<p>Self fulfilling prophecy. Most of these schools are highly selective. They get to pick from the best of the best, and use a selection criteria that is engineered to predict success. They could build their college using tents as classrooms and janitors as instructors and they would still get results like this. </p>
<p>Worst part about this is that everybody wants to go there because everybody wants to go there.</p>
<p>Boehner and Sebelius more powerful than swing Justice Anthony Kennedy? Not in my book.</p>
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<p>I guess the idea of “greatness” is subjective. Many of these people are powerful but not using their power in positive ways. The Koch brothers? Lloyd Blankfein? Jamie Dimon? KIM JONG-UN?! Please.</p>
<p>These schools are also big universities, meaning they graduate more students, subsequently giving them a better chance of producing “powerful people.” They should have one specifically for percentage of alumni becoming “powerful people.” If it went by percentage, I could see little powerhouses like Babson or Claremont McKenna giving a large percentage (relatively of course. Having .01% of your alumni become one of the most powerful people out there is really good.)</p>
<p>Also, look to see if these powerful people exemplified prodigious signs as kids. If so, then they went to these schools for the name, and still would have become rich at a liberal arts school or a less prestigious university.</p>
<p>I think this list has credibility, because Steve Forbes went to Princeton (which always made Forbes’ rankings suspect, imo) and Princeton does not show up on this list.</p>
<p>Mortimer Zuckerman went Penn and it’s in the top 10. I think bias in rankings vary.</p>
<p>Not sure how this turned into a billionaire discussion. Billionaires can be powerful, but it is in no way a necessary condition for being powerful. Obama isn’t a billionaire, and neither is Xi Jinping, but the former’s (probably) the most powerful man in the world; and the latter’s about to be one of the top 5.</p>
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<p>Nor is it a sufficient condition for being well-educated.
Being well-educated is about acquiring knowledge, not money.</p>
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Berkeley has one alum, Masayoshi Son. So does Cambridge(Manmohan Singh), Michigan(Larry Page), Chicago(Masaaki Shirakawa), Princeton(Jeff Bozos), Dartmouth(Jack Immelt), and Brown(Jim Yong Kim) … and at least a dozen more schools.</p>
<p>Aside from Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Oxford, the rest of the schools on the list has only TWO alum; Penn has only one. Seriously, is having TWO alum represented significantly better than ONE?</p>
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<p>Let’s assume everyone on the Forbes 71 went to college. Of those 71, 36 went are affiliated with 11 schools. the other 35 are affiliated with 35 other distinct schools (this number’s likely 40-50 when you add all the alma maters that weren’t listed like Maryland, Cambridge, Berkeley, etc. for those 36 people who fall into the 11 universities)</p>
<p>Again, that 11 number is still pretty impressive for a ranking that uses universities across the world. Only 3 of these universities are non-American universities. (Oxford, St. Petersberg, and Tsinghua)</p>
<p>Penn does have two graduates. Their second alumni is Warren Buffet. When you said they had one alumnus, i originally thought you were excluding Michael Bloomberg due to his honorary degree. Do you mean ‘alumnus’ as graduated from a university instead of just affiliation? You can do that, but Harvard would lose 2 alums (Gates and Zuckerberg) and Stanford would lose at least one (Mukesh Ambani)</p>
<p>I think it’s interesting how these universities have connections with each other. In the picture, UCLA and Duke are sort of the odd ones out not connecting to the others. Tsinghua is as well if you exclude Gate’s honorary degree (which i would.) and St. Petersberg University isn’t in the picture. (none of its alumni connect to any of the others)</p>
<p>Since the picture is mostly for stylistic purposes, and omits people in the ranking, the complete ranking can be seen here:</p>
<p>[1</a>. Harvard University - David M. Ewalt Metagamer - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlg45lfjh/1-harvard-university/]1”>1. Harvard University - 2012-12-05 - Power Factories)</p>
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<p>I get what you are saying but the absence of one form of bias does not make the study any more significant.</p>
<p>The biggest problem, as many have suggested is that the list itself is flawed. Forbes is trying to add credibility to their list by creating a university chart to accompany it. </p>
<p>Aside from twenty or so people (Obama, Bernanke, Merkel, Brown), the other members of the 71 were placed there subjectively. Even Xi and Putin may not truly be in the top 71 most influential members given how opaque their governments are.</p>
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Buffett was at Penn only for his freshman and sophomore years; he then transferred to the University of Nebraska and graduated there with his bachelor degree. Do you consider Buffett to be a Penn grad or Nebraska grad?</p>
<p>Obviously, one cannot be a “graduate” of a school he/she left.</p>
<p>From a logical point of view, both Gates and Zuckerberg dropped out but their successes are strongly connected to Harvard. </p>
<p>-Gates started Microsoft in a room at Harvard
-Zuckerberg started Facebook to help his Harvard classmates connect with each other.</p>
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It depends how Penn’s alumni network counts graduates-some schools list individuals who only spent 2 semesters at the institutions as “alums” of the school. I think he’s legitimately affiliated to both.</p>
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More precisely, 56 of the 71 went to Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Oxford; 2 dropped out and never finished college; the other 13 went to the 7 other schools on the list. Do you think it is really fair to associate the little 7 with the big 4? Or are they more in common with the other universities that these group of 71 attended?</p>
<p>p.s. So you are saying having two alum represented is significantly better than have only one?</p>
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Only 14 of the 71 got their undergraduate education at the 11 institutions, not counting the two Harvard drop-outs. That means 55 other universities can lay claim to having an alum on the World’s Most Powerful People list … according to Forbes.</p>
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It also depends on whether Buffett considers himself a Penn alum.</p>
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<p>According to his Wikipedia page, Buffett spent two years at Penn (Wharton) and one year (or less) at Nebraska. Since he spent more time at the former i’d consider it his alma mater if i had a gun to my head. However, i agree with Goldenboy that he has legitimate affiliations with both universities. </p>
<p>I’m not sure why he transferred to Nebraska, but that’s where he was born, and where he bought his home where he still currently lives. I’d imagine his transferring was a result of his being homesick.</p>