<p>Starting March 29th at 5 PM the fates of many young intelligent students will be determined by the following schools: Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Dartmouth University, Columbia University, and Brown University.</p>
<p>I personally don't care if I get into anyone of them, but I know a lot of you do, and it is exciting to find out. I wish you all the best of luck and want you all to know that you are all good people and still geniuses in your own special way even if you don't get into any Ivy League schools (like in my case).</p>
<p>I don't see myself checking on March 29 at 5pm. I'll be in the Bahamas for another two days, and I wouldn't want my rejection letters to make me feel bad and hole myself in my room for two days.</p>
<p>That, and two of the people I'm rooming with during this trip applied to the exact same Ivies as me, so have fun on March 29th, I'll be waiting until the 31st.</p>
<p>well it does affect your fate, your life will obviously be very different if you attend Harvard rather that tufts or UCLA or wherever. It won't necessarily be better, but it will be different, meaning there is at least a neutral effect on one's fate.</p>
<p>^Don't assign so much greater/deeper meaning to it. These schools are selling you an educational product. It's not your life's meaning here. (I'm not jaded, but I'm not starry-eyed either.)</p>
<p>How so? Not all Harvard grads make millions. I recently met a smart, hardworking Harvard grad who works as a city&state reporter for a local newspaper. She doesn't make much at all, and she has to work weekends. Sucks to be her.</p>
<p>Paulfoerster said: "A rejection from Harvard will cost someone millions of dollars in the long run..."</p>
<p>In fact, there was a study done, comparing students of similar academic caliber, their college choices, and their salaries. It turns out, that those who got into Ivies but chose to go to state school made just as much money/were just as successful in the end, as those who went to the ivies. </p>
<p>** DO NOT ** kid yourself into thinking that the only way you'll be successful in the world is by going to an ivy league school. Ivies educate such a small number of students and cannot and do not provide the sole source of educated workers.</p>
<p>Though to be fair on the legitimacy of that study- the study is designed with a major bias. That is, its not simply those that were of equivalent caliber but for whatever reason didn't get in, its those who did get in and chose not to go, which signals a very rare personality. Certainly some of them were driven by economics (though with the upper schools that hardly seems to make sense), more likely those who would choose to do so are freethinkers and independent learners who felt they were just as well off.</p>
<p>In short: Someone who chooses not to go to Harvard after they get in is distinguished as exceptional by that act of choice. The study doesn't prove that "lower" schools == HYPS. It proves that brilliant minds/ exceptional individuals will achieve equally well regardless of circumstance (at least to a degree).</p>
<p>arbiter...only something like 9% of Fortune 500 CEOs went to Ivy Leagues, MIT or Stanford. Most of the world's billionaires did not go to top twenty schools. The average Harvard graduate makes 40K per year after graduation.</p>
<p>In the business world, where you go to school almost literally doesn't matter. In Law, Medicine or other professional fields, maybe it matters (I don't know because I'm not interested.) Go to college where you think you'll be most interested, have the most fun and meet the best people. Don't go because you think you'll end up making more money. If you're not happy, you will have completely wasted four years of your life.</p>