By now everyone has heard about Jack Smith, the newly appointed special counsel, charged with heading up the Trump case. He was appointed because his background is impeccable. He’s currently at The Hague, leading the prosecution of war crimes. Before that he was in Washington, DC, heading the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, prosecuting public corruption. He established his bona fides working as an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York. All of that is routinely stated as background in articles about his appointment as special counsel. Also routinely mentioned is the fact that he is a graduate of Harvard Law School.
What is rarely mentioned in Jack Smith’s bio is the fact that he earned his BA from Oneonta State College (SUNY) where he graduated summa cum laude.
What?! SUNY Oneonta? He couldn’t have possibly gotten accepted to Harvard Law from gasp a SUNY…and not even one of the ‘flagships’!
More seriously, thank you for highlighting what so many of us on this board try to remind people over and over - undergrad prestige is not the determinate in grad school admission or success in life.
Yes, it’s what we do with the opportunities life offers, not how the opportunities shape us. My primary care physician went to John’s Hopkins undergrad and UConn Med School. She’s mentioned several times that she should have done it in reverse.
I’m impressed with the list of alums from Oneonta - a current US ambassador who spent her career in the foreign service, the current NYC police chief, actor Bill Pullman, director/actor Edward Burns who made all of those great movies about Brooklyn, sports author and columnist Marty Appel, among others. I was pleasantly surprised.
And Giannis Antetokunmpo didn’t play college basketball at Kentucky. But if your goal is the NBA, I wouldn’t suggest going the Greek League route. People often confuse possible and probable.
It’s FAR more about what one does with their opportunities than it is about where they went to undergrad.
Although there are powerhouse graduate degrees among the various directors of NASA facilities from JPL to Wallops Island, not one holds an undergraduate degree from a school that would be considered prestigious. Save RPI, they are all random state schools.
Where you go in undergrad is (for the vast majority of students) where you can afford to go.
Let’s not kid ourselves that the 50k or so students at the ‘most prestigious undergrad’ schools made more of their opportunities than students not at those schools. The majority had more opportunities to begin with (majority of students at prestigious schools are from full pay families).
There are many students attending less prestigious schools with CVs just as impressive.
With all of the High School All Americans that they get, surprisingly Kentucky hasn’t won a national championship in the last 10 years. And that championship is the only one they’ve won in the last 24 years. In the 8 years since Kentucky’s last Final Four, Villanova, where a top ten recruit is a rarity, has been to 3 Final Fours and has won 2 national championships.
Villanova also has 9 players in the NBA right now, very few of whom had “NBA” written on their scouting reports coming out of high school.Kentucky has more than twice as many in the NBA, but most of those got drafted based on the reputations they built in high school more so than anything they did at Kentucky.
A lot of students around my area go to Oneonta, which is known as a solid school for B+/A- students. Plus it’s mascot is the Red Dragon, which is undeniably cool.
Opportunities build upon each other. Also, the elite schools do a reasonable job of removing financial barriers from the equation. Where you start in life matters and so does what you do with that initial entitlement.
Kentucky was known for a long time as a ‘One and Done’ school. It never builds any experience on the squad, and I don’t think the 18 and 19 year olds can make it through The Dance like those with 4 years of experience.
Your point about Jack Smith’s credentials and college selection is clear. But – your comment about being “pleasantly surprised” that SUNY Oneonta has its share of notable alumni seems harsh and and truly unfair. Oneonta is a lovely LAC in a beautiful part of NY.
In his defense, it is a school that virtually no one on this forum pitches. There’s nothing wrong with finding a surprise, especially a positive one. Just my opinion.
… once you are admitted. However, financial barriers ensure that students from low SES families are much more likely to be blocked from applying or earning the necessary achievements or credentials to be admissible to those elite schools, so the elite schools’ students are still highly skewed toward those from high SES families.
I was in a business conversation earlier this week with a guy who runs corporate development (M&A) for a Fortune 200 Company. He mentioned he was hiring and we discussed the types of profiles he would hire. He would only look at candidates from Investment Banking or an MBB consulting firm. He had a VERY strong preference for graduates of top private universities. He said he would MAYBE consider a Michigan or UVA grad if they had an SAT over 1400 (yes, he brought up SAT scores for people with work experience).
There is a segment of the career spectrum that I think many of you have no idea exists out in the world. Students who post here that are accused of “chasing prestige” are often given terrible advice. Going to Dartmouth instead of Ohio State can make a HUGE difference in certain (very lucrative) career paths. A lot of people on this board need to be open to the concept that they don’t know everything.
Having worked in IB right out of undergrad, I’m very aware of prestige hounds (I did graduate from one of those ‘prestigious’ schools people on here salivate over). I’m also aware of people in IB (since I worked closely with them) who went to what many here would consider ‘no name’ schools. There are many ways to get to Rome…and quite frankly, most people don’t want to go the IB route anyways.
…and for that reason there are many opportunities, lucrative and career-defining opportunities, for which they will never be considered. This is true, no matter how much many people don’t want it to be true.
Thanks for that truism? Also, in case anyone was unclear, there are also going to be people who restrain/restrict your opportunities because they are misogynistic, bigoted, just plain short sighted and a host of other reasons you can’t control either. This is true, no matter how much many people don’t want it to be true.
Kicking academic butt at a ‘less prestigious’ school isn’t the limiting factor for most students…whatever career they choose.
