<p>It has been shown that students accepted to both an elite school and a less selective school (e.g. Harvard and Penn State), who attend the less prestigious school, ultimately are just as successful in life (employment, income) as their peers who attended the more elite institution. I.e. it is the caliber/drive of the student far more than the school attended that predicts success. Most Fortune 500 CEO’s (arguably one example of fiscal/social success) did not attend elite (i.e. top LAC/Ivy) undergraduate schools.</p>
<p>How do you determine the reputation of a school. Obviously the well know schools are easy, but what about lesser known schools?</p>
<p>I’ve been working in business for private and public companies for may years. I will tell you that most Directors and VP’s went to top 100 schools…a few didn’t go to school at all. It seems like I find that most people who work at investment companies, doctors, lawyers went to top 20 schools.</p>
<p>So if you plan on working in business (marketing, finance, accounting, operations, etc) I wouldn’t stress about school too much…just get a B.A. at a decent school. Your own hard work and networking is the thing that will matter most.</p>
<p>I see managers hire people all the time and don’t even really look at the education section. The difference between a school ranked at 25 vs a school ranked at 100 won’t matter.</p>
<p>Not true at all these days - most firms only recruit at Top 10-15 schools for business positions.</p>
<p>LadyD, Are you instate for UNCA and WCU? Your S will definitely get in UNCA. My neighbor’s D is a freshman there now and she had no where near a 2100 SAT and didn’t take any SAT II’s. She was a good student…just not as “up there” as your S.
At any rate, she loves UNCA. We are about two and a half hours away (so not too far of a drive) fr. Asheville and she has not come home even once since she went in Aug. She was not super social in h.s. (theater kid, not part of the “popular” crowd) but has really bloomed at UNCA this sem.</p>
<p>I know lots of kids at WCU. Neighbor boy across the street …good student, was a finalist for the NC Teaching Fellows scholarship, turned down Elon and Guilford and went to WCU . He was a history major in the Honors college. He enjoyed his time there so much that he stayed for grad. school and got his masters in History. He now teaches AP USH and coaches basketball in a h.s. in NC.</p>
<p>A relative of another neighbor went to WCU and then on to Law sch. He’s now back in Cullowhee practicing law…liked the area so much he wanted to go back.</p>
<p>So yes, WCU is a lot of kids “safety” sch. but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to be successful with a degree from there.</p>
<p>Good luck to your S.</p>
<p>I agreed with dad2. While attending a ‘name’ school probably looks good on a resume, my experience is that is really no guarantee of success. Rankings of schools tends to be very arbitrary and many who went to less well known schools also go on to be quite successful in their chosen field. No one where I work waves the name of their college around to try to impress anyone and would look rather silly if they did.</p>
<p>At least initially (I agree that this changes after 5 years or so).
Not a scientific observation, but I think a lot depends on where you want to live after college - if you have the foresight to figure that out. For example, if you want to live in say South Carolina then a degree from most any respected SC school is as good as a Harvard or Princeton degree. And one from the neighboring states (NC, GA, TN) will be known and probably respected as well.<br>
In essence I think that the advantage to the top tiered schools is that they will open doors across the country (maybe the world) where a “lower” tiered school will be equally effective only in its region (except to another alum).</p>
<p>A couple of examples as devil’s advocate:</p>
<ol>
<li>I am working for a 2 billion company. CEO was graduated from Texas A&M at Commerce. Never heard of it until I met him.</li>
<li>Warren Buffet was rejected by Harvard Business school.</li>
<li>Jack Welch was rejected by an ivy league school and got his Ph.D at Illinois.</li>
<li>Steve Spielburg was rejected by UCLA film school and then rejected by USC film school, end up at one of the smaller school in CA. Now look at who is laughing?</li>
<li>Steve Jobs did not go to Stanford or Harvard or Berkeley. He went to San Jose State.</li>
</ol>
<p>I can spend next hour listing examples like this. The take home message is the following: Gold will shine regardless of where you put it.</p>
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<p>Actually, Steve Jobs attended (but dropped out of) Reed College.</p>
<p>THX for the correction.
So unless you want to sit on the Supreme Court of the US or working at the Wall Street raking in millions, you don’t really need to go to Ivy.</p>
<p>^^Buffett went to Columbia.</p>
<p>My best friend. the high school valedictorian of our class, went to an Ivy, ended up in Seattle with a successful career, but not as successful as some classmates who went to lesser-known schools. She has said that the Ivy name helped in Seattle, but not all that much, and meant much less than it might have in the east. According to her, high-tech companies in Seattle are hardly waiting around for Ivy grads or grads of prestigious schools from the east to show up. They’re more than happy to hire talented grads of the University of Washington or other public universities. Agree that the prestige names matter most in the east, on Wall Street, maybe medical school, certainly the Supreme Court (all 9 job opportunities).</p>
<p>@packmom – thank you so much! Yes, we are in-state – just north of Winston-Salem. (DS has zero interest in Winston-Salem, BTW – as a home-schooled kid, he is ready to get away from home, big-time, LOL.)</p>
<p>I’m originally from Boston, and DH is from Louisville. We’ve been in NC 21 years and LOVE it. We would never go back to the frigid North. And we love the fact that NC has such a fantastic state school system, with such reasonable costs and merit aid available. The heck with the Ivies…seriously! :)</p>
<p>In NC, Duke, Wake Forest, and Chapel Hill seem to carry as much weight with employers as any Ivy would. Heck, even Appalachian State seems to carry a lot of weight with employers hereabouts. I really think it’s a regional thing. If you live in Massachusetts (and I was born and bred there), you worship Harvard. If you live in, say, a Southern state, you worship whatever large local university has the best football or basketball team. :)</p>
<p>@sailfish – you make a very good point. “Younger” industries (e.g. Internet marketing) are mkuch more entrepreneurial and meritocratic – they seek quirky, creative, smart, capable people, regardless of where they went to school. </p>
<p>My kid sister dropped out of Mount Holyoke after one year but has never had trouble finding good-paying jobs as a software engineer. In one performance evaluation, her boss said my sis was the best “release engineer” the boss had ever encountered. </p>
<p>Maybe older, stuffier industries put more of a premium on an Ivy education. The more exciting (IMHO) newer industries just want talent and drive. In my admittedly limited experience, anyway.</p>
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<p>What is meant by “success?” If we are talking only about making money, then that would be easy to measure and already has been.</p>
<p>Some people think of college as just another 4 years of school/studying. Imo, the college years are important formative years; that is, to an important extent they will determine “who” you are. What I mean is that while the person who got into to Harvard but went to junior college and then Podunk State may make the same amount of money in his lifetime as he would have if he had gone to Harvard; he may end up with vastly different personal/social/political values, tastes and extracurricular interests, breadth of life perspective and experiences, and social standing. Imo, these are more important measures of life “success” than money.</p>
<p>If just the money matters to you, then it doesn’t matter where you go to school.</p>
<p>Well, at Harvard, he or she is likely to be taught by a teaching assistant or resident/non-resident tutor. At a small LAC or honors college, he or she will be taught by actual professors. So, I’m not sure the quality of the education itself is really that much better at Harvard. (OTOH, at Harvard he or she will have awesome peers and tons of contacts. Maybe it’s a toss-up, all things considered.)</p>
<p>For the record, though, I think you set up an unrealistic scenario. The kid accepted at Harvard will not pass it up for junior college and Podunk U. – but maybe for Chapel Hill or Duke or for Reed or Pomona or for some huge but decent state univ that offers tons of merit aid.</p>
<p>
Yes, that’s correct… I assume you refer to the Krueger-Dale study. However, an important exception to that conclusion in Krueger-Dale is that members of historically socially disadvantaged groups (basically 1st generation working class immigrants, black, hispanic, other poor, and now increasingly less – female) benefit tremendously, financially and otherwise, from the signalling effects that accompany a prestigious diploma.</p>
<p>I agree with what has been said here, but I do think some professions it matters what school you went to. For example, I feel law school matters a lot.</p>
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<p>In my mind, that is merely passing up one elite college for another.</p>
<p>What is meant by the OP, then?</p>