<p>Does going to an ivy or other top school have any significance in the real world or is it just a "bragging rights" kind of thing? Does it ever provide you with opportunities you wouldnt have otherwise? If you are going into medicine, does it really matter where you go? Thanks for the input.</p>
<p>Top schools tend to have strong departments in a variety of subjects and be able to fund student endeavors of almost any kind imaginable, if that’s the sort of “opportunity” you’re referring to. </p>
<p>OTOH, it’s better to choose the school with the environment you’re most comfortable with, where you know you’ll best thrive, both academically and socially. I’m sure motivated people like you will find their way to “opportunities” no matter which undergrad institution they attend :). </p>
<p>Top schools tend to be feeder schools to top graduate programs (ex: <a href=“http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf</a>), but it’s hard to say how much of that is due to the school and how much is due to the nature of the student body.</p>
<p>Not only that, but Ivies have some serious connections and alumni/ae networks. That’s certainly a tangible benefit.</p>
<p>The answer to this question is less obvious than most people think.</p>
<p>Common sense tells us that an elite degree is a very powerful asset that will do a lot to fuel success in life. The many people on the CC boards who are desperate to get into an Ivy clearly believe thats true. At top schools, you go to school with very strong peers, from whom you can learn a lot and with whom you can network – many of them will be leaders in business, politics, the arts, the academy, etc. You get world-class faculty, and tons of resources that youre less likely to find in schools that just dont have as much money. How could that not be a huge advantage?</p>
<p>Yet – recent research continues to find no impact on variables you can measure, like economic success, of undergraduate institution when you control for characteristics of the individual. In simple terms, talented people tend do well whether they go to Harvard, Big State U or Unknown Little College. </p>
<p>The first American to win the Nobel Prize in physics, Ernest Lawrence, started at St. Olaf, then finished his undergraduate work at the University of South Dakota, and made a couple more stops before eventually finding his way to Yale for a Ph.D. Bill Gates went to Harvard while Steve Jobs went to Reed. Neither graduated, but Gates lasted a lot longer than Jobs, who dropped out after one term. So you dont necessarily even have to graduate to be successful, and it may not make too much difference which college you drop out of or how soon. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went to Princeton, and Fedex founder Fred Smith went to Yale, but Walmart founder Sam Walton went to the University of Missouri (where he ran a very successful business). Who knows if Walton would have done as well if hed gone to Harvard?</p>
<p>So the ranking of the college you attend is probably much less important to career success than your talent, the fit between you and the school, and what you do with the opportunities you find. But that’s not what most people believe, and the research doesn’t seem to be changing too many minds.</p>
<p>For medicine, the boost is marginal. Depending on the career field in this day and age of keyword searches on stacks of electronic resumes, having Yale or Harvard appear on your resume can get you to the top of the stack – but doesn’t guarantee anything.</p>
<p>In some circles such as executive searches, only MBAs from top ten BSchools are even considered. Without a degree from one of these, your resume isn’t even considered.</p>
<p>Like poster #4 says, the benefit is more subtle. My HYP degree hasn’t been a passkey into everything I’ve pursued – but I certainly LOVED my undergraduate days and wouldn’t trade them and my friends for anything. My take on it: pursue it if you can – I can vouch for the quality experience. However, I would have done fine and any of the other schools that accepted me. Being non-Ivy isn’t the end of the world. I certainly hire many non-Ivy grads. I work for and around mostly non Ivy alums too. Ivy is great. But it’s not everything – certainly not worthy of the fetishizing that many seem to do over it.</p>