Does prestige REALLY matter?

<p>So isn't the point that these people end up the excerptions at the lower rated colleges? They are the ones who get they very high test scores and GPAs? Thus get into the better grad schjools? There is a huge correlation between SAT scores/GMAT/LSAT/MCAT.</p>

<p>So isn't the point of that study that kids who worked hard early, did well early, will continue to do well no matter where they go to school?</p>

<p>Also, I'm curious, does the study say how many go to lesser schools who can get into top schools? Afterall, the study was conducted with people who were actually accepted to top colleges and chose not to go.</p>

<p>I don't know the numbers either, but I do hear of many students that do get accepted into prestigious universities, and instead attend Top 50 schools. This could be due to distance, or the fact that so many do not qualify for aid, and many families cannot justify spending $45,000 a year when that same smart student could get great merit scholarship at non-Ivy-League, but nonetheless excellent schools. </p>

<p>I would also suspect that many students who do go to Ivy League schools, already come from priveleged backgrounds, move in social circles different from most, and have the wherewithal to succeed no matter what. And those exact same students would have been successful if they had gone to a "mere" top 50 school.</p>

<p>I'm one of em. Could've gone to Duke or Harvard. But instead am at USC (South Carolina) Honors which is an awesome school. The money wasn't at the ivies, but it really felt like USC rolled the red carpet out for me.</p>

<p>Some just love a particular school so much that they will make the personal sacrifices even though it is a financial hardship.........like me=)
Something like 50-60% of all Ivy students have to receive some form of financial aid under the need-blind admissions policies at most ivies.
I did.</p>

<p>chocoholic raises a good point Some of you mentioned these studies where the students went to state schools after being accepted to Ivies, and said they were adjusted for race, gender, income, etc But were they adjusted for family? To choco's point, did George Bush or John Kennedy get ahead because they attended Yale / Harvard, or did they get ahead - and into Yale and Harvard - because of family, for the most part. </p>

<p>I work in a company where nepotism is part of the culture and basically an assumed perk. So did our EVP get helped by attending Wharton, or did he get help getting into Wharton, then into our company, because his dad was the CEO ?</p>

<p>I think it's pretty clear that family and connections mean a lot, money means a lot, but neither means everything.</p>

<p>Legacies were thrown out of the equation in the study if that sheds any light upon this.</p>