I flunked out of high school, got a GED, worked for two years, transferred from Bryn Mawr to Harvard College and then went to Harvard Law. But I only worked as a lawyer for six years – I became an admissions consultant and I LOVE it. The work itself is wonderful, but I especially love having my own virtual business and being in control of everything I do.
There are plenty of successful people in my industry who’ve gone to regional colleges. That said, there’s no question that my credentials are a big boost to my brand. In this field, it matters.
I want to local U then transferred to OOS U. Graduated with honors and then went to an OOS law school that is pretty highly regarded (don’t honestly know it’s rank—UC Davis). Graduated from all 7 years (college+law school) with my bank balance = my ed loans.
My dad got his golf buddies to hire me as a law clerk after my 2nd year of law school. It worked out so well that they offered me a permanent position which I accepted gratefully (one of the top firms in our state at the time). Very nice people who were also great attorneys.
Worked several other jobs over the years and am now running a nonprofit and also a consultant. No regrets about the schools I attended. Very glad I had no debt weighing me down when I graduated.
Great question! I graduated from a 4-year SUNY. No regrets about where I went from a social aspect (met my husband, have a group of the very best friends that I talk to almost daily for the past 30 years). I do have regrets about my initial career choice (broadcast journalism) - it didn’t pan out as I moved to my husband’s hometown, which was a very small market (it was between that and going into a post-grad public relations program at NYU - again, no regrets about my choice there). I ended up going back to school to get a paralegal certificate and happily worked in that field for 15 years. I do sometimes wish that I had gone into college admissions - this process has fascinated me since starting it with my older daughter back in 2011.
I don’t think that going to a higher ranked school would have benefitted me. I applied to 7 schools in 1984 and got into all of them (2 SUNY’s and the rest were out of state). No idea what the rankings of any of them were back then, didn’t care. I picked them based on which schools had the prettiest campuses on the brochures in the guidance office.
My husband, who did not graduate with me back in 1989 (he was 9 credit hours short) started and continues to run a very successful construction company. He could have skipped college altogether and been equally successful (very smart person). Nonetheless, when challenged by our daughters, he did go back to our alma mater and finish his degree in 2008- went through the whole graduation ceremony with his family & friends in the audience. I’m sure SUNY was thrilled to get our out of state tuition! For him, a higher ranked school wouldn’t have mattered either.
I attended SUNY for undergrad and CUNY for grad school. I received a fabulous education which allowed me to present at our national convention, work in several teaching hospitals, private practices, schools, etc.
No regrets- got the best education and passed all of my certification exams with flying colors (which is really what is most important and what is asked for).
Growing up, I dreamt of pursuing an international career. I was a first gen (probably LI as well) and, after high school, attended my in-state flagship but it wasn’t a well regarded one. Even though I was a top student at my university and could probably have landed any job in-state in my major, I received rejection after rejection when I applied to “prestigious” national employers.
So, rightly or wrongly, I focused on prestige when it came to graduate school. I fortunately got into a prestigious school, did reasonably well and landed a job with an internationally recognized firm after graduation. This led to other opportunities and, 25 years later, my work has taken me to 40-50 countries and I’ve had the privilege of working in different areas that have interested me and given me gratification. This includes opportunities to teach at top universities in the US and UK, and pen articles in journals such as NYT, FT, etc.
Looking back, there is no doubt in my mind that the prestigious graduate school made a substantial difference in my career, not only for my first job post-graduation but also subsequent positions, which included stints at an MBB, an international economic policy think tank and academic institutions (all of them are known to care a lot about where you went to school).
It was also extremely helpful that I completed my education with very low debt, paid off within a couple of years of finishing graduate school. This, coupled with a shared view with my wife that we should always try to live below our means, provided flexibility in terms of job choices and work-life balance.
Although I’ve also experienced setbacks and periodic worries for following an unconventional career path, I am overall extremely grateful for my career.
(Edited to answer the questions posed more fully.)
My only regret is I never lived away from home before marriage. Thus I nudged my oldest out of the house. He’s slowly finding his way and not currently taking any classes but he’s working and paying his bills and figuring himself out.
I started as a nurse so where I got my degree didn’t matter. As a poor first gen, I lived at home and got my bsn from the closest state university. I now work for a college. I got my masters from a little known college but still got a job at a nationally ranked university.
I’m finishing up my doctorate now. Again, at a school few would know.
I’m not rich but I’m good at my job and degrees from higher ranked colleges may have changed my path a bit but I wouldn’t want the lifestyle. It’s a personal choice for me to not be stuck forced to have to do research and publish all the time.
This is a great thread. No doubt times have changed, but there are probably some takeaways here.
I went to an Ivy but have spent most of my life as a stay at home parent because my spouse, who barely graduated high school, made about 10 times what I made when we started a family and both of our jobs required weekly travel.
I loved every moment of my college experience, but I probably would have felt the same way had I attended most schools - I was just ready to spread my wings. I think a good percentage of my friends took the same path I did, or went on to be teachers, real estate agents etc. (careers where an Ivy League degree didn’t make much difference). And a good number of others have been successful in big law, management, finance etc. careers.
I don’t think that my four years adequately prepared me to go directly into the workforce, but I did have two internships (that I found entirely on my own) that gave me a leg up when job searching after graduation. I landed my first job 1) because I was an Ivy League grad (the interviewer from my midwest state was SO wowed) and 2) because I had direct experience in the industry due to my internships. I had a successful, satisfying career for about 10 years but after that first hiring, my college had zero impact on my career or life, really.
But here I am, flip flopping between telling my high-achieving daughter “prestige doesn’t matter at all!” and “why not just TRY to apply to Stanford?” She has applied to an interesting list of schools! But I truly believe that where she goes will have little impact on her life. She’s smart and driven so I’m confident she’ll be just fine no matter where she lands. She’s a small town girl who wants to make a difference and have work/life balance. If she were a cutthroat career-minded gal who wanted to rule NYC in a pantsuit, then maybe prestige would matter more.
As a first gen, low income student, I chased prestige in education and career choice. I went to the second highest undergrad I applied to (was accepted everywhere) (a top LAC) and then went to the highest ranked grad school I got accepted to (was accepted to all). In fact, for grad school, my application approach was to apply to all of the USNWR top 20 schools. Looking back at it now, it was a crazy approach. However, I definitely attribute where I am now to my education and the experience my education allowed me to get. So for that reason, no regrets. If I had to do it over again, I’d choose a different undergrad and think I would have ended up at the same grad school from a different undergrad. My DD, because of my success, does not have the same pressures and can choose her career without regard to income. That for me is mission accomplished.
I am retired now, I retired mid-career to raise kids. I went to a T15 SLAC and its name/reputation had very little impact on career opportunities as it wasn’t a well-known school at the time. In fact, I bet most people outside of CC haven’t heard of it unless you live nearby. I do think I probably got a second look from employers when I was searching for entry level jobs due to my superior writing skills, but that’s about all I got from it. It was a great four years, though!
Attended an elite private school (most posters who have read or written about private schools here would recognize the name), went to an Ivy for undergrad where I studied in the humanities, worked for 3-5 years in a high profile job, went to a respected law school, became an equity partner in big law, left, and now own and operate a company I founded while serving as a board member and advisor to a few larger companies family members founded. Except for the last bit on becoming an entrepreneur, each step was a descent in terms of prestige and education quality.
My private school taught writing, mathematics, and the sciences with a rigor far surpassing my Ivy. I am proud I have two children currently attending. I attribute any success I have had to this education and all parents who can reasonably provide the tuition should do so. My Ivy did a decent job, but the student teacher ratio is never as good as a strong private school and the small seminars lack the same spark 14-18 year olds generate. There were gut classes for athletes, donor cases, and other “special” admits, and these gut classes have more and more become the norm if anything. You have to go out of your way to learn at an Ivy now unless you are in the hard sciences. Econ has even reduced standards.
My job out of undergrad would have led to a decent if not remunerative career if I stayed. Going to law school was an awful decision, and it is for 9/10 students who attend a T14. Some people need that much schooling, they are called medical doctors and professors of hard sciences and economics. Law school is a scam where you jump hoops and learn nothing that is useful in practice. Your 20s are too special for this charade.
My advice to any young person today is go to the top school you can that you can reasonably afford. You can always transfer laterally after freshman year if it is a bad fit. Use your summer to write essays for 20 schools if you have to. Major in something very tangible that will provide concrete, hard skills that can be tested and listed on a resume. More and more, employers in FAANG (non tech positions included), high finance, consulting, real estate, and F500 management programs expect a knowledge of coding, financial modeling, and the ins and outs of business formulas at the interview itself. A lot of hiring at these “top” jobs is moving away from Ivies and towards specialized programs at other T20s and flagship state schools. What so many 18 year olds admitted to an Ivy next week don’t know is that a substantial portion of their classmates will not have a “career” in the traditional sense because they did not make the right moves by age 22. They will pay the bills and save a bit, it won’t be spectacular for most.
I also feel that my elite prep school taught me far more about writing and thinking than my Ivy education. But that’s partly because by the end of my freshman year I realized that academia just didn’t interest me that much. I liked to have a more tangible product. I ended up in a major that combined a bunch of arts and architecture. I actually wrote a fairly academic thesis about low-cost housing in Europe. Went to architecture school.
Interestingly my undergrad degree did get me a job in Germany strictly on name recognition. My architecture degree was also from an Ivy, but that wasn’t the deciding factor. What I actually learned is that in architecture you should go job hunting in the same location as where you got your degree. I did not.
Honestly if I had to do it over I think I’d go to art school and study illustration. I’d probably be like all my illustrator friends and employed doing something else. So maybe not!
Wow this is an interesting trajectory! I think a lot of prep school alums are burned out of campus life by sophomore or Junior year of college. Eight years of that life is a lot. My peers from prep school, and my children’s, are mature and educated enough to fill a lot of demanding jobs by age 18. Obviously architecture/engineering/STEM require further education for competence unless they completely revamped the professions with an apprentice model. The BA shouldn’t be as necessary as it is. For a lot of American youth it is a four year sabbatical.
When I went to grad school, almost all of my classmates were from Ivy or top 20 colleges. The one “outlier” went to Davidson. Would I have gotten in if I went elsewhere? I have no idea. But I have to think it shaped my career.
First gen here. Started at the local cc then transferred to a mid sized university (ranked highly as a regional school, but not one most people here are familiar with). I loved every minute I spent at both schools.
I don’t think I would have necessarily had a better career if I had gone to a more “prestigious” school. The one thing that negatively affected my career was taking 10+ years off to raise a family.
Engineer here - aerospace. Attended SMU undergrad, MBA from University of Houston. I could have gone to MIT but had no interest and didn’t want my family to spend the money (SMU had a great scholarship). I was very happy but think I would have been just as happy at a state school. Where I work the most successful people game from State schools or small no-name places. Yes we have a couple Stanford grads in high places too. What you do in the workplace mattered a whole lot more than where you went to school in my profession. I’ve had a great career and wouldn’t seek prestige in my field.
My dh is a successful attorney, SMU undergrad, University of Houston MSChemE, UTLaw. He has done very well in his career with excellent law firms as a partner. He could have gone to Rice but again chose SMU due to scholarships. I don’t think he would have done anything differently. He did feel going to a highly ranked law school was important.
I will have my D22 read this thread after she received rejections from SCEA next week and RD colleges in March. Thank you for this wonderful information and knowledge.