Forbes Special: Power Factories (World's Most Influential Schools)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Power</a> Factories - Forbes</p>

<p>"Some people wonder if where you go to college matters. Consider this: More than half of the 71 members of Forbes’ list of the World’s Most Powerful People attended the same 11 schools. Maybe these top schools are truly able to make people great --or perhaps their reputations attract people who would go on to achieve greatness anyway. Either way, they’re the schools that make the people that matter."</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard University</li>
<li>Stanford University</li>
<li>University of Oxford</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology</li>
<li>Tsinghua University</li>
<li>Columbia University</li>
<li>Duke University</li>
<li>Saint Petersburg State University</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>Yale University</li>
</ol>

2

<p>Ranks 1 and 2 are almost common knowledge.</p>

<p>Stanford has always been the premier school of Silicon Valley, where successful startups most often occur. </p>

<p>Harvard has always been an incubator for political leaders. </p>

<p>Ox, MIT, and Tsinghua are all the premier schools in a region/field. </p>

<p>The others are likely coincidences.</p>

3

<p>Didn’t expect to see UCLA there. I’d be lying if i said it didn’t leave a smile on my face to see Berkeley’s abscence :smiley: </p>

<p>Also, Princeton’s seemingly absent. My guess is this has to do with their small alumni base.</p>

4

<p>Yale, Columbia, Duke, and Penn are likely coincidences?</p>

5

<p>In this case, yes. Yale has two alum, Clinton and Monti (both grads); Columbia has two, Obama(UG) and Buffett(grad); Duke has two, Gross(UG) and Cook(MBA); Penn has one, Elon Musk(UG).</p>

<p>Princeton also has one alum, Jeff Bozos(UG), as does a number of other universities including Dartmouth(Jack Immelt), Maryland(Sergey Brin), Michigan(Larry Page), Georgetown(Clinton), Nebraska(Buffett), Auburn(Cook), Johns Hopkins(Bloomberg), Tufts(Jamie Dimon), Georgia Tech(Mike Duke), Texas(Tillerson), Xavier(Boehuer), Trinity-Washington and Kansas(Kathleen Sebelius).</p>

<p>Just another sensational reporting from Forbes.</p>

6

<p>Why stop at precisely 71 people?
Anyway, these two sentences are inconsistent:</p>

<p>“Maybe these top schools are truly able to make people great --or perhaps their reputations attract people who would go on to achieve greatness anyway. Either way, they’re the schools that make the people that matter.”</p>

<p>(NOT “either way”)</p>

7

<p>Forbes rankings are usually laughably crude and pointless. A university makes a ranking because 2 of its alums happen to be among Forbes 71 most powerful people. </p>

<p>In these types of reports, Harvard belongs in a different plain of existence where power factories are concerned. Nobody comes close. Nobody. I mean, Harvard is like 100% ahead of #2. Stanford comes in at #2, Penn at #3 and Columbia at #4. The remaining schools do not produce a sufficient number to count. </p>

<p>For example, the top 10 universities in terms of production of Fortune 500 CEOs are:</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard 55</li>
<li>Stanford 23</li>
<li>Penn 21</li>
<li>Columbia 14</li>
<li>Cornell 11</li>
<li>Dartmouth 11</li>
<li>Michigan-Ann Arbor 11</li>
<li>Notre Dame 10</li>
<li>Princeton 10</li>
<li>Texas-Austin 10</li>
</ol>

<p>Or the top 10 in terms of Billionaires as of 2011 (total worth in billions)

  1. Harvard ($278)
  2. Stanford 39 ($197)
  3. Penn 29 ($112)
  4. Columbia 20 ($124)
  5. Yale 19 ($79)
  6. NYU 18 ($37)
  7. Michigan-Ann Arbor 15 ($57)
  8. MIT 14 ($70)
  9. Princeton 14 ($46)
  10. Chicago 13 ($53)</p>
8

<p>Alexandre, your figures seem way off. Are you counting spouses in your net worth calculations? How up-to-date are the statistics? Are you only counting living billionaires? I’m almost positive that NYU, Yale, Michigan, and MIT have a lower number of billionaires than the figures you cited.</p>

<p>Are we talking billionaires in terms of USD or Euros, Rupees, Pesos, etc.?</p>

9

<p>Anybody who starts a thread with a Forbes ranking and questions the validity of someone else’s data should not be taken seriously. What’s wrong goldenboy? Are you upset that Duke isn’t in the top ten in those two lists?</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>There are thousands of universities in the world. Considering that only 11 schools have two alumni or more featured in the list is certainly impressive to note.</p>

<p>It’s also interesting to note several other schools which didn’t make the list. Many of the top publics, including Cambridge, Michigan and Berkeley, but many top privates including Chicago, Northwestern, Princeton (and the rest of the ivy league), USC and so on. Even schools which have large amounts of alumni like tOSU and PennState aren’t featured.</p>

<p>Yes i understand that these 11 schools are noteworthy only inasmuch as Forbes defines the “world’s most powerful” people. But i still think its interesting and not sensationalized Forbes garbage.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>according to Forbes:</p>

<p>“There are 7.1 billion people on the planet. These are the 71 who matter.” Kind of offensive, but hey, that’s Forbes.</p>

11

<p>Get real rjk, Duke has more billionaires and billionaire-heirs than half of the universities Alexandre listed. The Forbes ranking might be somewhat insignificant but its not inaccurate which is what I would peg Alexandre’s list as. Its not Alex’s fault of course; its very difficult to accurately track net worth and verify educational affiliations. There are also different schools of thought pertaining to defining a billionaire (self-made or do spouses/children count?).</p>

<p>At any rate, since you’re so interested, I count at least 14 dollar billionaires who went to Duke.</p>

<p>1)Bill Gross
2)David Rubenstein
3)Gerard Louis Dreyfus
4)Tor Peterson
5)William Wrigley
6)Aubrey Mcclendon
7)Peter Nicholas
8)Shivender Singh (indian)
9)Malvinder Singh (indian)
10)John Chambers
11)Melinda Gates
12) JB Pritzker
13) Jeffrey Vinik
14) Alan Schwartz</p>

<p>Future Billionaires

  1. Dylan Lauren (father is the CEO of Polo Ralph Lauren)
  2. Nick Arison (father is the CEO of Carnival Cruiselines and he’s already the CEO of the Miami Heat)</p>

<p>Apple CEO Tim Cook will likely be a billionaire in less than a year as well. There are probably more billionaires and heirs of billionaires affiliated with Duke but I can’t think of them of the top of my head and need to do more research.</p>

12

<p>My figures are for 2011, but I checked and 14 are all still alive. Only 11 of them are alums. 3 of them attended Michigan but never graduated. One of them has not listed his net worth since 2005. At the time, it was ~$0.5 billion. </p>

<p>Below are Michigan’s Billionaires and current networth in US dollars. In total, still ~ $50 billion.</p>

<ol>
<li>Bharat Desai (MBA): $1.5 billion</li>
<li>Stanley Druckenmiller (PhD): $2.7 billion</li>
<li>Brad Keywell (BBA, JD): $1 billion</li>
<li>Eric Paul Lefkofsky (BA, JD): $2.9 billion</li>
<li>Tom Monaghan (did not graduate): not listed </li>
<li>Larry Page (BS): $20 billion</li>
<li>Jorge Perez (MS): $1.0 billion</li>
<li>Stephen Ross (BBA): $4.4 billion</li>
<li>Kavitark Ram Shriram (MBA): $1.5 billion</li>
<li>Alfred Taubman (did not graduate): $2.9 billion</li>
<li>Joan Tisch (BA): $2.7 billion</li>
<li>Samuel Wyly (MBA): $1.5 billion</li>
<li>Sam Zell (BA, JD): $3.8 billion</li>
<li>Niklas Zennstrom (did not graduate): $1.3 billion</li>
</ol>

13

<p>I do not understand why Duke is there in the list and Cambridge is not. And, I do not see the value of that Forbes’ list as well. Cambridge has educated over hundred world leaders and heads of states, and several royalties all over Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Duke has no match to Cambridge yet Duke landed at number 7 whilst Cambridge wasn’t even in the top 10. It’s preposterous! lol…</p>

14

<p>Forbes is nothing BUT sensationalized garbage. They have rankings for everything because people actually buy this crap. they just did a ranking on the most overpaid actors in Hollywood! Why anyone would take any ranking from Forbes seriously is beyond me.</p>

15

<p>Saying that the Forbes ranking is sensationalized crap is almost true. </p>

<p>In terms of the “power” rankings of schools, the only fact is that Harvard and Stanford clearly come out on top. </p>

<p>The other schools have so few billionaires/most influential people/ kings/ hiers/ that it could easily change from year to year. Only Harvard and Stanford have the numbers to make the top place on the list each year.</p>

16

<p>^^^^This I can agree with, although Harvard is really in a league all it’s own as Alexandre already stated.</p>

17

<p>in re: post #11</p>

<p>Wow, that’s a new one on me . . . ranking schools by including the category of “heirs of billionaires”</p>

<p>must be the schools’ superb frat life or rock climbing walls or security set ups that make them so very special :-)</p>

<p>.</p>

18

<p>The last three supreme justices went to Princeton as undergrad. They are as powerful and influencial as anyone.</p>

19

<p>Although I am a strong believer that top schools matter for long-term success and not just the first job after college, these numbers are too small to mean much and also depend on a accurate assessment by Forbes of the 71 most powerful people in the world.</p>

20

<p>goldenboy8784, I’ve been lurking CC for a few years now and I wish you’d stop defending Duke all the time. Just let bitter rejects like rjk, and Kei wallow in their sour grapes.</p>

<p>While I agree that Harvard and Stanford’s positions are indisputable I don’t think huge shifts can occur just like that. Billionaires are not made over night and the schools on this list could easily stay there for a few years.</p>