<p>man, is that acronym still used these days ?
I remember back in good old days, long ago; my, oh my!!! </p>
<p>Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days</p>
<p>
[quote]
With all due respect, I don't think that I was insulting you. I said that it is a silly and patronizing stance to pretend that Caltech admits can't make good decisions for themselves. That's knocking the idea, not the guy saying it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, of course they can't make good decisions for themselves, for the same reason that MOST young people can't be completely trusted to make good decisions for themselves. That is why, for example, car insurance premiums are much higher for young people than for older people, because it recognizes the simple fact that young people tend to get into far more accidents. That is why we don't allow people to drink before they're 21. That is why I would be extremely skeptical of investing in a company if I know the CEO was 18 years old. Caltech admits are not immune to the rashness and temptations of youth. Far from it, in fact. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, it doesn't mean it was a bad decision if it results in a bad outcome. Simple, but true! Good investors make dozens of bets that end up losing money, but they might still be good bets. Good decisions are about the probability distribution a priori, not ex post. Deep thought!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, good investors * diversify * to minimize risk. But college students can't do that. College students can't just decide to partially matriculate at a whole bunch of different schools, and earn the aggregate gains from that basket. They have to choose ONE school. That is the exact opposite of diversification. Which makes the notion of safety even more important than it is in the world of investing. </p>
<p>
[quote]
University grades, that's what! Do you think for a moment that grades from mostly trivial high school classes provide nearly as good a screening device as four years at (usually very good) colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad? Your comparison of grad programs and undergrad programs with respect to graduation rates is a complete nonstarter. Graduate programs have much, much, much, much better data on which to select, and it is obvious that they will do a better job selecting. End of story.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If graduate programs have so much better data to select from, then why is it that in MOST PhD programs, including Caltech's a large chunk of students, will not get their PhD's? Granted, like I said, a good fraction of them will get consolation master's. But the fact of the matter is that at Caltech or at any other doctoral program, a large chunk of students will not get what they set out to do, which is get the PhD. Hey, if PHD programs have such great selectivity data to use, then we should see PhD completion rates of near 100%, right? Does that happen at any department at Caltech?</p>
<p>I think right there, that illustrates what is missing. Ben Golub, we both know that grades actually predict very little about whether somebody can actually complete a PhD. Plenty of people with cracker-jack grades just do not have what it takes to do independent compelling research. You can get great college grades, and not be a good researcher. Yet it is precisely those independent research skills that is going to determine whether you actually get the PhD. In most programs, including probably at Caltech's, about half of the incoming PhD students will not ever get their PhD's. </p>
<p>By the same token, there are plenty of examples of people with quite mediocre grades yet stil managed to become brilliant researchers. Robert Woodward got quite terrible grades as an MIT undergrad, but was still admitted to the MIT PhD program in chemistry, and finished his PhD in 1 year, and then later went on to win the Nobel Prize. Heck, molliebatamit got "only" a 3.4/4 GPA at MIT as an undergrad, and yet still got admitted to every single PhD bio program she applied to. While obviously we don't know whether she will actually get the PhD, at least she got admitted despite her supposed 'sub-par' grades. </p>
<p>Hence, I would argue that the linkage between high school grades and undergraduate success is actually TIGHTER than the linkage between college grades and PhD success. PhD success is, in many ways, unrelated to how successful you are as a regular undergrad. Being a successful undergrad student means being able to regurgitate facts and demonstrate understanding of established knowledge. But being a successful PhD student means being able to go beyond what is known to establish entirely new knowledge. </p>
<p>But anyway, it begs the question, if PhD programs have so much better data to select on, then, pray tell Ben Golub, why are so many PhD students at all schools unable to complete their PhD? Is that the end of the story? Hardly - more like the beginning of an entirely new story. </p>
<p>
[quote]
This is the thing you've said that I'm most tempted to agree with. But this would dilute the value of a Caltech diploma. Plus, it would reduce the motivation to work hard.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I doubt that it would reduce motivation very much. After all, nobody who is intelligent enough to get into Caltech wants to get mediocre grades. The fear of mediocre grades tends to spur plenty of people to work hard at other schoos, especially if they want to be eligible for a good graduate school later. </p>
<p>Would it dilute the value of the Caltech degree? Perhaps, but again, I would, not by much. Again, let's face it. Most people in the world have never heard of Caltech. Note, that's not a knock on Caltech, because plenty of people in the world have never heard of schools like Stanford or MIT either. {I remember one girl who graduated from MIT and now works for Harley Davidson in Milwaukee, and most people she works with there seem to think that MIT stands for the Milwaukee Institute of Technology}. But the point is, Caltech is just not well known to most of the public. So to them, there is nothing to 'dilute', because they've never heard of it anyway. A lot of people are likely to equate Caltech to something like Devry or Heald College or ITT Tech. </p>
<p>So to these people, when you say that somebody flunked out of Caltech, they're just going to think that guy must be stupid. They don't know how hard Caltech is. They don't realize that this guy is still probably far far more qualified than the vast majority of college graduates out there who came from creampuff schools. All they will see is that the guy is a college flunkie. </p>
<p>Now, for that subset of organizations who know (i.e. graduate programs, the top technical employers), again, these organizations are generally smart enough to ask for other supporting evidence before deciding to hire you/ admit you, i.e. transcripts, professor rec's, etc. Somebody who gets that 2.0 and got the 'consolation' bachelor's degree is not going to present anything good on that front. So he won't get into those organizations.</p>
<p>But at least that guy will be able to get a regular job with a regular company; regular companies comprise the vast majority of companies out there. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Still, I find questionable your belief that just being admitted to a college should necessarily result in getting a diploma from it (at least with very high probability). Then the diploma awarded by the college is actually a high school diploma for those who accumulated good high school records. I think it is worthwhile to have one place where a college diploma is something beyond that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hey, I don't like it any more than you do. But like it or not, this IS the reality of the labor market. A college degree has become de rigueur. You need a college degree of some sort just to even get an interview at many companies. It doesn't matter what you majored in, it doesn't matter that you got your degree from a creampuff school. All that matters is that you HAVE a degree. Otherwise, those companies won't even talk to you. </p>
<p>Look. In a perfect world, we would be able to wash away all of those other creampuff colleges that hand out degrees to people who know nothing and do nothing. But we don't live in a perfect world. There are hundreds of colleges out there that will hand out degrees to incompetent fools. Hence, employers have now come to expect degrees. We therefore have to be pragmatic. When Caltech flunks out people while other colleges don't, it just means that the brunt of the damage falls upon those people that Caltech flunked out. It's not fair, but that's the situation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As for (6), you are wrong, at least most of the way. While you don't get a gold star for just graduating, recruiters from top national firms (Goldman Sachs, Bain, e.g. -- and those aren't even in science or engineering!) say that a 4.0 at Caltech is a signal unlike any other as far as quantitative ability. The opportunity to top out on the toughest scale in the US is quite an opportunity. Sure, grandma on the street doesn't know what Caltech is*, but you bet your bacon that the people who matter in sci/tech know it well.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And again, nobody is talking about violating the sanctity of the Caltech 4.0. I am simply talking about having people GRADUATE. Goldman Sachs will still be able to distinguish between the guy from Caltech with the 4.0 and the guy with the 2.0. But at least the guy with the 2.0 will GRADUATE, which will make him eligible for those regular jobs with regular employers. He doesn't even get that if he flunks out. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I think that there is a concern about needing a degree but I think the current possibility of flunking out without a degree from some college is exaggerated.</p>
<p>Consider -- the stats suggest that perhaps 3 dozen per year will leave without returning. But some 2/3 of those will be able to transfer to quite decent universities. That leaves about 10-15 who won't graduate from anywhere.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But this then gets to another part of the issue. For those people, why did they come to Caltech at al? They would have been better off had they just always been going to whatever school they ended up transferring to. Like I've always said - why should Caltech admit people who aren't going to graduate anyway? </p>
<p>
[quote]
However, it's pretty faulty. People leave school for any number of reasons, some personal, some institutional. To assume that all non-graduates left in academic difficulty is questionable.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
1) At most schools, no matter what the grade inflation, some students will drop out for health/emotional/family reasons.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No doubt. That's why I am not asking for a 100% graduate rate. It's all relative. Every school has some students drop out for emotional reasons. But there is still an important RELATIVE difference between Harvard's 98% graduation rate and Caltech's 90%. Or even MIT's 94% graduation rate and Caltech's 90%. I am not asking for Caltech or any other school to get 100%. But I think it is reasonable to ask if Caltech can get closer to MIT or Harvard. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Certainly in the 80s, the Bill Gates model (drop out and make big bucks) was one that was tempting to lots of Techers, especially when part time jobs in the Greater LA area were paying quite handsomely for their services. I don't support dropping out to do this but the numbers who a) don't graduate from Tech and b) can't get into ANY school at all due to low grades may be vanishingly small.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The problem of not being able to get into ANY school is just one part of the issue. The real issue is would they be able to get into the same schools they had gotten into when they were back in high school? For example, most people who got into Caltech as freshmen probably also got into at least one of HYPS. But if they choose Caltech and flunk out, they can't reactivate their choice to go to HYPS. That choice is irrevocably gone. That is another aspect of the 'risk' of going to Caltech - once you've made your choice, and you do poorly, your alternative may well be, as you say, ending up at a CalState. </p>
<p>Put another way, a guy gets into Caltech and one of HYPS. If he goes to Caltech and flunks out, I bet he's wishing that he could go back in time and choose HYPS this time. But he probably can't. None of those schools wants to admit a transfer student who flunked out of his previous school, even if that previous school was Caltech. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I personally think the problem of low grades harming Techers is worse than the drop out phenomenon (As I admitted it is a free rider problem which hurts Caltech students in the lower half of the class).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is an issue that we could discuss later. But it ties into things I have said on the Caltech board and that even Ben Golub has agreed with - that Caltech is not a particularly good place to go for preprofessional studies like premed or prelaw, because of the grade deflation. If you're good enough to get into Caltech, you're also good enough to get into a number of highly grade inflated schools, and that's exactly what you want if you are aiming for law school or med school. </p>
<p>
[quote]
BTW, even though we're discussing Caltech, I think this may also hold for MIT, CMU, Georgia Tech, etc. Because technical students in computers and engineering often have valuable skills, part time summer work can lead to lucrative employment that increases the temptation to drop out of school. Just as employment for econ Phd students who are ABD causes them not to finish their theses. This is why retention rate is a bad measure of quality. But we'll just have to disagree on this.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Look, nobody is saying that retention rate is a perfect measure of anything. Obviously it's an imperfect proxy. But it does convey information about how risky a particular school is. Like I said, and I think everybody would agree, somebody who flunks out of Caltech, or gets low grades there, would probably have done just fine if he had just gone to an easier school. I think nobody disputes that. </p>
<p>Hence, the real question is, what is the gain from choosing a difficult school like Caltech? This actually ties into the_prestige's point (5) and (6) above. I agree with Ben Golub that a 4.0 from Caltech signals great quantitative ability. But the fact is, like it or not, a lot of employers just don't really care about that. You can be more academically qualified than any of your competitors for a particular job, and STILL not get it, as the company can choose to reject you in order to make an offer to somebody who, frankly, isn't even worthy of holding your jacket from an academic standpoint and who you absolutely crushed from a GPA standpoint. Instead, employers will hire people based on personality and 'look'. The upshot is that, sadly, employers just don't really value academic achievement very much. </p>
<p>I've seen it time and time again. I know plenty of people who did extremely well academically, yet didn't get the job they wanted, with the job offers going to people who did much worse academically. In fact, one of the former people ruefully said that he should have spent less time studying and more time partying, because perhaps it was through all that partying that the latter guys learned the social skills necessary to get those jobs. Hard work and academic achievement was simply not rewarded. Sad but true.</p>
<p>More CEO's went to Wisconsin UG than Cal Tech and MIT. That party thing works. End of discussion, please.</p>
<p>barrons, i've seen you post that line around more than once, and while you could very well be right, it seems that at a minimum such a statement requires at least a little bit of qualifying - for example:</p>
<ul>
<li>the UW system in general? Madison or any UW school?</li>
<li>any CEO of any company at any time?</li>
<li>CEO's of any public company?</li>
<li>Fortune 500 CEOs? </li>
<li>just current CEOs?</li>
<li>or current and past CEOs?</li>
</ul>
<p>i mean a little bit of data backed up with this kind of statement would make it a little more credible...</p>
<p>until then, its more like the beginning of the discussion rather than the end of it.</p>
<p>More students at MIT and Caltech get Investment banking and top consulting jobs than UW. More of them get into better medical schools as well.</p>
<p>The_Prestige (and others), it is dangerous to rate universities according to extreme statistical outliers. By extreme statistical outliers, I mean Nobel Laureates, Rhodes and Marshall Scholars, CEOs, Billionaires etc...Even at Harvard, which far and away leads the way in thise statistics, far fewer than 1% of the alums qualify for those awards. I am far more interested in how the mid 80% of the alums pen out.</p>
<p>Totally with you Alex.</p>
<p>We agree!</p>
<p>Sakky said:
But the fact is, like it or not, a lot of employers just don't really care about that. You can be more academically qualified than any of your competitors for a particular job, and STILL not get it,</p>
<p>But that's the point Sakky. Why do you assume the brand name has to maximize appeal to the general employer? The brand name that Caltech (and to some degree MIT) want to sell is heavily skewed towards academia, high tech, and highly quantitative jobs. It's a tradeoff. You can't have the brand name sell as well to this group AND towards CEOS R US. Ditto for law and med school.</p>
<p>The nature of your argument is that quality should be about maximizing an average appeal to the average of law school, general business, etc.</p>
<p>But diluting the Caltech brand to help with the general public won't work. Indeed, just grade inflating won't suddenly make it more prestigious in the eyes of the general public. HYP will STILL be better known. It will improve retention rate at little gain except to those who do worst in the class.</p>
<p>I contend that what it will lose is far greater. Not only will it hurt the student at Tech -- Now they'll find it easier to go to law/med school, but the median student who wants to go to PhD school will not stand out as much. It will hurt those who value a tough curriculum.</p>
<p>Indeed your logic would argue that schools such as Swarthmore should grade inflate massively. They have less general prestige than HYP (less name recognition than many of the other privates such as Duke or Brown), less access to top researchers, and lesser funding. But they have a brand name and that name matters in some quarters. They also sell an experience and training that the students themselves value.</p>
<p>For the most part you keep arguing about the brand value to demanders that Caltech cares least about -- the general/popular professional community. But there is no easy way to get general rep up. It is easy to devalue specialized rep.</p>
<p>Caltech's best shot is to do what it does well while improving fundraising and perhaps spend more money on marketing. But the alums would be bitterly disappointed if it changed greatly. Just as MIT alums would be disappointed if MIT changed so that calculus were no longer a requirement and the average grad actually looked down on engineering and science.</p>
<p>Not quite old,</p>
<p>None of the above post addresses the fundamental question which still stands:</p>
<p>"Why / how does a lower grad rate (e.g. higher failure rate) benefit the prospective, current or future Caltech grad?"</p>
<p>Your post assumes (at least indirectly) the following:</p>
<p>1) That HYPSM (and its prospective, current or future grads) somehow "suffer" from having a higher grad rate. However, there is nothing to suggest that. In fact, it's something that they should individually (and rightfully so) boast about. Each of these schools can lay claim to not only selecting a high quality student body --> they can also lay claim to placing these students an educational system with the proper amount of guidance and resources which results in the maximum amount of its students graduating. Why is that a bad thing again? Why are they "suffering" as a result of this?</p>
<p>2) That Caltech systematically accepts a higher percentage (relative to its major competitors, HYPSM) of underachievers, slackers, stupid people. After all, you are advocating / defending / justifying (at least in part) the fact that this consistently higher relative percentage of Caltech students DESERVE to fail / drop out. In other words, one would think that Caltech (particularly given its smaller class size relative to other schools) would think long and hard about each and every spot they choose to give away - its not like Caltech has thousands of spots to give away every year, so its reasonable to think that they do a fair bit of due diligence. It follows then that one would think that each person who accepts that spot is intelligent, capable enough to graduate (at a minimum, there is no reason to believe that they are any LESS capable or intelligent than a prospective Harvard or MIT enrollee).</p>
<p>So it begs the question, "where is the disconnect here"? Something's got to give. Why do Caltech grads fail out at a higher rate than its major competitors? Does Caltech's admission office systematically do a crap job selecting its students every year? Does Caltech attract a higher percentage of slackers? OR... Could it be the current system?</p>
<p>The simple fact of the matter is, Caltech systematically FAILS (at a higher rate relative to its competitors) the very students that have chosen to attend its program and this is no mistake (i.e. it is consistent). </p>
<p>Now, again, if someone can come up with a compelling reason as to why / how this higher failure rate somehow benefits the prospective, current and/or future Caltech student/grad (at least above and beyond their peers at HYPSM), then I'm more open to giving the lower grad rate some credit.</p>
<p>No one has been able to do convince me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But that's the point Sakky. Why do you assume the brand name has to maximize appeal to the general employer? The brand name that Caltech (and to some degree MIT) want to sell is heavily skewed towards academia, high tech, and highly quantitative jobs. It's a tradeoff. You can't have the brand name sell as well to this group AND towards CEOS R US. Ditto for law and med school.</p>
<p>The nature of your argument is that quality should be about maximizing an average appeal to the average of law school, general business, etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, not at all. In fact, I have a convenient counterexample which I know quite well - MIT. I know quite a few people who got stellar grades at MIT, tried to get the top quantitative and technical jobs... and didn't get them. Instead, those job offers went to people from other schools that came from other schools that don't market themselves strongly to technical jobs. These jobs included working as software engineers at Google, working in back-office modeling for investment banks and hedge funds, and plenty of other highly technical work. For example, I know a guy from Harvard who has decent grades, but not stellar grades, who beat out a bunch of MIT guys with top grades to get a highly technical job at Google. </p>
<p>The same is true of graduate school. I know a guy from MIT who had a near-perfect GPA who got rejected from the PhD programs at Berkeley or Stanford. No wait-list, no nothing. Just straight-up rejected. On the other hand, there were plenty of other people at other schools who DID get into Berkeley and Stanford. </p>
<p>This actually gets to 3 points.</p>
<h1>1) Hiring, even for highly quantiative jobs, tends to be highly arbitrary and based on personality, look, and feel. Decent grades and a strongly focused brand-name may get you an interview. But once you're in ther interview room, it's all about selling yourself, which means having the right personality. You can have the greatest, most highly targeted academic background in the world, and still not get a job offer, even a for a highly technical job, because you couldn't sell yourself.</h1>
<h1>2) PhD admissions is only mildly contingent upon grades and marketing (as long as your grades aren't terrible). Far and away the most important attribute to determining whether you will be admitted to a PhD program is your research background. Merely having high grades or coming from a highly focused school is not, by itself, evidence of research potential. And I am quite certain that there are plenty of Caltech graduates who didn't get into the graduate school that they wanted, because they got beat out by somebody who came from a non-focused school.</h1>
<h1>3) Technical branding doesn't have anything to do necessarily with grades anyway. You can have a highly focused brand that nevertheless grades relatively easily. Take Stanford. Stanford is extremely well known for engineering, especially EE and CS, in fact, arguably more well known than Caltech is. On the other hand, the grading in Stanford engineering is relatively relaxed (at least, relative to other top engineering programs). Hence, Stanford has apparently managed to find a way to have their cake and eat it too - to offer a powerful technical brand name that also grades relatively easily. Stanford engineers seem to do quite well in getting technical jobs and getting into top Phd programs despite the relaxed grading. If Stanford can do that, couldn't Caltech do the same?</h1>
<p>
[quote]
Caltech's best shot is to do what it does well while improving fundraising and perhaps spend more money on marketing. But the alums would be bitterly disappointed if it changed greatly. Just as MIT alums would be disappointed if MIT changed so that calculus were no longer a requirement and the average grad actually looked down on engineering and science.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, let me put it to you this way. As Ben Golub has said, Caltech has already changed significantly from the past. Caltech is far easier to graduate from than it was in the 1960's. Yet I don't hear any significant grumbling from the alumni. Similarly, MIT has changed greatly from the old days, especally in the last 5-10 years. Has there been grumbling? I'm sure there has been, but it hasn't been significant. Frankly, I'm convinced that both Caltech and MIT are better schools than they were in the past, precisely because of the changes. Yet I believe they could both improve still further. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Indeed your logic would argue that schools such as Swarthmore should grade inflate massively. They have less general prestige than HYP (less name recognition than many of the other privates such as Duke or Brown), less access to top researchers, and lesser funding. But they have a brand name and that name matters in some quarters. They also sell an experience and training that the students themselves value.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, frankly, yeah. Swarthmore should start to inflate. But that's an argument for another time. </p>
<p>
[quote]
But diluting the Caltech brand to help with the general public won't work. Indeed, just grade inflating won't suddenly make it more prestigious in the eyes of the general public. HYP will STILL be better known. It will improve retention rate at little gain except to those who do worst in the class.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nobody's talking about it 'suddenly' becoming more prestigious. Obviously these things take time. However, by being less harsh, what would happen is that you would attract students who are otherwise scared by the current harshness and hence, choose to go to other schools. </p>
<p>Let's face it. There are plenty of brilliant people out there that are also risk-averse about their career. Harvard and Stanford have plenty of brilliant technical students who also worry about career safety. Right now, they choose against Caltech because they view it as too risky. By reducing the odds that you will flunk out, you will attract more of these students. These students will then most likely go on to achieve great things (as they are doing now at Harvard and Stanford), thereby raising Caltech's profile in the long term.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. I know an absolutely brilliant student at Harvard who may win the Rhodes Scholarship next year (he's a junior right now). He got into Caltech as a high school senior. So why Harvard? He candidly admitted that he thought the risk at Caltech was just too high, and he didn't want to take chances with his career. However, if Caltech had been a less risky school, he might have gone there, and next year he might be bringing back a Rhodes Scholarship for Caltech. These are the kinds of people you might gain by being less risky.</p>
<p>Now, I agree with you an Ben Golub that there is also a potential for loss in that you may start to lose that highly focused branding that Caltech currently has. But I don't think the risk is very high. Like I said, Caltech is a far safer school than it was 40 years ago, yet Caltech seems to have lost very little of its brand positioning because of that.</p>
<p>To end, I return to something I said before. Take a look at the Caltech graduate programs. Let's face it. The image of a school is fostered mostly by its graduate programs. I am not aware of any evidence that the Caltech biology PhD programs is any tougher than the biology PhD programs at any of the other top schools (because they are ALL tough). I don't think Caltech makes a habit of flunking out an unusually high percentage of its graduate students. So why should undergrad be any different?</p>
<p>Current CEO's of S&P 500--UW Madison undergrads. It has been WIDELY published in scores of business and popular magazines, etc. But for the remaining uninformed</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bus.wisc.edu/news/0145.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.bus.wisc.edu/news/0145.asp</a></p>
<p>And in case you totally lack the sarcasm gene, the main reason for my post was to end the silly debate over cal tech vs MIT. They are the two finest science schools in the US and that's enough.</p>
<p>And just for Mike. No UW is not heavily recruited by NY Ibanks although this is changing. But when it come to the more open field of money management they do fine. With two fine med schools in the state with lower tuition there is little reason to leave for med school. UW is in the Top 5 for training patient care doctors and in the top 30 for research schools. The ranking is held back some because they take few OOS students.</p>
<p>According to Morningstar data, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's graduate program ranked #6 in placement of investment professionals at Morningstar-rated funds. This is evidence of the school's long and rich tradition of training investment managers.</p>
<p>Graduate Degrees of Investment Professionals at Morningstar-Rated Funds
Rank Count Graduate Studies Index
1 1 University of Pennsylvania - Wharton School 100
2 2 Harvard Business School 46
3 3 New York University - Stern School of Business 45
4 4 University of Chicago Graduate School of Business 40
5 5 Columbia Business School 35
6 6 University of Wisconsin - Madison 31
7 7 University of California at Los Angeles - Anderson School of Business 20
7 8 Stanford Graduate School of Business 20
9 9 Northwestern University - Kellogg Graduate School of Business 18
10 10 University of Virginia - Darden School of Management 17
11 11 University of Southern California 15
12 12 University of Michigan School of Business 12
12 13 Cornell University - Johnson Graduate School of Management 12
12 14 Indiana University 12
15 15 Dartmouth College - Amos Tuck School of Business 11
15 16 MIT Sloan School of Management 11
15 17 Oxford University 11
18 18 University of California at Berkeley Haas School of Business 9
18 19 Carnegie Mellon University 9
18 20 Duke University - Fuqua School 9
18 21 Cambridge University 9
18 22 University of Texas at Austin 9
23 23 University of Minnesota 8
24 24 University of Connecticut 7
24 25 Case Western Reserve University 7
Example: For every 100 investment managers that earned their graduate degrees from Wharton, 31 earned their degrees from UW-Madison.</p>
<p>The more I learn about UW, the more impressed I am. Wharton and Harvard are both large programs with class sizes of 1000+. Do you have these numbers based on school size so that we can evaluate the productivity of all of these schools?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Current CEO's of S&P 500--UW Madison undergrads. It has been WIDELY published in scores of business and popular magazines, etc. But for the remaining uninformed</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bus.wisc.edu/news/0145.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.bus.wisc.edu/news/0145.asp</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, not that I'm trying to knock the achievements of becoming a S&P 500 CEO, but the fact is, those guys don't make as much money as the Wall Street titans. I believe that the average S&P 500 CEO makes somewhere around $1-2 million. The ones at the top firms obviously make more, but let's keep in mind that some of the firms on the S&P 500 really aren't that big and therefore don't pay their CEO's a huge amount of money. So $1-2 million is probably roughly the average. And of course, by definition, there can be only 500 such CEO's. Hey, don't get me wrong. That's a lot of money to me. But I am quite certain there are far far more than 500 guys in banking who more than $1-2 million a year, on average. Heck, just being a managing director at an investment bank means that you are probably making that, on average. And that doesn't even count all the department heads and partners of the Ibanks or those masters of the universe at VC firms, private equity firms, hedge funds, and so forth. </p>
<p>
[quote]
According to Morningstar data, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's graduate program ranked #6 in placement of investment professionals at Morningstar-rated funds. This is evidence of the school's long and rich tradition of training investment managers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I'm not sure how meaningful that is either. What's so great about working for a Morningstar-rated fund? Morningstar rates LOTS of funds. And plenty of them are rated badly by Morningstar. Morningstar is just an investment rating service for public securities, nothing more, nothing less. Just because Morningstar is rating you doesn't meant that they are rating you * well *. </p>
<p>And like I said, the best 'money management' jobs are not rated by Morningstar anyway, simply because they don't sell public securities. Right now, private equity is the hot trend, paying up to $450k for new MBA's, plus equity. Private equity firms rarely sell securities to the public, and hence rarely require a public rating. They sell to limited partners and other targeted clientele. </p>
<p>
[quote]
and Harvard are both large programs with class sizes of 1000+.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, not quite. HBS's class size is about 900. </p>
<p>The UW alum and former Exxon head Lee Raymond recently walked away with a multi-hundred million $$$ retirement package. </p>
<p>Some other recent retired CEO's like Morgridge of Cisco and Bartz of Autodesk have packages in the hundreds of millions. Morgridge is worth well over one Billion and has given over $100 million to UW.
The average UW MBA class is around 125.</p>
<p>sakky -- your anecdotal evidence about top students from hard schools not getting their choice jobs proves nothing. Of course some brilliant people will be rejected from their top choice jobs (just like quite a few brilliant high school students will be rejected from top colleges). Does this show intelligence is uncorrelated with admission to top colleges? No.</p>
<p>The Caltech 4.0 is probably the most powerful single signal there is about quantitative ability. As for the rest, of course looks matter and social skills matter. But that doesn't change the fact that the 4.0 can also help an immense amount. And for getting into top grad schools in math, physics, econ, chem, etc., it's almost like magic. Other things being equal, that signal packs a very big punch, and weakening Caltech would weaken that. That's true even though you know a guy from Harvard with a GPA of 2.7182818 who became Emperor of Pluto.</p>
<p>But you (sakky, the_prestige) are all so depressingly unspiritual about these things. There is a certain ineffable magic about being at a place that hasn't given into the pathetic weaknesses of the typical "elite" college. It is wonderful to be at a place that doesn't give easy A's to slackers, and which certifies that every person who graduates really did understand some serious physics and some advanced mathematics. </p>
<p>Beyond paychecks and percentages, there is also the pride of being at a place that hasn't made the sad surrender to low standards, and still has the courage to expect excellence. Even though you can't readily price that pride, it's important and valuable to me and to thousands of other students and alumni.</p>
<p>And we're not going to listen to you when you say we should give it up for the small, sad wages of mediocrity.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The UW alum and former Exxon head Lee Raymond recently walked away with a multi-hundred million $$$ retirement package. </p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, but that's a * retirement package * which will ultimately be earned over years of time. That's no different from the 'retirement packages' provided to the top bankers - i.e. those who make partner at Goldman Sachs or other top firms. Retirement packages are retirement packages. I'm just talking about salary. And the fact is, the top bankers make more, on average, than the top CEO's. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Some other recent retired CEO's like Morgridge of Cisco and Bartz of Autodesk have packages in the hundreds of millions. Morgridge is worth well over one Billion and has given over $100 million to UW.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Since you invoke Morgridge, let's talk about him. Morgridge was CEO of Cisco back when Cisco was STILL A STARTUP, and as soon as Cisco reached medium size, Morgridge left. Morgridge has been a venture capitalist ever since. And THAT is where he made his real money - both from owning stock in Cisco as it grew from a startup to mid-size (and then to an established company), and then later as a venture capitalist.</p>
<p>Hence, your example of Morgridge doesn't weaken my argument. If anything, it actually strengthens it. It further reinforces the notion that S&P 500 CEO's don't make as much money as the top financiers (like venture capitalists), or, (which I didn't talk about) early stage entrepreneurs. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. Who has more money - John Morgridge, former CEO of Cisco, or John Chambers, current CEO of Cisco? I rest my case. </p>
<p>Or let me make the example even more striking. Venture capitalist/LBO operative T. Boone Pickens is estimated to have made $1.5 billion in 2005. That's BILLION with a capital 'B'. Hedge fund operative Steven Cohen is estimated to have made $1 billion in 2005. Other than those particular S&P 500 CEO's who also happen to be entrepreneurs, how many S&P CEO's can claim to have made that kind of money in one year? Not as a 'retirement package', but as part of earnings in one year? That's pretty hard to match, you must agree.</p>
<p>Look, nobody is claiming that being a S&P 500 CEO isn't an accomplishment. But like it or not, there is more money to be made in the world of finance. That's why many public-company CEO's are actually looking to join private equity firms, as has been profiled in numerous business publications such as Business Week and the WSJ, because they realize they can make far more money there. For example, it has been reported that Mickey Drexler, former CEO of the Gap, makes far more money now working for Texas Pacific Group (Picken's private equity firm) than he ever did working as a CEO of a public company. </p>
<p>
[quote]
sakky -- your anecdotal evidence about top students from hard schools not getting their choice jobs proves nothing. Of course some brilliant people will be rejected from their top choice jobs (just like quite a few brilliant high school students will be rejected from top colleges). Does this show intelligence is uncorrelated with admission to top colleges? No.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>When I was attempting to show that?</p>
<p>I am simply attempting to show that the correlation of high school grades to success in undergrad is not that different from the correlation of undergrad grades to success in PhD programs. Remember, you were the one who asserted that college grades are a strong predictor of PhD success. I didn't assert that. I am merely demonstrating to you the opposite - that plenty of people from top schools with top grades nevertheless do not get into the PhD program that they want, and even if they do, they may not successfully complete the PhD. The PhD is about research ability, which is only mildly correlated with grades. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The Caltech 4.0 is probably the most powerful single signal there is about quantitative ability. As for the rest, of course looks matter and social skills matter. But that doesn't change the fact that the 4.0 can also help an immense amount. And for getting into top grad schools in math, physics, econ, chem, etc., it's almost like magic. Other things being equal, that signal packs a very big punch, and weakening Caltech would weaken that. That's true even though you know a guy from Harvard with a GPA of 2.7182818 who became Emperor of Pluto.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>See, there it is again. We fundamentally disagree on whether it 'helps an immense amount'. Let's for the moment presume that MIT is the 2nd-strongest signalling school you can have (and Caltech is the strongest). I know PLENTY of people from MIT with very strong grades who nonetheless did not get into the PhD program that they wanted, and yes, I am talking mostly about PhD programs in technical subjects. Instead, they got beat out by people from less rigorous schools, and with far lower grades, but who actually demonstrated strong research experience, i.e. publications in major journals and so forth. Research ability is FAR FAR FAR more important in getting into a top PhD program than are grades.</p>
<p>Like I said, but you seem not to acknowledge, Molliebatamit is living proof of that. She freely admits she didn't get top-notch grades at MIT. But she nevertheless got into every single PhD program she applied to. What put her over the top? Killer research experience. In fact, I am quite sure that there were other people with better grades than her from both MIT and Caltech who didn't get into the programs she got into. </p>
<p>And even if you do manage to get into a PhD program, again, that doesn't mean that you will actually complete it. Like I said, plenty of people are unable to finish. And that includes plenty of people with top-notch quant skills. Very few people are unable to finish PhD programs because of subpar quant skills. By far the most common reason that they can't finish is because they can't produce acceptable research. </p>
<p>I would invoke MIT again. I know several PhD students in technical subjects such as physics and engineering at MIT who, by their own admission, probably won't be able to complete. Nobody doubts the quantitative abilities of these guys, and indeed, they were superstars back in undergrad. They're just running into very serious problems in their research - something that their undisputed quant skills can't help with. I am quite sure that the same is true at Caltech - that there are plenty of highly quantitatively skilled Caltech graduate students who are unable to complete their PhD. </p>
<p>But the point is this. If you want to talk about signals to get into graduate school, then the signal that truly helps an 'immense amount' is a signal that has to do with your research ability, NOT your grades. Grades are, at best, a secondary attribute. What you REALLY want are things like authorship, conference presentations, strong professor recommendations, and the like. </p>
<p>
[quote]
But you (sakky, the_prestige) are all so depressingly unspiritual about these things. There is a certain ineffable magic about being at a place that hasn't given into the pathetic weaknesses of the typical "elite" college. It is wonderful to be at a place that doesn't give easy A's to slackers, and which certifies that every person who graduates really did understand some serious physics and some advanced mathematics.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Once again, I would invoke history. You admitted yourself that Caltech is easier now than they were in the 1960's. So I guess, according to your logic, those Caltech graduates of the 60's REALLY knew some serious physics and advanced mathematics. So was Caltech wrong in making things easier? If so, maybe you should tell them how wrong they were. </p>
<p>However, my point is that if Caltech could make things easier in the last 40 years and, from what I can tell, nothing bad seemed to happen, then why couldn't Caltech continue on this path? </p>
<p>
[quote]
Beyond paychecks and percentages, there is also the pride of being at a place that hasn't made the sad surrender to low standards, and still has the courage to expect excellence. Even though you can't readily price that pride, it's important and valuable to me and to thousands of other students and alumni.</p>
<p>And we're not going to listen to you when you say we should give it up for the small, sad wages of mediocrity
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, see above. Maybe there are some old-timer Caltech alumni from the 1960's who consider the Caltech of today to be a school for wusses, because they went to (in their eyes), the REAL Caltech. Nevertheless, Caltech made the change to become easier, and did so successfully in my eyes. So if that was a success, why can't you have more change?</p>
<p>And again, I think it should be said that your discussion of how 'wonderful' the Caltech rigor is and how much pride it instills - again, that needs to be qualified. It's wonderful for those particular students * who do well *. Clearly it is not wonderful at all, and probably instills little pride upon those students who do poorly, and especially not to those who flunk out. I am quite sure they don't think the rigor is wonderful. I am quite sure they are not proud about doing poorly.</p>
<p>Sakky, you don't really even need a Billion to live a good life. Yes the VC people make lots of money today. What does that really mean? If form holds there will be a big bust and some of those people being glorified today will be doing a perp walk on TV in a few years.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sakky, you don't really even need a Billion to live a good life. Yes the VC people make lots of money today. What does that really mean?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hey, I wasn't the one who brought up the issue of CEO's and money. I am simply saying that if money is what floats your boat, then you should go to the job that REALLY makes you money. </p>
<p>Look, nobody is saying that Wisconsin is not a fine school. But the fact is, if you want to get into the rarefied world of finance, where you can REALLY make a lot of money, there are better places to go than Wisconsin. Like I said, even a managing director (not even a partner, just an MD) at an investment bank makes more than the average S&P 500 CEO. And that's just in investment banking - that's not even talking about the world of VCPE, hedge funds, and so forth. </p>
<p>
[quote]
If form holds there will be a big bust and some of those people being glorified today will be doing a perp walk on TV in a few years.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Like the perp walks that many CEO's have done lately? </p>
<p>I'm sure there are criminals in the finance world. Just like there are criminals that are CEO's. I don't see any reason to believe that there are MORE criminals in the former category than the latter.</p>