<p>I didn’t attend an Ivy, but I did attend the state flagship (aka a “public ivy”) while my DH attended a state school which would likely elicit a blank stare or even derision from many CC’ers. He and many of his friends with whom he attended this university make significantly more money than I (my DH’s income is typically 10-20 times higher than mine, sometimes more). In fact, most of his friends (he was in a fraternity and remains close to many of his frat brothers) are spectacularly successful-in both business and in their personal lives. While I’m sure an Ivy education provides a great education and many fringe benefits already noted, what many people don’t recognize is that there are many MANY people in this country with very high salaries and a lifetime of personal satisfaction who did NOT attend any kind of prestigious university. Intelligence, a very strong work ethic, personal integrity, enthusiasm for one’s career, etc., can go a long way towards making someone “successful.”</p>
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He works for me. I bought my kid a video game from him last week. The customer is always boss.</p>
<p>Of course, I probably have a couple shares of his company in a mutual fund somewhere, so I guess technically I’m also my own customer. :)</p>
<p>Older daughter graduated in 2008 from top ranked Liberal Arts degree while the younger one will graduate next spring from the University of Illinois but already has a job lined up that will pay her about the same salary that her older sister is making with four years of strong work experience. In my observation, the well-regarded state schools more often than not have much better career development than the heady liberal arts schools. This is not a judgment but top rather a statement of fact. </p>
<p>In addition, way back when, I graduated from my state’s flagship university and over the decades hae observed that my friends who attended that school have had highly successful careers ( including 3 CEOs of large corporations) while my Ivy Leauge friends started strong back in the 1980s after graduation, but then hit a salary and job-satisfaction plateau that they have never recovered from.</p>
<p>The bottom line: the obsession by some on this site with “elite” schools is not borne out in reality— at least my reality. And, of course, as others have already stated more elegantly than I, a student’s motivation is most likely the number one determinant of their future success.</p>
<p>The good state schools may be attractive to recruiters because of their large size. A recruiter may find it more worthwhile to visit a school with 5,000 soon-to-graduate students than a school with 500 soon-to-graduate students (especially if the recruiter is looking mainly for students in specific majors).</p>
<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). "</p>
<p>I think you are missing the point. I know how the ranking works. I am telling you within our state, for every dept, this particular state school will be picked 4th or 5th (one state, not even nation). </p>
<p>I am pointing out that in the end it matters how good the kid is and how good the college might be. It is also known as cream rises to the top?</p>
<p>My sister graduated from a more elite private school with a bachelor’s and law degree and then dropped out of the work force for 20 plus years to raise three children. She rejoined the work force at mid-life at her alma mater. My brother, who always had learning differences, graduated from the state school both undergrad and law school. I graduated from an expensive private school (but with a major that’s not lucrative). My brother who had the learning differences is now the millionaire because he has worked hard as a lawyer plus he is always looking for good investments and has been successful with many of them–this all came from the kid who always needed a tutor and went to the public state school. I try to explain this to my senior daughter but she doesn’t get it! She thinks it’s so unfair that she can’t go wherever she wants.</p>
<p>In my family, one went to Ivies for undergrad and grad school, one went to strong second tier school for undergrad and strong second tier for law school. A third went to a strong second tier undergrad and a flagship state school with a strong department for PhD. The fourth went to third tier for music. </p>
<p>The double Ivy earns more than the other three combined. The double Ivy’s friends mostly do very well (retired ex-CEO on his winery, senior exec at major charity, head of department at a medical school, private equity, president of a university, …).</p>
<p>Gender (females chose less remunerative paths when they had kids and likely even before) and the choice of field also affected income. Plus, money is not success. Those with kids love and enjoy their kids. Some are active members of religious communities and value that. </p>
<p>But, based solely upon income, anyone can do well with some probability. Someone who attends an elite school and chooses to play the game probably has a higher expected income than someone from a flagship school. Not all choose to play the game. And, there are a lot more people from flagship schools so anecdotes – including family experiences – probably aren’t that valuable.</p>
<p>BrownJM, I loved your post #47. So true. You seem mature beyond your years.</p>
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Actually, it appears that the Mizzou arena was initially named after Paige Laurie because she and her mother, Nancy Walton Laurie, are from Columbia. So its just a hometown thing. Doesn’t appear to be at all related to whether they consider the school a tier one, two, three or what have you. [The</a> Columbia Heart Beat: REMEMBER PAIGE LAURIE? New controversy follows Walmart heiress to Malibu](<a href=“http://columbiaheartbeat.blogspot.com/2011/06/remember-paige-laurie-new-controversy.html]The”>The Columbia Heart Beat: REMEMBER PAIGE LAURIE? New controversy follows Walmart heiress to Malibu) Oh, and as a side note, Her mom, Nancy, attended the U of Memphis. Nancy’s sister, Ann Walton Kroenke, attended Lincoln University in Missouri. These ladies fall in the “very wealthy” category-- worth billions.</p>
<p>Oh, and I was perusing a Forbes article on billionaires (happened to be in the 300’s of the top 500 billionaires), and noticed that :
Ty Warner ($2.9 bil – beanie babies) attended Kalamazoo College
Stanley Druckenmiller ($2.8 bil - hege funds) attended Bowdoin
John Sobrato ($2.9 bil real estate) attended Santa Clara U.
Richard Schulze ($2.9 bil - Best Buy) has only a HS diploma</p>
<p>the list goes on and on [#342</a> Richard Schulze - Forbes.com](<a href=“Forbes List Directory”>Forbes List Directory)</p>
<p>Here’s the 2012 list <a href=“http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mel45fdih/bidzina-ivanishvili/[/url]”>http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mel45fdih/bidzina-ivanishvili/</a> <a href=“http://www.forbes.com/profile/philip-anschutz/[/url]”>http://www.forbes.com/profile/philip-anschutz/</a></p>
<p>Nothing in life comes with guarantees; all you can do is work hard and make choices that will improve your odds of success. Attending an Ivy/top tier school you can afford is one of those choices that reduces the risk of your investment.</p>
<p>An Ivy/top tier diploma means no job is automatically outside your reach, given that I’ve seen quite a few internship and entry level job ads lately that specify “top school.” Secondly, having a top school on your resume is like a seal of excellence which will help you make it past the first cut of applicants. I ran into a friend who’s in HR at a NYC company. She told me they receive 80,000 applicants for every position. Frankly, you’ll need a whole lot more than even an Ivy degree with those odds. All the same, a degree from Podunk U isn’t going to have a prayer.</p>
<p>In sum, attending an elite college or well-regarded university won’t ensure you’ll land a better job, earn more money, attain greater satisfaction in your career, or meet a wealthier spouse (for those that care). But, it can increase your chances of doing so. I should note, as has been stated often on threads like these, that there are regional factors at play, the definition of top school varies by major, and sometimes attending a big football school like Penn State or Notre Dame with strong alumni connections will take you just as far.</p>
<p>Back in the 80s, I was hired as a trainee with a kid who had just graduated from Yale. I had just graduated from CUNY - Brooklyn College (as far from Ivy League as you can get). When I was more successful then him (had gotten a promotion sooner), he kept saying “but I graduated from Yale”. Always cracked me up - once you hit the workforce you start from scratch and get judged on what you do on the job!</p>
<p>I fully agree with TheGFG.</p>
<p>Lots of people on this thread seem to be invested in discovering that going to an elite school is no guarantee of success and point to lots of anecdoctal evidence – which is easy since most CEOs of Fortune 500 firms do not come from Ivies. And, a significant part of the Forbes 400 list does not.</p>
<p>However, if income is your measure of success (or highly correlated with that, high-ranking jobs), if you take the top 15 schools (add Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Amherst, Williams, … to the Ivies), I’m sure that on average, top 15 alumni have greater wealth and income than the graduates of the next 15 schools or next 100 schools or next 300 schools. </p>
<p>But, the total class size of the top 15 schools is small relative to the total class size of the next 100 or 300 schools. So, we should not be surprised if lots of people from the next 100 end up in high positions or make lots of money. The questions are: a) are the top 15 overrepresented in high positions or high income jobs; and b) would they have been over-represented based upon talent anyway?</p>
<p>Like TheGFG, I suspect that top school degrees open doors – but unless you choose to do the work and not rely on a sense of entitlement like the person kiddie described – and open door doesn’t help. But, assuming you have the talent, an elite school degree increases the probability of access to high-end jobs. As such, it probably curtails the lower end of the distribution.</p>
<p>Where I don’t agree with kiddie is that where you went to school has no impact after you enter the workforce. People make judgments all the way along and factor in where folks went to school – not necessarily in promotions within a company, where one’s performance is most easily evaluated, but in moving companies or getting asked for board positions. “Hmmm. Dartmouth, Harvard Business School, good career path, … .” Again, not dispositive but changes the chances of being considered/selected. That all contributes to what I assume is a higher expected income.</p>
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<p>But the majority of the American working public is not working in NYC and has no desire to work in NYC. There is a whole world of employed professionals living outside of the northeast who are “successful” in all senses of the word who went to their state U, a private school close to home, or what have you. There is no argument that having an Ivy diploma may open up a world of possibilities. But not having one absolutely does not hold you back, at least in the majority of this country which is not NYC oriented.</p>
<p>I do not think the competitive environment is unique to NYC, nor is it because those of us who live here are shortsighted about opportunities in other metropolitan areas. In fact, we discussed the Philadelphia office of this woman’s company, and it too is inundated with applications. Things may feel worse in the NE because of our population density, but the unemployment problem is obviously a national one. Large companies all around the country receive an unbelievable number of applications for each advertised position, and that is one reason for the trend toward computer screening of resumes.</p>
<p>As others have stated in this thread and others, there is no really good metric to resolve this issue. If money is the metric, the kids that choose to go to Wall Street or to a top law firm A sher own highly successful business is going to have more money than the engineer that works for a consulting firm (even if that engineer is tops in his field). </p>
<p>There are many more students that are qualified for and could handle the work at a top ten college than there are seats for. There are many students that are qualified for those schools that can’t afford them (even if the parents make too much for need based aid, but not enought for $50K+ a year). </p>
<p>There is not a huge difference in educational quality from an Ivy to a school ranked in the 30s. The quality of the professors, the range of research possiblities, and even the internships may be similar. Many of the students at these schools are “almost Ivy” quality. A comon topic among freshmen at some of these schools is which Ivy denied you? Graduates get into top medical schools, law schools and graduate programs and get good jobs.</p>
<p>However, there is no denying that the road to a top law or busines school or a job on Wall street is easier from a top 10 college. If that is someone’s goal, they get in and can afford it, go for it. If a student does not get in, however, they can still be very successful.</p>
<p>PS–In my earlier post I did allow for regional differences. When people say “Ivy,” sometimes they just mean “top school.” In the midwest, south, or west the phrase “top school” will refer to a different set of excellent schools than it does in the NE. The same principle applies. Going to a better school, however people there define that, can help improve your chances.</p>
<p>I also allowed for the major to have an impact. In the Silicon Valley area, naturally the emphasis is more the applicant possessing certain computer skills, and we all know there are many great places to acquire those skills that aren’t Ivies.</p>
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<p>In SOME industries. Not in all. I think you are kidding yourself if you think that the majority of companies, when deciding who to promote, go back to the “where did he go to school” as opposed to looking at job performance at that very moment. If the person is performing well, why on earth would you care where he went to school unless you’re in the MINORITY of firms where “marquee name to clients” is important?</p>
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<p>Absolutely. Isn’t this completely self-evident? Apparently not on CC. Sigh.</p>
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<p>Exactly. For example, here in Chicago - there are few places you couldn’t get to from U of Illinois; it’s considered a perfectly solid choice, and no one bats an eye if a high school valedictorian with great scores chooses to go there. I’m sure the same is true for U of Texas down there, etc. So why do those on the east coast continue to assume that their default set-of-elite-schools is the de facto national set of elite schools? Doesn’t anyone have any self-reflective capabilities?</p>
<p>Still, given the tight job market and the possibility that a young person may have to look for employment far away from his childhood home, selecting an Ivy is still a way to improve the odds. HYP are still among the most famous schools NATIONALLY.</p>
<p>S was offered a full scholarship to a top 15 LAC in the south. He ended up attending an Ivy, and one reason was that almost no one in the NE had heard of this LAC, and so it was doubtful that anyone in the midwest or west would have heard of it either. Not necessarily a problem, but S viewed it as a risk and chose to avoid that risk.</p>
<p>But the presenting question of this thread is not, “Does an elite education provide superior advantages?” That’s been asked and answered ad nauseum on these boards. The question that started this thread was designed to elicit a specific type of anecdote. I’ve got no horse in the race, but it bemuses me when people seize any opportunity to trot out the same arguments for and against elite education that we have heard over and over. </p>
<p>I happen to know a set of identical twins (seriously) in which one twin went to an Ivy and one went to a state flagship. Not an Ivy versus “second tier” situation, exactly, but still. Anyway, both are highly successful in all the ways a person can be successful. Well, duh. They both started out more intelligent than the average bear and remained so. One of my best friends is married to an Ivy guy. She went to a perfectly fine but nothing special little Catholic school that doesn’t exist anymore. Same deal. Both about the same level of successful in their careers; both were smarter than average to begin with. My SO went to one of the world’s top 10 universities. I did not. I am more successful in my career than he is.</p>
<p>Other people can likely come up with anti-anecdotes to mine. But everyone on this thread could probably throw a rock and hit someone who did more than fine in life without an Ivy degree. Doesn’t mean those degrees are not useful and indicative of a terrific education.</p>