<p>[Dig</a> This: South Dakota Mining Grads Crush Harvard On Pay - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/09/19/yo-harvard-dig-this-south-dakota-mining-grads-are-crushing-you-on-pay/]Dig”>Dig This: South Dakota Mining Grads Crush Harvard On Pay) </p>
<p>I will say, I think your major matters too.</p>
<p>On the ultra rich kids, like the Trumps, it would not matter if they even went to college. They would still end up working for their dad or whatever, in the family business and such.</p>
<p>i wouldn’t worry about it too much</p>
<p>How would we know what school any rich offspring did not get into, unless they are posting it here on CC 
Haven’t seen that in any newspaper articles.</p>
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<p>You could have mentioned that it wasn’t UT Austin, Texas A&M, or any of the other usual “more desirable” state schools.</p>
<p>Re: [Dig</a> This: South Dakota Mining Grads Crush Harvard On Pay - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/09/19/yo-harvard-dig-this-south-dakota-mining-grads-are-crushing-you-on-pay/]Dig”>Dig This: South Dakota Mining Grads Crush Harvard On Pay)</p>
<p>No surprise, considering what majors are offered at SD Mines. But that is why comparisons of graduates’ pay based on entire schools give little information, since the mix of majors varies considerably between schools.</p>
<p>You’ll need to refine the parameters, OP, to make the study useful beyond gut feel.</p>
<p>You’re right, jym–we wouldn’t know. But there does seem to be a strong tendency for such people to turn up at a small handful of schools. You don’t hear about them attending “lesser” institutions either, do we?</p>
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<p>Not to speak for UCB, but I think you miss the point. How we judge schools for undergrad is not how schools are judged for grad (as it depends on field). Without knowing how those ‘grad schools’ are ranked in the fields the kids went into, you have no data to provide to answer the question (in this case state and Ivy is meaningless). As but just one example, I can readily think of an ‘unranked’ state school (with 90% acceptance rate in undergrad), that is far more recognized in my field, harder to get into, and would result in a far better academic career than several Ivys in my field.</p>
<p>My S graduated in 2011 from a top 40 LAC. He found a job in his field and is making decent money. How did he get that job? Through a referral from his younger sister’s boyfriend, who attends a lower-ranked college. It was S’s transcript from his LAC and his interview that got him hired, but he wouldn’t have heard about the job opening in the first place if it weren’t for his connection to D’s boyfriend (whose neighbor was looking to hire someone, and S fit the bill).</p>
<p>D, who is at a lower ranked university, is currently a junior and plans to attend grad school in a completely different field from her brother, so I can’t compare them. But educationally she has gotten more attention from professors at her less-expensive, higher student:faculty ratio university than her brother got at his more expensive, low student:faculty ratio LAC. She has better “connections” with her professors and will have a couple of options when it comes time to ask for LORs for grad school. Meanwhile S was scratching his head to figure out which - if any - of his professors to ask to be a reference for him when he was job hunting. Perhaps that has more to do with my kids’ personalities - D is more outgoing and frequently asks professors for help, whereas S is quieter and (quite frankly) rarely needs to ask for help. But it goes against expectations - shouldn’t the A student at the 10:1 LAC have had more access and connection to professors than the B student at the 13:1 university?</p>
<p>I think it proves the point - where you go to college can be helpful, but what YOU DO when you are at college is MORE important.</p>
<p>As I counsel applicants to the most selective university I represent, the ultimate outcome of one’s college experience will have much more to do with the individual than the school. A good fit where a student will thrive is of utmost importance. Would you wed a woman merely because she is of historically distinctive lineage and wealthy when you do not enjoy her company, she is often arrogant, more concerned with her rank among peers than you, and she is frigid the eight months of the year when you must live with her? The school merely provides resources and a certain academic milieu. Factors such as weather, social life, physical location, camaraderie, and socioeconomics will likely have a greater impact on one’s experience than academic differences between schools at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>The fundamental problem with the “Ivy” vs. “State School” argument is that most folks want to draw a black and white distinction between the two; that a certain type goes to one, and another type goes to the other; that college rankings and the benefits of a college degree, Ivy or otherwise, are quantifiable things; that kids who go to one NEVER could have gone to the other, despite the fact that most Ivy students were just one blink away from being rejected in favor of that future state school student with the exact same stats. </p>
<p>I find that these distinctions are so unfair to so many hard working kids on both ends of the spectrum. </p>
<p>If you (parents or kids taking out loans) are to spend $200,000 on an Ivy League degree, you better understand that that’s an investment in someone. If the kid doesn’t want to work hard to protect his or her investment, then of course it will be a waste of money. Of course determination, old fashioned hard work, and a bit of luck will lead to success-- ANYWHERE–whether it’s Harvard, UMass, Swarthmore, St. Johns, or SD School of Mines. Of course a BioChem major from Virginia Tech will secure a job more easily than a Theater major from Yale. That doesn’t mean one is superior to the other. It’s just a different investment.</p>
<p>We need to not put our kids into these categories, because all they do is limit their potential. Don’t encourage an Art prodigy to major in Chemical Engineering so that she can get hired after graduation. That’s dumb. But also don’t take out $200,000 in loans to pay for an education that almost definitely won’t lead to a high paying career. That’s also dumb! Make sure you and your kids’ know what you’re getting into.</p>
<p>Because–and this is the truth–there is not a right or wrong way to educate your kid. But there are always risks–that’s life–and there are always ways to ensure the risk doesn’t gobble up the reward.</p>
<p>I go to Brown University; most of the students here worked very hard to get here, sure, but it really doesn’t make them any better than anyone who worked less hard to get into a more prestigious school, or more hard to get into a less prestigious school, or more hard to get into a more prestigious school. These are all, ultimately, arbitrary distinctions that serve to freak out kids, and empower racketeers like US News to dominate High School students’ psyches. Your kid ain’t a number folks. There is no sum, no numerical value to which hard work amounts. Like people who deal in optimism, goodness, happiness, good humor, etc., hard workers are rewarded by intangible riches.</p>
<p>So don’t worry about where you end up. Don’t worry about not getting into Princeton, or Yale, or Rutgers, or JMU, or what have you. It’s just not worth the psychological damage. But if you work hard, and think positively, and be good to people, you’ll do great in life. I promise you. </p>
<p>It doesn’t come easy, but even if it did… well… where’s the fun in that?</p>
<p>agree with BrownJM. Hard work, dedication, and sometimes a bit of luck will help you anywhere. Now, I think that the most important thing to choosing a college isn’t which is more elite or has better ‘job prospects’ but rather where will the student be happiest, challenged, and have opportunities.</p>
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<p>Did you miss the question Sally_Rubenstone posed in her original post?</p>
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<p>She is asking for anecdotes of a particular kind. She says she is doing a personal “study,” with the word “study” in quotation marks. In other words, I think it’s safe to assume she gets that the proceedings of this thread will not be publishable as a juried study.</p>
<p>I think there are more offspring of “amazingly wealthy” people than get talked about in the media. We may just hear about the ones with name recognition. Perhaps more end up in the top schools as development admits. Remember the story about the Walmart heiress who had to give back her USC diploma after admitting that many of her papers were written by a roommate? Oh, and they took her name off a sports arena at U Missouri. Why was she donating to/naming a building at a “second Tier” college"?
[USATODAY.com</a> - College removes name of Wal-Mart heiress on arena](<a href=“http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2004-11-24-walmart-heiress-arena_x.htm]USATODAY.com”>USATODAY.com - College removes name of Wal-Mart heiress on arena)</p>
<p>Sally305 - My daughter, from an “amazingly wealthy” family, was admitted to Yale but waitlisted at a prestigious but non-Ivy school, where she was eventually admitted and accepted over Yale. No one knows her wealth (except an old boyfriend who googled her for fun one day and followed the trail) and she is quite happy as there are some students from famous families there and everyone thinks they are more wealthy. You’d be surprised how many of us there are and live our lives anonymously.</p>
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<p>Because to her it wasn’t second tier. Which is the whole point. The whole discussion of eliteness presumes that there is a rank order that appeals to everyone. And that simply isn’t the case. There are plenty of well-to-do- families in Mississippi who would much rather send their kids to Ole Miss than to Harvard. Ditto for Texas, and so on and so forth. I’m a big fan of elite schools, but I can’t help but recognize that the vast majority of the population just doesn’t think about them or doesn’t consider the same schools elite. And they are plenty happy to donate buildings to Mizzou and be proud of that fact and not feel in the least bit bad that they weren’t donating buildings to Harvard et al.</p>
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<p>There are “amazingly wealthy families” who are historically tied into / want their kids to go to elite schools (and in that pack, small LACs are often perceived as more elite than HYP) and there are “amazingly wealthy families” who know that their kids are just going to go into the family business anyway so if they want to go to Party On State U and have a fun four years, more power to 'em, because it’s not as though a fancy degree will make one bit of difference - those kids will do just fine.</p>
<p>Heard this somewhere:</p>
<p>“The A kids work for B kids in companies owned by C kids”</p>
<p>^Unless you’re Jeff Bezos.</p>