Elite Admission: What Is College Worth?

Applying to College
21

@bloomfield88 You imply that every person who graduates from Wisconsin, no matter what field, is trying to make it in the business world, and MY narrative is “silly”?

In your denominator, you can ONLY put those graduates who are going into business. Since the vast majority of college graduates who are not attending a business school are not doing so, once again the number tilt back to Harvard’s 85,000 alumni who are definitely going into business.

Moreover, the number of living Wisconsin Alumni are about 441,700, while Harvard has over 371,000 living alumni. So Harvard has 84% the number of Alumni that Wisconsin has, and 86% the number of Fortune 500 CEOs. So, it would seem that Wisconsin alumni don’t vastly outnumber those of Harvard, so that claim can be laid to rest,

If, as you claim, 14 is such a small sample size, that means that Harvard’s 12 is also too small to say anything about the success of the thousands and thousands of Harvard alumni (83% the number of Wisconsin’s). Of course, the smaller samples, like that of Yale (5) are also meaningless when claiming success of alumni. In fact, if 14 is too small to be meaningful, none of the other samples are meaningful indicators of success.

So, based on your claims, there is no difference in attending a public or private college in success at getting top jobs in top companies, and public schools are cheaper, and so, are a better deal. Since that was my original point before you went off on number of alumni and such, I thank your for your support.

22

re #20, “…success at getting top jobs in top companies…”

Except that, for the most part, fortune 500 companies are not “top companies” in MBA hierarchy, and most grads of “top” MBA programs do not want to work at “most” fortune 500 companies. At least this was the case when I attended business school and then worked in the field. I eventually did work at a fortune 500 company and all the MBAs I hired were available because they were not offered jobs on Wall Street.

If you really want to assess relative MBA success, according to the standards most relevant to those MBAs, count the number of partners/ managing directors at the major investment banks and hedge funds. If that is possible.

23

@monydad. Sorry to disagree.

We know who bankers call on everyday for an “at bat”. These very UW CEOs and their leadership teams.

The Fortune 500 isn’t just 3m and GE anymore. They’re unicorns and tech giants too. It isn’t accurate imho to think they aren’t coveted opportunities.

We also know that when countervailing data doesn’t support a position, it’s a bit intellectually dishonest to simply move the goal post to a more convenient spot.

You might find a recent Times article interesting, it discusses the 15th year class reunion at HBS. 50 percent report having been fired from a job, many multiple times and 30 percent are really unhappy with how things worked out.

The vast majority of those satisfied with their career where actually those who were passed over by mbb and banks.

Apparently without the big ticket option they became entrepreneurs or committed to something they loved.

Money, over time, has diminishing returns in terms of delivering true happiness and satisfaction. There’s data to support an economic bell curve of happiness and work motivation at 200k. Not sure of the exact number.

Glad it worked out for you. I love my career too.

However, the facts are completely conclusive that ivy level students who choose elsewhere - suffer very little in regards to economic or personal success in life.

Doesn’t mean H or any Ivy is not the most often chosen path or in any way a bad idea. They’re terrific.

It’s just many here can’t fathom a decision that doesn’t mirror the path they or their kids chose in schools. Basic selection or confirmation bias. That’s why people fight facts and debate these things to death.

FWIW. My wife is an h grad along with my fil. I attended public ug and ivy grad. I’m not saying any route is superior in every situation as some would posit here.

24

This shows, which colleges, have produced the most UHNW alumni. There’s no question Harvard, if you include graduate schools, earns its reputation of having the wealthiest alumni.
https://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-that-have-created-the-most-millionaires-and-billionaires-2017-5#2-university-of-pennsylvania-19

25

Many more were rich to begin with, Zuckerberg went to Exeter of all places. Must have been quite a personal trial for him to have survived.

USC is outstanding at producing billionaires as well.

And these threads always get off course.

NO
ONE
EVER
SAYS
HARVARD
ISN’T
THE
BEST.

They just aren’t the ONLY way.

??

26

Fortune 500 CEO’s are a poor way to judge a school. Simply too small a pool, I would rather look at the total number of MBA’s that have reached a net worth of $10M+.

27

It’s not about totals it’s about limits. No excellent school acts as a governor on the truly talented. That’s all.

28

@MWolf No, I am not implying that at all. One has no idea how many grads from any department at Wisconsin, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc would like to be a Fortune 500 CEO. You were eliminating the entire swath of non-MBAs on only ONE campus (Wisconsin) after stating 50% of all the CEOs are not MBAs. Yes, that is silly on both fronts.

Where did this other half of the CEO’s go? Of course, the other departments are part of the denominator. Those departments groom half of all CEOs according to you.

Likewise, we don’t know how many MBAs want to be Fortune 500 CEOs either, so why do you divide by total MBAs (as if all MBAs want to be Fortune 500 CEOs, really?) and apparently you think no other student from any other department does want to be a CEO?, so you eliminate the other departments. Yet you say half of all Fortune 500 CEOs come from those departments? Quite extraordinary.

One could better argue, since the Fortune 500 consists of US companies only, it may be better to eliminate all the foreign alumni that went back to live in and lead their countries than it would be to eliminate the vast majority of departments.

Yes, 14 is too small and therefore 5 is too small to measure success of a university. That is precisely what I stated when I said the # 14 is too small. Why are you building a strawman argument? You are arguing with yourself. There is nothing there to argue.

Wisconsin and other state schools are the best option for many people and I advise many kids to attend them and commend them when they do. Like I started off my first very first sentence on the 14 CEOs, “Yes, that is good for Wisconsin. Quite impressive.”

I am not wasting any more time on this.

29

re #22: my point was only that a lot of top MBA grads don’t seek out fortune 500 employment.
Many top MBA grads are not really in the queue to become Fortune 500 CEOs, by intent.
Whether they like their jobs, or I liked mine, or whether one path or another was “better”, was not anything I addressed, or would address, and IMO is not relevant to this thread.

I did omit mentioning consulting though.
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/11/30/industries-that-attract-the-most-mbas
Close to 2/3 of the graduates of the top 7 MBA programs went into finance or consulting.
Northwestern (particularly known for marketing) was the outlier in this group at 54%, but you don’t get below 54% till number 8.

I’ve read that things have changed more recently, away from finance and more towards tech, but that wouldn’t affect the landscape that those CEOs referenced in this thread were part of.

Go in peace.