rather only the chance of admission. If you otherwise like the school and it’s a good match, apply!

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Because different colleges define “need” differently, students and parents should use their net price calculators to estimate affordability rather than rely on “meet full need” promises.

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It depends on the company, position, and hiring manager. In the vast majority of situations, relevant experience and skill set are far more important. For example, in the survey of hundreds of hiring managers at http://www.chronicle.com/items/biz/pdf/Employers%20Survey.pdf , college reputation was ranked as the least influential factor in hiring new grads, in all surveyed industries except for education and communication/media. “Elite” colleges were rated significantly lower by hiring managers than state flagships. In the NACE survey at https://www.naceweb.org/about-us/press/2017/the-key-attributes-employers-seek-on-students-resumes/ , school attended was one of the least influential factors when evaluating resumes of new grads. The most influential factors were internships, college major, leadership position, and work experience. Of course, there is a good amount of variation between company, position, and specific hiring manager. For example, many elite investment banking companies would place a much greater emphasis on college reputation/prestige than suggested above.

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Here is what I think on this topic. It is none of my business what colleges a student and their family choose to attend and pay for.
I value humility as a character trait above almost all else but nobody has to apologize for where their kid goes to school or justify that choice to anyone.

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@Massmomm , Funny- Brown was our first college tour. Although S liked the look and location, he thought it was way to unstructured (for him it would have been). It was a good lesson for us as it showed us immediately the importance of fit. Went to one other “elite” school and he felt it was way to snooty. Other than that it was only schools that met the fit criteria including highly selective / ranked in his major. The state flagship was not a fit. He applied for safety purposes but it was never really a contender. Can’t emphasize enough the importance of fit.

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We focused on fit. For our daughter… fit meant school spirit, active student involvement in clubs and different events on campus, a college town ( not urban), and the ability to easily obtain undergraduate research.

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@Data10 I agree with everything that you say. But the data you presented is backward looking and not forward looking. I can’t help but feel that the perception of today’s graduates from tippy top schools might be a bit different than in the past.

I hope my kids continue to work hard and explore new opportunities during and after college. But the single most impressive feat that they have achieved in their lives (rightly or wrongly) is to gain admittance to their single digit acceptance rate colleges. I can’t help but feel that it will be easier for them to gain acceptance to a good law/business school, prized internship, or anything for that matter than it was to gain admittance to college. This perception might be singularly my own but I do feel that others in the work place or the world might share this view going forward.

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I wonder how much of a role the parents’ own college and/or grad school experience or level of prestige plays into what they want for their kids.

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I work in the accounting industry and was former Big 4. In my office the coveted summer internship were given primarily to USC & UCLA students and we didn’t even do on campus recruiting for many CSU schools in the area. Almost all the interns were offered a job the following year.

Undergraduate prestige and academic reputation certaintiy play a role for certain professions.

My last point is that some colleges are more than just 4 years of your life. For example, I have cousins and friends that went to Stanford and UCLA, respectilvely and 25 - 30 years later they still support their school in donations, athletic events, etc and are proud to call themselves alum. They are cardinals and bruins for life.

The bottomline for me is that you need to look at many factors when deciding what undergraduate college to attend: academic rigor, major, location, cost, internships opportunities, private v public and yes prestige if it’s a top school.

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Looking forward, the NACE survey shows the importance of “school attended” in deciding between equally qualified new graduates has been decreasing slightly over time. Top ranked factors like internships are ranked a little below five on a 1-5 scale, indicating near “extreme influence”. The lowest ranked factors like studied abroad have been ranked a little above 2, indicating near “not much influence”. The average ranking of school attended by year among surveyed employers is below.

2011 – 3.2
2013 – 3.1
2016 – 2.9
2018 – 2.8

I’m sure some do share that view, and I’m sure some also have completely different views. For example, some in hiring positions no doubt have negative perceptions of “elite” colleges and prefer grads from state; and some have the reverse preferences. There is likely a notable bias towards favoring applicants with similar backgrounds and beliefs to their own, as well as a bias towards groups that have been successful at the company in the past.

Regardless of such biases, employers as a whole emphasize things like internships and relevant experience over school name when deciding between candidates. School name can have more influence in things like where companies recruit, but the recruiting often doesn’t follow “prestige”. Instead smaller companies often favor recruiting at nearby schools. For example, San Jose State would have far more recruiters from Silicon Valley tech companies than HYP. SJS has over 20,000 registered employer recruiters, most of whom are nearby, and more alumni at Apple than either Stanford or Berkeley. School/major size can also be important. Tech companies as a whole are far more likely to recruit at the nearby large public with a good engineering program than at the nearby top USNWR ranked LAC that has a few 2+3 engineering grads.

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I don’t disagree with your data especially on a macro level. But my point is that the outside world in general, in particular the destinations of recent graduates of HYPSM (such as PhD programs, professional schools, Wall Street, consulting firms and others), probably view these graduates in a different light than their predecessors because they know how insanely difficult it was for these students to get into HYPSM. To me this seems like a relatively new phenomenon.

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If they were looking for engineering graduates, they would be recruiting at the “2” school that a 3+2 engineering student completes the engineering degree at, not the “3” school that is the LAC that s/he starts at.