<p>“It’s been a little depressing,” said Lauren Wiygul, who will earn a master’s degree in secondary English education from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., this summer.</p>
<p>She applied to more than a dozen private schools and every public district in the Atlanta area. After someone in human resources for the system in Georgia’s Gwinnett County mentioned a possible language arts opening, she took a day off work, traveled to Atlanta and personally delivered her resume to 13 middle and high schools, hoping to introduce herself to principals.</p>
<p>She met a lot of sympathetic secretaries but not one principal. She has yet to get an interview.</p>
<p>“One principal, she wasn’t rude, but she just e-mailed back, ‘Positions are posted on our website,’” Wiygul said. “I have worked really hard to be able to teach. I just feel stuck.”</p>
<p>Well DUHHHHH!. Sorry, but this bright young woman from a fine university hasn’t learned a BASIC thing about her field: public schools have a hiring process that goes through a central office. Usually you have to apply to a specific opening (Grade 7 Language Arts at Peabody Middle School). Usually the applicant has to fill out the district forms (ie, no resume). For this bright woman to run around dropping off resumes to principals was a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME – no matter WHERE her degree is from. </p>
<p>So, the kid from Whatsit College in Atlanta who takes the time to learn how to get a teaching job in a public school is going to come out way ahead of the elite competition – now you can argue that your Harvard grad may not want to teach public school . . . But, still, the degree origin is only one piece of the puzzle.</p>
<p>Aside from “opening doors” I think there is something gained internally from being in an environment for four years where there is no one of average ability or motivation. Just about everyone is as smart or smarter than you. Just learning how to deal with that and make your own mark can prepare you for a lot in life.</p>
<p>Not a lot of fancy degrees here - the lawyer went to JHU undergrad and Berkeley law, and one other person went to Swarthmore undergrad … But note that frankly, for this company, being “at the right place at the right time” (Seattle area, as evidenced by all the U of Washington stuff) may have made more difference.</p>
<p>I don’t dispute that it can be a huge help. It’s not the only route, though, and as I said earlier (this thread or another?) cream always rises to the top.</p>
<p>Degrees from selective colleges can sometimes actually get in the way when applying for a job. Depends on the job. A friend of mine applied to a union job in the printing industry, and they thought there might be something wrong with him, since he graduated from Princeton and was, in their eyes, aiming low in terms of job seeking.</p>
<p>Also, if the boss went to the state U., there can be prejudice, reverse snobbery, even insecurity (feeling threatened) and so on.</p>
<p>Not a big part of the picture, but just a note that Ivy League credentials don’t always work for you in the real world.</p>
<p>Agreed, but connections are connections regardless of whether they were formed on the lacrosse fields at Harvard or at the fraternity parties of Eastern Southern State U. Some firms / industries are also a lot more dependent on connections than others.</p>
<p>Agree that an Ivy degree gives you an edge in many companies. If you’re talking IB or consulting, it’s even more than a edge. The big IB I worked for hired from a list of about 10 companies and that was it. But who wants to work for an IB these days…ack. </p>
<p>As someone said, if the study compared “Ivy caliber” grads with Ivy grads, the results would likely be vastly different. But the ivy grads would probably still have some edge. And bragging rights. It’s annoying but lots of the folks doing hiring in fields like finance, law and consulting can be elitist. It is what it is in these fields. </p>
<p>But I have two very large multinational companies clients and the vast majority of mgt folks I work with are NOT ivy grads. And maybe I’m biased (as a state school grad) but the folks are more down to earth and less full of themselves than the the people I worked with at the IB. Hands down.</p>
<p>It’s kind of funny, because while the law firms and consulting firms may indeed be very focused on certain brand names, neither of them have any business unless someone else hires them – and the “someone elses” may or may not be elite grads to begin with. And THEY have the money that the law firms and consulting firms are trying to nab!</p>
<p>I re read the OP’s linked article and had to laugh at the company mentioned in the article. The company has a staff of eight and five are Ivy League. Sorry, that’s not news. That’s a little company where the CEO hired who he/she knew. </p>
<p>In today’s economy I could also see a CEO thinking “I have to pay Princeton grad $55K but I can get University of Texas for $45K – gee, better save the bucks.” In fact, after reading a few articles about the entitlement issues of today’s students, the hungry kid from a back water might look like an even shrewder choice. </p>
<p>Of course I have to stifle a ■■■■■■■ anytime someone posts about the “Ancient Eight”. Sure ain’t “ancient” by most of the world’s standards. There are European kitchen tables that are five hundred years older than any of our colleges. Gads, a state school education focuses the brain elsewhere for sure. I am doomed to pragmatism.</p>
<p>When they’re talking things like Law and Medicine – doesn’t where you went to grad school mean a LOT more than where you went to undergrad? I mean, yes, going to an Ivy League (or other top schools) might help you get into the top grad programs (both in terms of name recognition and in terms of good preparation for the tests, etc), and the solid education you got might help you do well. </p>
<p>But, that difference aside, I thought that someone who went from Yale to Harvard Law and did well would be in a pretty similar boat than someone who went to SecondTierState and then to Harvard Law and did well (ie. they would BOTH have great job prospects). And a Yale undergrad doing okay at say, a Top 50 law school would having nothing on SecondTierState grad who is doing well at Harvard Law.</p>
<p>No one should underestimate the old boys network. Where you did undergrad matters at white shoe law firms no matter where you went to law school.</p>
<p>This may be true in certain regions of the country, but DEFINITELY not others. For example, in TX, I can argue beyond certainty that a degree from UT or A&M holds probably MORE weight among employers (and even most transplants who have to answer in some way to a supervisor who’s from the area). The loyality and allegiance of these two large alumni networks is incomparable. Call it a “good old boy” network if you will, but they take care of one another in most every way. (If you live in TX, you know exactly what I’m talking about, huh?) To a lesser degree (pun intended), the same argument could be made for SMU, TCU, and Rice. Granted, this is just one regional example, but I imagine there might be other areas of the country where this loyalty to their own state’s alma maters often trumps the ivy.</p>
<p>I look at these figures as being pretty underwhelming:
</p>
<p>We can assume that median high school GPA and test scores of pool #B (all bachelor’s degree graduates) is substantially lower than Ivy League, and that the bulk of the graduates in pool B come from public universities. (I mean – statistically the second pool is simply going to trend toward “average”).</p>
<p>So essentially that stat means that an Ivy League education is worth at most a $12K boost in starting salary over the C+ student coming out of Podunk U. And probably a lot less – we should at least narrow the comparison to Ivy League grads vs. graduates of Podunk U’s Honors College. (Otherwise we are simply comparing smart people with average people, never mind the name on the diploma).</p>
<p>Now look at cost differential: how many years post-grad work at the higher salary will the Ivy grad have to stay on the job in order to recoup the 4-year differential in tuition?</p>
<p>There’s no doubt jc40, this is true in many parts of the country. But let’s face it, how many H and Y law school grads want jobs in Texas? The few that would are from there and are connected there–probably wanting to be the next W.</p>
<p>The vast majority of top law and business school grads are seeking jobs in a world capital among select firms where both the undergrad name and grad one matters.</p>
<p>I grew up in Texas. My dad is a Yale law grad, I have 2 uncles who are Harvard law grads, and I never saw any of them get anything as a result of “networks” or connections. </p>
<p>I went to a top 5 law school (non Ivy) and I know how hiring works. The firms come in and they are interested in the top ranked students – they want the ones who are law review or order of the coif or students who have distinguished themselves academically at the school. There is no magic Ivy fairy dust that makes all students suddenly perform above average for their school when they get there – and the majority of law grads aren’t any better off than grads from any other well-respected school.</p>
<p>Also remember that students at Ivy league schools are more likely to be children of privilege to a greater extent than those at non-Ivy league schools, and they will have family and business connections independent of attending an Ivy league school. Ivanka Trump can get a degree from Penn and walk into a $5 million a year job. That doesn’t mean that your kid will.</p>
<p>For medicine, it doesn’t matter at all unless you wish to go into academic medicine. A doctor is a doctor is a doctor, and assuming he is in private practice, the money he makes is related to how well he runs his business, not what school he went to. Blue Cross Blue Shield doesn’t pay a higher rate of reimbursement to the doctor who went to Harvard Med than to the doctor who went to State Flagship Med. Medicine is extraordinarily “flat” in terms of how much the specific school makes a difference. Residency is far more important, and residents from State Flagship U and State Flagship Med School work side-by-side with residents from Ivy U and Ivy Med.</p>