<p>making<em>a</em>point - I think you are missing MBA’s from Tuck, Sloan, and Columbia from your list. After Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton (at 3), the next fives business schools are treated about equally in eyes of top financial and consulting firms.</p>
<p>No one cares about MIT and any grad school “under” HYPS and Wharton? Hmm…tell that to my dad, who has a degree in engineering from MIT, attended Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and is now extremely successful with a high-ranking job at a top firm. </p>
<p>Frankly, I think that these debates over target schools and recruiting and all the arguments over the finer points of this school vs. that school lose sight of the big picture. A student shouldn’t think they have it made if they attend HYPSW, nor should a smart, motivated student be despondent if their school is somehow deemed less desirable. I’m only a junior in high school, so I can’t back this up with any quantitative data, but somehow I think that initiative, intelligence, and creativity will get you further than an HYPSW degree…just a thought. The schools mentioned in these thread are all excellent and well-respected, and students with degrees from those places should be proud, regardless of HYPSW status.</p>
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<p>Sure she can. After all, she didn’t seem to find any interviewees who said that schools X,Y, and Z are actually worse. She found some who thought those schools are better than others, and others who, at the most extreme case, might think all schools are the same. Hence, in aggregate, the schools in question are indeed better, at least within her dataset. </p>
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<p>The mere fact that she found some interviewees believe that the subset of schools in question are better, but none that ever said that that subset was worse indicates that the phenomenon exists.</p>
<p>I agree that a discussion of effect size would be important to ascertain in later research. But I hardly see the research as ‘useless to us’. After all, prospective students can’t wait for later research to be published. They need to make decisions about which schools to apply to and attend now. </p>
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<p>No, actually, she doesn’t have a theory. At least, not yet. No qualitative, first-run research can be said to have established a theory. That is the job for follow-on research. </p>
<p>Regarding the strength of the evidence, again, what do you expect from a first-run study? No single paper ever definitively establishes anything. However, they can be suggestive of a phenomenon. </p>
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<p>Her evidence is based on a multi-firm study that was accepted by a peer-reviewed journal. Hence, her evidence has been subjected to a stronger standard of proof than the anonymous anecdotes that frequently pass as ‘evidence’ on this discussion board. In other words, the preponderance of evidence is on her side. </p>
<p>If you want to adopt the classic skeptic stance, then do so consistently. When somebody asserts that HYPSM do not hold a recruiting advantage based on some anonymous anecdote that they submit, perhaps you should challenge them on their lack of ‘evidence’. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for you to do so. </p>
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<p>And the author is not claiming that her theory is well-established, or if she did, she would be laughed out of academia. No reasonable academic would assert that a theory has been definitively established by a single, first-run qualitative study. </p>
<p>But the preponderance of evidence is now clearly on her side. If you disagree, then perhaps you could submit equally strong contradictory evidence. Perhaps you could point to some academic papers - even first-run qualitative work - that indicates that HYPSM do not hold a recruiting advantage? </p>
<p>Again, one of the purposes of CC is to hold prospective students make better decisions when it comes to which schools to attend or apply to. Those students can’t wait for a theory to be definitively established or debunked; Harvard is not going to hold their seats open for them, so they need to make decisions now. Whatever the shortcomings of the study may be, it is still the strongest evidence available right now; certainly stronger than what generally passes as ‘evidence’ on CC.</p>
<p>Much of the problem with this thread concerns its title. “Top job” is inherently subjective. Many, many people don’t believe working for a giant investment bank is a “top job” at all.</p>
<p>You couldn’t pay me enough to agree to work for the sociopathic multinational conglomerates responsible for destroying our nation’s economy and throwing millions of people out of work and out of their homes.</p>
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<p>The title of the research paper in question is “Ivies, extracurriculars, and exclusion: Elite employers’ use of educational credentials”. Now, if you want to argue that the employers in question are not elite" (or that “top” does not equate to “elite”), then be my guest. But I simply derived the title of the thread from the research paper. </p>
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<p>But the paper is not focused solely on Ibanking, being only 1 of the 3 targeted industries in the paper. The other 2 are management consulting and law. I don’t think you can blame the latter two for the travails of the current economy.</p>
<p>Of course I can. “Management consultants” are the ones running around telling corporations the solution to all their problems is to outsource, outsource, outsource. Ship jobs to India, China, anywhere but the USA - too many pesky environmental laws and labor protections.</p>
<p>The people be damned - profit uber alles.</p>
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<p>Sure, but it’s still the responsibility of the (perhaps foolish) managers of those firms to listen to that advice. The consulting firms can’t force anybody to do anything. </p>
<p>And besides, I don’t necessarily see outsourcing as a bad thing for the economy. {I can agree that some types of outsourcing may be bad, but to say that all of it is bad is going too far.} But that’s surely a discussion best left to another thread.</p>