<p>
[quote]
Cache. But what is cache? Its a perception.
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<p>Cache is high-speed memory built into your computer's CPU to speed up certain tasks. My MacBook has 3MB of it. It's awesmoe.</p>
<p>I think the word you were looking for was cachet</p>
<p>
[quote]
The other 3 of the first 10 didn't graduate from college at all, though I'll acknowledge the_Prestige's point that Willliam Henry Harrison was a Penn dropout----but that's no great distinction for Penn as Harrison also dropped out of Hampden-Sydney College
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</p>
<p>Harrison also died after 31 days in office. Fail</p>
<p>Still puts Penn ahead of Yale, home of George W. Bush epic fail ;)</p>
<p>Historical nugget: Nixon was admitted to Harvard. Harvard gave him financial aid, but not enough to cover the cost of travelling between home and school. He couldn't afford it, and ended up at Whittier. </p>
<p>Mr. Obama's transfer to Columbia: my understanding is that Oxy and Columbia had a formalized exchange program so that you could start at one and finish at the other, or at least take classes. I've never gotten the impression that an Oxy student during that time needed special connections to be able to transfer to Columbia, just a decent transcript. It also seems like the time he spent at Oxy had far more of a formative influence on him than his time in NYC, at least as far as academics go.</p>
<p>Quote:
since Obama is the only president to go to college really in this period of time just after the switch to a more national pool of applicants (really in the midst of it), it would seem that he may be the exception that proves the rule </p>
<p>Actually, I would argue the Clintons over Obama. Bill went to:
high school in Arkansas;
SFS at Georgetown;
Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford; and
Law School at Yale</p>
<p>Hillary went to :
high school in Illinois;
undergrad at Wellesley; and
law school at Yale</p>
<p>Of course they made many connections along the way and these connections landed posts in the Clinton administration and many have popped up again in the Obama administration.</p>
<p>I can't believe we're six pages into this 12x per year topic and nobody has referenced the only longitudinal published and peer reviewed STUDY that actually ANSWERS this question.</p>
<p>Who</a> Needs Harvard? - Brookings Institution</p>
<p>For those seeing the Krueger Dale reference for the first time, this is a study of students <em>accepted</em> to an Ivy but matriculating instead to a non-Top 15 school for a variety of personal reasons. The conclusion is that if an applicant is from a traditionally disempowered class (color, immigrant) then actually attending the Ivy + Ivyish schools gives the student a big boost (vs. being accepted but instead matriculating at another quality but not Top 15 school).</p>
<p>A person not from such groups, ie. (not of color, not 1st or 2nd generation) which is about 80-85% of applicants, sees 20 yr. income at about 1-2% less than the Ivy acceptee who actually attended. That 1-2% less actually could mean that the Ivy alum comes out financially behind if the Ivy matriculant paid full boat or close to it, compared to the equally qualified applicant who declined the Ivy offer and went to a less expensive option such as a flagship state university.</p>
<p>So there you have it. About 80-85% of people <em>financially</em> benefit nothing from attending an Ivy or Ivyish school. Just as significantly, about 15-20% financially benefit a great deal from attending. It's as though the Ivy pedigree overcomes prejudice and parochialism, which is of course of great benefit to this subset of students.</p>
<p>So it is reasonable to conclude, and to advise others, that a person form this 15-20% group I refernce above should think very carefully about turning down an Ivy offer. For everyone else, it (financially) doesn't matter. Obama is a perfect example of a person in this 15-20% group for whom the Ivy pedigree is a critical consideration.</p>
<p>The study of course makes no claim about non-financial benefits of an Ivy qualified applicant acutally attending an Ivyish school. It is only a financial benefit study.</p>
<p>I just re-read my link posted above which I haven't read in about a year ... I see that the term used was "disadvantaged" to refer to those who most benefit from attending an Ivy, or more broadly, Top school. Disadvantaged includes what they called "poor", which I would probably replace with lower "Socio-Economic-Status", or abbreviated "SES".</p>
<p>Looking at Obamas cabinet, 36% went to an ivy for college, with only Harvard (2), Columbia (2) and Dartmouth (1) being represented. Interesting that both former Treasurer and Attorney General were ivy grads, Dartmouth and COlumbia, respectively. That is impressive </p>
<p>State Clinton Wellesley
Treasurer Geitner Dartmouth (after another Dartmouth)
Attorney General Holder Columbia (after another Columbian)
Defense Gates- W&M
Interior Salazar Colorado
Agriculture Vislsack Hamilton
HUD Donovan Harvard
Transp LaHood Bradley
Energy Chu Rochester
Education Duncan Harvard
VA Shinseki West Point
Homeland Napolitano Santa Clara
Commerce Gregg Columbia
Labor Solis Cal Poly</p>
<p>That doesn't prove anything.</p>
<p>A guy with a 2400 at community college with a 4.0 will probably be more successful than someone with a 2080 and 3.8 at harvard.</p>
<p>possibly.</p>
<p>Community college does not offer the same education fields such as Harvard, no degrees.</p>
<p>^^Mine gives out associate's degrees</p>
<p>
[quote]
Looking at Obama’s cabinet, 36% went to an ivy for college, with only Harvard (2), Columbia (2) and Dartmouth (1) being represented. Interesting that both former Treasurer and Attorney General were ivy grads, Dartmouth and Columbia, respectively. </p>
<p>State – Clinton – Wellesley
Treasurer – Geitner – Dartmouth (after another Dartmouth)
Attorney General – Holder – Columbia (after another Columbian)
Defense – Gates- W&M
Interior – Salazar – Colorado
Agriculture – Vislsack – Hamilton
HUD – Donovan – Harvard
Transp – LaHood – Bradley
Energy – Chu – Rochester
Education – Duncan – Harvard
VA – Shinseki – West Point
Homeland – Napolitano – Santa Clara
Commerce – Gregg – Columbia
Labor – Solis – Cal Poly
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Here is an updated Obama Cabinet list to date (2 have yet to be named and 3 gave yet to be confirmed):</p>
<p>State: Hillary Clinton (Wellesley / Yale Law School)*
Treasury: Timothy Geithner (Dartmouth / JHU)*
Defense: Robert Gates (W&M / Indiana / G-town)
Attorney General: Eric Holder (Columbia / Columbia Law)**
Interior Ken Salazar (Colorado / UMich Law)
Agriculture Tom Vilsack (Hamilton / Albany Law)
Commerce ** Judd Gregg (Columbia / BU Law)*
*Labor * Hilda Solis (Cal Poly Pomona / USC)
**Education Arne Duncan (Harvard)*
HUD Shaun Donovan (Harvard / Harvard Kennedy)**
Transportation Ray LaHood (Bradley)
Energy Steven Chu (Rochester / Cal)
Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki (West Point / Duke)
Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (Santa Clara / UVA Law)
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (Sarah Lawrence / Northwestern)
EPA Lisa Jackson (Tulane / Princeton)*
Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag (Princeton / LSE)*
*Ambassador to UN * Susan Rice (Stanford / Oxford)
*United States Trade Representative * Ron Kirk (Austin / UTexas)</p>
<p>Health and Human Services: TBA
National Drug Control Policy: TBA</p>
<p>So let's tally Obama's Cabinet to date:</p>
<ul>
<li>Out of 19 current positions, 6 undergrads went to Ivy schools (Dartmouth, Columbia, Princeton, Harvard) = 32% </li>
<li>Out of those 6 that have an Ivy undergrad degree, 2 also have Ivy grad degrees (Columbia Law, Harvard Kennedy) </li>
<li>Out of the remaining 13 that didn't go to an Ivy undergrad, 2 went onto receive an Ivy grad degree (Yale Law, Princeton masters) </li>
<li>So that makes it a total of 10 Cabinet members out of 19 with an Ivy degree in some form (grad / undergrad) = 53%. That's more than half the Cabinet. Pretty impressive no matter how you slice it.</li>
</ul>
<p>one of thing to consider is that many of those people applied and got into the IVies like 35 years go or so.</p>
<p>35 years ago, it was soooo much easier to get into the Ivies than it is today. </p>
<p>Also, your evidence helps prove the point that was made that Penn or Brown or Cornell (and Dartmouth too, only 1 grad in the cabinet) are not very impressive in terms of sending grads to positions of power like the Presidency. </p>
<p>So, yeah, going to Harvard seems like it may help, but going Penn and Brown and Cornell, not so much.</p>
<p>Of the eight ceos getting grilled on Congress today, only two ivies (Columbia and Harvard) are represented. 7 of the 15 degrees obtained were from ivies (almost 47%)</p>
<p>Citi Pandit (four degrees from Columbia)
JPMorgan Dimon (Tufts/HBS)
MS Mack (Duke)
GS Blankfield (Harvard/HLS)
BofA Lewis (Georgia State)
BONY- Kelly (St. Marys)
State Street Logue (BC/BC)
Wells Fargo Stumpf (St. Cloud/U.Minn)</p>
<p>I guess ivy grads can share a disproportionate amount of the blame for the current economic crises...lol</p>
<p>I'm not sure I made my point clearly about the benefits of an IVY.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that if you're skilled enought to get in and don't matriculate, you're just as likely as someone who actually matriculated to do well financially.</p>
<p>Impressive people are impressive people. They have higher energy, more drive, more determination, appear more impressive at first meeting, have more stick-to-it-iveness, process information faster, learn shortcuts quicker, etc. etc. etc.... WHETHER THEY ATTEND THE IVY OR MICHIGAN or U. of WASHINGTON.</p>
<p>Ivies merely are temporary caretakers of impressive 18 year olds. They neither add to, nor detract from, an impressive person's capabilities or odds of financial success (unless from a lower SES as mentioned in my first post). Take that IVY acceptee and put him/her in another environment, and they rise to the top of that environment just as they already did in high school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wouldn't go quite as far as DunninLA, but I do think there's something to what he says. One major reason employers look to Ivies and other elite schools is that they're a reasonably efficient sorting mechanism; they don't make many outright mistakes in admissions decisions, and anyone who does get accepted, matriculates, and has enough persistence to make it through the process obviously has a lot going for herself. So from the employer's perspective, the search costs are lower; hire an Ivy grad and you're pretty much assured you're getting good raw material. It's harder to tell what value is added by the school itself.</p>
<p>Still, as a professional educator I have to believe the educational environment matters. I have no doubt the educational environment at all the Ivies is excellent. And I do think a great student can get a better education there than at a weaker college with a weaker faculty, weaker library resources, fewer and poorly equipped research facilities, and so on. But where I do agree with DunninLA is that a lot of non-Ivy privates and all the top public universities also have a lot of intellectual capital and academic resources to work with, and there are plenty of opportunities for top students to rise to the top at those institutions and get an outstanding education, if they're motivated to take advantage of the opportunities that exist. So the smart, motivated student who is accepted at both an Ivy and a Cal or a Michigan is likely to be successful whichever option she chooses.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Take that IVY acceptee and put him/her in another environment, and they rise to the top of that environment just as they already did in high school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>DunninLA, I hope you realize that the peer-reviewed study you refer to prove your point actually comes to the exact opposite conclusion. It is amazing how often the Dale-Kruger study is misquoted, even in prrfessional journals. At the elite level, where you attend does matter. A LOT. </p>
<p>Apart from the fact that the number of students admitted to elite colleges and do not enroll in some other elite college is extremely small, differences between attendance at most selective colleges and less selective colleges was shown to offer a significant advantage.</p>
<p>The Dale-Kruger study concludes with:
[quote]
Based on the straightforward regression results in column 1, men who attend the most competitive colleges [according to Barron's 1982 ratings] earn 23 percent more than men who attend very competitive colleges, other variables in the equation being equal.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The 23% difference was just between the most competitive and the very competitive colleges. The difference was even greater with the next tier of competitive colleges. </p>
<p>An often quoted finding of the study was that when colleges were rated based on average SAT score, students who were admitted to schools with different SAT average scores and who decided to attend a school with a lower average SAT score didnt earn any less money then their peers at the school with the higher SAT averages. This was wrongly interpreted to mean that it doesnt matter what school a student attends. </p>
<p>But what the study really said is that the average SAT score of a school is a poor measure of future income, not that selectivity was not important</p>
<p>Quote:
[quote]
Average SAT scores of student may be too coarse a measure to actually reflect a student's peer group or education quality once school selection is taken into account. Even after adjusting for selection, however, we do find that the school a student attends matters for his or hers subsequent income. The characteristics of schools that influence students' subsequent income appear better captured by Barron's broad measure of school selectivity than average SAT scores.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They also discovered that there was a benefit to attending a more expensive school. The more expensive the tuition the higher the lifetime return. </p>
<p>Quote:
[quote]
The internal rate of return on tuition was quite high, in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 percent.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They speculated that the greater investment per student by private colleges, greater quality signaling effect with employers, and peer spillover effect were the principal causes for the higher return.</p>
<p>Quite the opposite conclusion from your statement that colleges are just temporary caretakers.</p>
<p>If you want the actual study you can find it here:</p>
<p>It doesn't really matter. In fact, for some careers, its better not to go to ivies. Take for example Dentistry. If you want to go into dentistry, you should get into the 5 year dental program at UOP and you get your DDS at the top clinical school in the country (clinically, much better than Harvard, gasp!!!). When you treat patients, none of them really care which undergrad/dental school you went to, just that you are a technically good dentist</p>
<p>cellardwellar -- thank you for the link to the actual study. I had read summations in the book Harvard Schmarvard, and then after trying to find the study, found the link that I posted above.</p>
<p>It took me all of two pages to realize I've forgotten the understanding of statistics I would need to understand the paper...</p>
<p>Every time these threads come up, I keep thinking about how happy I'll be when I'm not biting my nails off and descending into a neurotic adulthood where the expectations of others are how I gauge my success. </p>
<p>You guys can keep the Ivy League. I really like the idea of attending my LAC, and I'm not half as stressed.</p>
<p>That study has waaaaay to many lurking variables. For example, one who wants to enter careers that pay more may be more likely to attend the Ivy.</p>
<p>Also, for all we know, only going to Harvard or Yale o maybe Princeton actually provides the benefit and the percentage increase in salary. </p>
<p>For all we know, going to 5 of the Ivies will help you earn more money, but going to Cornell won't help you. How do we know? </p>
<p>In addition, even if this research was 100 percent accurate, you should not choose a college because you think that it will help you make more money. Money isn't everything, money can't always buy happiness, and often it brings more trouble (like I'm talking about being a millionare compared to a guy with 800,000 dollars in assets. </p>
<p>This study would ONLY apply to people who care about making as much money as they can. People should be focusing on doing things they enjoy, be it accounting or teaching or dish washing, and taking advantage of life instead of only trying to make as much money as possible.</p>
<p>Anyone who chooses to go Harvard instead of a full ride to Emory because he thinks it might possibly help him earn 10 percent more money is ridiculous.</p>