<p>No doubt any of you with AOL have seen this on their home page today:</p>
<p>that's an interesting article. I guess ivy league can give you great opportunities but cannot guarantee success.</p>
<p>I don't see what the big deal is about going to one of them colleges. I don't care where anybody goes to college - heck, I don't care if someone goes to college or not. Just because you graduate from a big huge expensive ivy league school does NOT mean you are more capable of doing a job than someone who graduated from a regular college - or someone who didn't graduate at all. just my two cents.</p>
<p>I think a lot of people think it's the other way around. Because you graduated from an ivy league school, you are necessarily incompetent and arrogant.</p>
<p>To me the message to take away is in the last paragraph of the AOL article:
[quote]
Yet while the value of an Ivy League degree can be debated, just about everyone will agree that given the connections students make and the number of recruiters attracted to their campuses, these schools give their students an advantage early in their careers. In the long run, however, a person's experience, performance and ability to relate to others matter far more than the seal on their diploma.
[/quote]
In other words, going to an ivy or other respected LAC or U does give an advantage and open doors for the new college grad. After that, you need to live up to the promise you were supposed to have.</p>
<p>I have a good freind who is a Harvard grad - undergrad and law school. He was out of work for quite a while last year. I recall being surprised that someone with a 2 harvard degrees couldn't land a decent job. When I mentioned that to him, he said "the Harvard degree is only good for about 5-8 years. After that, you become one of the crowd and the name doesn't mean anything to employers, unless they're also Harvard grads"</p>
<p>I suspect this is the case with all schools..... and for people who didn't go to college at all. After a while, it just doesn't matter.</p>
<p>The only thing the Harvard (or other Ivy League) diploma guarantees you is a ticket to the Harvard reunion and membership in the alumni organization. :)</p>
<p>The fact that much of the article was anecdotal in nature renders it somewhat meaningless. Anecdotes can be used to bolster any proposition. Ya just have to select the right person to interview.</p>
<p>The only reasonable research that I have read is the Dale and Krueger study which used the hugh Andrew Mellon Foundation data base assembling data from more than 10,000 college grad over a 25+ year period. As many here have indicated, their study indicated that career earnings were independent of the college the student attended. But career earnings correlated to the most selective college which the student was accepted to. That is to say, that if a student was accepted to Harvard, his career earnings would be the same if she ultimately chose to attend Denison. I know Denison grads were included in the DB and either HY or P was also.</p>
<p>So yes, a person's abilities, attitude and diligence are the primary factors in determining career "succcess".</p>
<p>When I was a first year professional school student Time (I think) compared the lifetime earnings of the average member of my chosen vocation to that of an average union plumber, at the various stages of their careers and also over their lifetimes. It took , if I remember correctly, the average professional over (or right at) 20 years to recoup the lost earnings and tuition costs. Of course , we were all convinced we were substantially above average. At least that is the conclusion we all came to after our group therapy sessions.</p>
<p>A good school will retool your thought process while providing you with valuable skills and information. Ivy League schools have good reputations and name recognition. If you graduated from Dartmouth with a 3.5 you are probably capable of doing some work. Ten years later your academic career is overshadowed by your professional success. These are only a handful of schools but do produce an inordinate number of leaders in business and government. That doesn't mean that a hardworking student from The university of Oklahoma can't succeed.</p>
<p>Of course if the CEO of the company is your roomates mom, you might have a better shot at the application process and a lot of wealthy people put their kids into the more elitist schools.</p>
<p>Very interesting point Original. It makes sense.</p>
<p>Sounds like we are back to my old "smarts" postings. Given that it takes way above average smarts (IQ and grades) to get into an highly selective school--whether you go or not--and that earnings are positively correlated with this factor--so long as you went to college somewhere--it seems to me that intelligence and income are positively correlated. Certainly hard work makes a huge difference as we go along but we are talking trends here--not individual cases.</p>
<p>^ I have to agree with Barrons. And that argument goes back to SAT scores, especially in Verbal and Math (not grammar), which is why the smartest hiring managers in business, and especially finance/consulting love seeing SAT scores on the resume. All employers know that UCSD has a lot of geniuses, and so does UI Urbana Champaign. Finding them sometimes is easiest by looking for the SAT score and GPA.</p>
<p>There's an interesting thread from a while back that has to do with an Ivy League degree's impact on grad school placement and the job market...<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=8018%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=8018</a></p>
<p>Read Slipper1234s posts on there...here's a quote from one of them: </p>
<p>"One thing is that a great majority of people at the top schools went to Ivies or similar. You might find a person from Minnesota or Lehigh here and there, but honestly the difference is staggaring. My class has over 50 people from Dartmouth, but only 2 from Northeastern! And the drop-off is quick, we have only 6 from Wake Forest for example. </p>
<p>Here is how to really build a solid business career. Going to a top school is of tremendous value because that is where the top firms recruit. And they almost could care less about your major, what they are looking for is a college's brand name so when they go to their clients they can say, "Meet mike, he graduated cum laude from Williams." So majoring in Econ at an Ivy (most common) and getting a solid GPA (3.5ish) will put you in the running for the top jobs out there, the consulting firms and the banks."</p>
<p>I agree that really intelligent people will do well regardless of where they went to college, but going to a good college can help.</p>
<p>I think ivy grads have a monopoly on several categories of high paying jobs such as those at top corporate law firms, investment banks, consulting firms, etc. If working for such an institution is your dream or definition of success, got to an ivy. Now there are many personal injury lawyers who make much more money than most corporate lawyers, so is that greater success? If yes, no need for an ivy degree. However, in many fields, school really doesn't matter nearly as much. Bioengineering majors at UCSD get jobs comparable to those from Duke. My son, who could never have gotten into Duke, will get his opportunity to let the best employee win. Yet my law firm only interviews graduates of select top law schools. It's simply a matter of what you're aiming to do.</p>
<p>One additional factor which needs to be considered is the connections that some HYP students have prior to ever entering HYP. Anectdotal stories of large numbers of HYP graduates in certain law firms, corporations and/or political circles may point to a group of well connected and wealthy individuals who are smart and have inside pull for many of these choice positions. One wonders about the HYP graduate from a poor family from rural America--does HYP status make much of a difference?</p>
<p>HY graduate from an incredibly poor, uneducated, unconnected (!!) family here. I got the job and made partner. Don't get me wrong, several of the connected and not to bright entered my firm with me (but not as many as you might think. They still did fairly well at top schools other than one.) Not a single one lasted. I was wondering, too.</p>
<p>I am not sure what the big news is here. Ivy League grads should be earning more, I would think, given the preselection process. Also many Ivy Leaguers come onto the job scene with family connections that are automatically going to put them into big income figures. I believe a study was done several years ago where the researchers did a multi variable study where they stripped out these factors, and the numbers came out much closer that I would ever expect given the aura of the the Ivies.</p>