<p>When I refer to the “bottom half” at Harvard, I’m not even necessarily thinking about academic ability. Everybody at Harvard has enough academic ability to succeed–even the most “hooked” students there would be academic standouts at most colleges in the U.S., and people succeed from every college. I’m really thinking more about the people who have less of the other traits that promote success–things like personal drive, networking skills, and even pre-existing networks. If you don’t have those things, Harvard will still open a lot of doors for you, because lots of recruiters will come, there are networks available to help you, etc. But that same student at a big flagship university might make excellent grades, but might not do as well in getting internships, jobs, etc.</p>
<p>@MrMom62, actually, in certain European countries (Germany and the Netherlands come to mind), it almost doesn’t matter what university you go to. People there certainly haven’t been sending their kids to top schools for generations as its hard to determine which are even the top schools. In France, there’s a big difference between the Grandes Ecoles (and even between them) and regular universities. However, one giant difference between Europe and the US is that tuition costs will be about the same (within the same major) regardless of where you go. So if costs are the same, of course you go to the best school possible (I would urge that for Americans as well). In the US, BTW, in many parts of the country, the best students do not reflexively head to an elite private. That’s standard in the Northeast, but not everywhere in the US, especially in states with strong public schools.</p>
<p>@Hunt: I agree in principle, though I wouldn’t be so sure that it’s the bottom half at a place like Harvard. I would say that an elite private would benefit most those kids who are less motivated/lazier/coasting on natural talent/connections (I call them Dubyas 
) who would definitely fare worse at a sink-or-swim type place with minimal handholding, but the percentage of those types of kids getting in to elite privates is far less than a generation ago (and there were far less then than the generation before that).</p>
<p>I think you’re probably right, PurpleTitan, that a much larger portion of Ivy students are super-achieving, super-motivated types than when I was there. So maybe it’s less of a factor than it used to be. I still think that the network does pay off for a lot of students, although the value varies a lot depending on the particular area of interest.</p>
<p>I went to undergrad at a top ranked private school and grad school at a large mid-tier state school. No doubt there were kids at State U. as focused, hard-working and curious as any kid at Elite U, but boy was there a drop-off after about the top 20% at State U. The large State School was a sea of mediocrity, from students who spent their days in drunken stupors to academic disciplines that were complete jokes to the professors who just phoned it in. The demand for the elite school school to be good, was just so much higher. Bright motivated and high performing kids do get the privileged treatment at lower tiered schools—access to scholarships, research opportunities, internships-- that the slackers at Harvard may not be able compete for, but it’s tough for a kid to rise out of that sea of mediocrity that surrounds him. He’s got to be really strong and motivated because chances are that motivation is not going to be coming from his or her peers.</p>
<p>I could see if you graduated from a handful (ok, HYPSM) of schools. However, I think when you get below that, the best school in your region is your best bet. </p>
<p>Some kids want to live in their hometown when they graduate. Take some kid from Arkansas that has the credentials to get into a top private, however, he wants to live in Arkansas after he graduates (lets just say for family reasons). His best bet would be to go local that is where recruiters from companies in his state are going to recruit from. I hardly think that a degree from a top-notch institution is going to give him a huge leg up in Little Rock, lol. </p>
<p>I would be willing to bet that most of the “elite” from his state (Law firm partners, corporate executives, Physicians in top specialties) went to places like the University of Arkansas. I seriously doubt there is a situation where he would be at a disadvantage by having a UA degree over an Ivy League degree in Little Rock.</p>
<p>That would be the kind of kid that would be better off going to a state school.</p>
<p>I would say, in certain parts of the country (Boston,NYC,Bay Area), an elite degree can open doors. However, in most of the Midwest, and the south, not so much.</p>
<p>BTW, @ucbalumnus, I have observed that if you are among the most mathematically gifted kids in your class in the country, you don’t have to have enough social skills to be able to, say, get a date to get in to H or M, though granted, the two guys I’m thinking of did excel in another dimension besides math (music and essays, respectively).</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you are aware, but at many schools, the effect of the interview on your application success is negligible.</p>
<p>Yep, I would say that a kid who is mature, motivated, smart, and mentally strong will succeed anywhere. An elite college would be better for slacker types and those who are easily influenced by the wrong crowd. However, the perfectionist types may actually do better at a run-of-the-mill college than an elite, as it would be easier for them to be top of the class.</p>
<p>@JohnConstantine: “WHAT IF.”</p>
<p>I have often thought the saddest two words a middle aged (or older) individual could constantly express are “what if.” What if I had gone to Yale instead of the University of Arkansas Law School, what if I hadn’t married xyz, what if I had accepted that job in Seattle, what if I had pursued my passion as an artist instead of opting for the secure employment (obviously, this list is endless)? The tragic thing about the “what if” crowd is their unresolved – and often enduring – discontent with their own lives.</p>
<p>This, of course, compels me to challenge your thesis (in post #44), not based on your facts, but rather because some of those teenagers and early-twenties youngsters, who absolutely believe their lives will be centered in Arkansas and therefore Razorback degree(s) will be perfectly fine, may discover decades later that important opportunities are irrevocably foreclosed, due to their lack of academically more rigorous and more prestigious educational credentials.</p>
<p>I actually Goggled the (in)famous Little Rock Rose Law Firm, and you’re right, most of their attorneys received their undergraduate and professional degrees from public universities in Arkansas (although, I seem to recall a Rose partner whose Bachelor’s is from Wellesley and whose JD is from Yale). Accordingly, I agree with the “facts” you have stated (and I also have personal experiences with this in places like West Virginia and Ohio). However, consider, for example, the fifty-five year old who would really like to conclude his legal career as a Federal judge and whether his opportunity might be enhanced with that Yale JD (and its inherent network), rather than one from the University of Arkansas? Further, while I absolutely acknowledge this is not a highly probably scenario, such things actually happen. </p>
<p>Where we disagree, I suspect, is recommending that any young-adult needlessly constrain his future due to convenience. Undoubtedly, there are many valid, tangible reasons – finances, family requirements, medical issues, and others – why settling for second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) best is often required. Sometimes, though, it is not obligatory and, in those cases, I would hate to see any youngster needlessly limit his future potential.</p>
<p>@TopTier:</p>
<p>My observations are that people who are emotionally healthy and have successful careers do not ask themselves what-if questions about where they went to college.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan: What percentage of college graduates in this nation are both emotionally healthy and career satisfied? I am, but I’d speculate – and, I suspect, neither of us have quantifiable facts – that at least 25 percent are not. </p>
<p>You never can tell. Your best chance of being a federal judge (at least a federal district judge) is to be well-connected with the legal and political community of your area. If you’re living in Arkansas, you might be better off starting those connections at the University of Arkansas. Indeed, I just looked it up, and of the 14 current federal district judges in Arkansas, 10 graduated from the University of Arkansas law school (plus two from Vanderbilt and two from Harvard).</p>
<p>So there is something to the idea that if you are really interested in staying in your home area, there can be advantages to get your education locally as well. But it should go without saying that if you change your mind, that degree from the University of Arkansas may not be all that helpful elsewhere, compared to schools with a more national reputation.</p>
<p>@Hunt: I entirely agree. Of course “your home area” (just look at the nation’s aggregate population distribution) is much more likely to be in metro Boston, San Francisco, New York, DC, Atlanta, etc. than in Little Rock, Wheeling, Oklahoma City, Billings, San Antonio, etc. I wonder what results you’d ascertain if you Googled Federal District Court judges in Massachusetts, New York, and so forth? I’ll wager they’d differ significantly from your Arkansas findings! </p>
<p>@TopTier: I do think at 18, a person doesn’t know what they want to do. I could see someone who wants to stay in Arkansas have a change of heart later on and decide to go into Investment Banking. </p>
<p>I was simply making aware that most firms where prestige matters are in places like Boston, New York, and the Bay Area. Opportunities in the South and Midwest are not so prestige conscious.</p>
<p>However, I understand the point of your response. Say a girl from Lexington (where I currently lives) gets accepted into Princeton, after graduating she could get a big Wall Street job or if got home sick go back Lexington and have the same opportunities as UKY grads. So, I am retract what I said and say if my kid got full financial aid to MIT and UKY. I would tell him to go to MIT.</p>
<p>I would say there are people like myself, who has been to NYC, Boston, and SF and have no desire to live there. Also, another advantage to living in the midwest are lower costs of living (in most places). So, a person in lower Eastside Manhattan making $140K a year is equivalent to $63K in Little Rock. There are also Honors Colleges at most major Universities. You are generally surrounded by extremely bright people in those.</p>
<p>@JohnConstantine: I fully agree. It’s the “burning of bridges,” especially when one is still quite young, that potentially leads to dissatisfaction.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, for the love of god. TopTier, we only have one life. At every juncture, we make choices. We can’t keep all our options open indefinitely. Your posts indicate a lot of naiveté about human nature.</p>
<p>Here’s a list of where all the U.S. presidents have gotten their undergraduate and graduate degrees (when they received any).</p>
<p><a href=“List of presidents of the United States by education - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_education</a></p>
<p>I would love for you to show me even one study that correlates happiness with educational origins–or even educational origins and career satisfaction, for that matter. </p>
<p>I think a list of Presidential colleges is pretty meaningless for anything before the 20th Century. You’ll also note that in the 20th Century, the elite schools start showing up more and more.</p>
<p>There is a study by Charles Murray that looks at SuperZips, the zip codes with the highest income (top 5%) in the US. (I think there are 650.) Those who live in the SuperZips are highly likely to have graduated from college and he also shows a high correlation between graduating from one of the Top 100 schools and living in a SuperZip. Obviously not everyone comes from those schools, but the upper echelons of US society at all levels are dominated by those 100 colleges.</p>
<p>I wonder if Mr Murray looked at how much of the income to live in those superzips was inherited vs. newly earned?</p>
<p>“Those who live in the SuperZips are highly likely to have graduated from college and he also shows a high correlation between graduating from one of the Top 100 schools and living in a SuperZip. Obviously not everyone comes from those schools, but the upper echelons of US society at all levels are dominated by those 100 colleges.”</p>
<p>The thing that’s really cool about today, though, versus even just 20-30 years ago, is that with the prevalence of the Internet, people can and do build plenty of knowledge businesses outside the traditional big cities. A mid-career consultant used to <em>have</em> to live in metro NYC or Chicago or SF or LA. A mid-career consultant now? They can live in Nowheresville, Idaho if they so desire – so much of the world is virtual now. </p>
<p>“because some of those teenagers and early-twenties youngsters, who absolutely believe their lives will be centered in Arkansas and therefore Razorback degree(s) will be perfectly fine, may discover decades later that important opportunities are irrevocably foreclosed, due to their lack of academically more rigorous and more prestigious educational credentials.”</p>
<p>Anyone who makes any decision inevitably forecloses the thing that they did not choose. That’s why they are called decisions. I had choices earlier in my career which I didn’t take – one was to be an expat in Europe, another was to move to a much smaller town. I just can’t sit around wondering about the path not taken and the opportunities foreclosed on, any more than I can sit and wonder about the boy-I-dated-once a long time ago. </p>