<p>Two years out of school, no employer cares where you graduated. They care what you did for them yesterday. They care what your last performance review says. They care what your booking numbers are. </p>
<p>Some of the best minds, deepest thinkers, and even wealthiest people, never attended a university. Many exceptional people are well read and self taught. Anyone with access to books can learn. Prestige degrees can potentially get you into grad and professional schools. They may get you a start in SOME industries (banking, finance). However, many fields could care less where the degree is from for a beginner, as long as it is acredited.</p>
<p>Relating to what you said bandit_TX, I recall Gollub saying </p>
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<p>Pompous unrealized comments such as that make me feel sick. That statement is false-Prestige doesn't get you those positions and most people in those positions did not attend prestigious schools. My uncle for instance is the VP of Coca Cola and he went to Hanover College in Indiana. </p>
<p>Good point bandit, but what's th chance of getting the great job in the first place if you don't go to a highly respected school? In many fields, good luck even getting an interview if you did not go to a school on their list.</p>
<p>Prestige aside, many employers want you to have been educated at a school that's top in your field.</p>
<p>Nattak, your uncle in not THE VP for Coke, they have hundreds of VPs. All of them came up through corporate ranks in their area. A VP marketing may have started by stocking store shelves. A VP finance may have been one of hundreds of accountants. Talent does mean everything once you get into a company/industry. But to ignore that many organizations only recruit at top schools is just silly.</p>
<p>"In many fields"??. Tell me which fields these are?. You may not get as good of a job in the beginning but that is quite irrelevent in the long run considering that most people only keep their job for a year or two. </p>
<p>Also you should undertand that you can go to a very unknown liberal arts school and go to graduate school easily at virtually any prestigious graduate school.</p>
<p>Zagat, Do you really think that organizations only recruit from schools??? Obviosuly this is not true. I already stated that going to a prestigious school will help with your first or maybe second job and maybe get into one of those organizations earlier. However, after those first couple years organizations will be looking at your performance and experience not where you went to college.</p>
<p>I do not think it is prestige itself that makes prestigious colleges more desireable but the qualities on which the reputation is based including things like the quality of faculty and resources, the quality of your fellow students, intellectual climate, academic culture, extensive alumni network, sense of satisfaction about being a student, employer recruiting and graduate school advantages, faculty who are more active professionally creating more opportunities for students, and so on. I think more prestigious colleges provide real advantages but reputation itself is only a minor advantage.</p>
<p>On average, I think graduates of more prestigious colleges have greater professional success but there are many examples of successful individuals who did not attend prestigious colleges. Contrary examples don't disprove the general point that college reputation has substance.</p>
<p>Career success is not the ultimate criterion for judging whether prestige matters. What matters most is the educational experience during the four years you are there. I think you are better off spending those four years among the best and brightest people you can. After that, a lot of other things come into play. In many post-college environments, intelligence and integrity are a disadvantage. Success can depend more on animal-dominance, materialistic values, a willingness to compromise your principles, a focus on making your supervisor look good, being a "team-player" rather than an individual talent, and so on. Success in the working world is not the same as success in life. Better educated minds are more likely to value intangibles. Better educated minds might be less willing to make the sacrifices required to climb the corporate ladder. In many ways, the working world has a different value system than the university.</p>
<p>First, yes, grad school is more important. However, if you look at where kids did undergrad at top law and business schools, you will see a HUGE skew towards top colleges. This is slightly less true for med schools, but still holds true. So if someone wants to be on the fast track at Coca Cola or most other companies today, a management trainee as opposed to slogging his way up from stocking shelves, a top B school is in order. Read the thread by moderator Alexander in the archives which shows that extremely high percentages at top business schools come from top colleges.</p>
<p>As for places that only hire from the top schools: management consulting firms, investment banks, venture capital firms, top law firms, high flying technology companies and on and on. The hotter the company, the more selective they are. It's expensive to recruit at more than a few colleges. If the company is hot and desireable, they will go only to top schools. This is not only ivies, but schools that have the best and brightest in a given field which includes top LACs and States.</p>
<p>The above named industries are the highest paying. Period. Does this mean that you can't be highly successful without going to a top school? Not at all. It just means your odds are much lowere, you'll have to break down walls and the path will not be as smooth or predictable.</p>
<p>Ok, while I agree with most of your points, I would like to mention that one does not need to go to a prestigious undergraduate school to get into a prestigious graduate school. For instance, Allegheny College or The College of Wooster (both of which I have applied to and been accepted to) have nearly perfect acceptance rates into top graduate schools. Yet, both of these schools are not very "prestigious".</p>
<p>I think we're throwing aroudn the word "prestigious" too much, without defining it. Is Allegheny College prestigious? Compared to Harvard probably not, compared to Tougaloo College I'd say it is.</p>
<p>What do you mean by top graduate schools? Do they have many at Harvard B school, law school or med school (just one example)? The real question is what is their perventage of grads attending top 10 professional schools versus a top 20 college? Answer: Not even close. </p>
<p>That said, if you work hard and get top grades (and have top board scores) at those or any other school you'll have a good shot of getting into a top grad school. You can do that from anywhere. Again, factually, it's just a matter of odds.</p>
<p>First of all I'd like to see the statistics you are referrign to when you talk of the percentage of grads attenting top professional schools. Secondly, I would like to point out that just because a higher percentage of a more prestigious schools' students GO to top graduate schools it DOES NOT follow that a lower percentage of a less prestigious school CAN go to a top graduate school if they chose to.</p>
<p>Math is not my strong suit??? Explain. I am simply saying that a higher percentage of people at more prestigious colleges may CHOOSE to go to graduate school than at less prestigious colleges!!! What does this have to do with my math skill?</p>
<p>Sorry to get between you two in this, but I can't resist one last comment: The real experience I have seen is that the most favored school for recruiting is not necessarily anything to do with prestige - businesses favor look at a number of factors, but one big factor is the alma mater of the interviewer ! No one has mentioned that yet, but it's a real key factor. And it is not necessarily anything to do with the CEO or other members of the C-suite. If the division head is interviewing, and he/she attended University of Missouri, then you can put money on the fact that the people from U of Missouri move to the top of the pile !</p>
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"In many fields"??. Tell me which fields these are?. You may not get as good of a job in the beginning but that is quite irrelevent in the long run considering that most people only keep their job for a year or two.
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<p>In my field, engineering, I have been a hiring manager for many years. I base my values of schools on my experience with their graduates, not some survey somewhere. For instance, I have hired many graduates from a small religious based engineering school, Letourneau University, because I consistently get employees that know the material, can be productive right now, and most important, know how to work. I look for students that worked part time to get through school, again because they know how to work. Do you see a theme here?? I don't care how much prestige the school supposedly has in some made up survey. I care whether the kid knows the material (ABET acreditation helps here, the right course work on the transcript, and co-op experience) and does he know the meaning of work. And yes, many people only keep the first job a year or two. That means the degree is even less important as experience from the first job is all important when applying for the second. </p>
<p>We pay beginning engineers on a standard scale as do most of industry. Believe me, we couldn't compete if we didn't compete on salary. An MIT engineer makes the same as a UT or TAMU engineer all things being equal. If you want more, bring me an advanced degree (not worth as much as you think starting out) or more important, bring me real world experience.</p>