Really, how important is it that you go to HYPSMC?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>All of my friends who have gotten into schools like Harvard and Stanford laugh at the idea of settling for UC Berkeley, and are very keen to remind me of it.</p>

<p>It has made my senior year as stressful as ever. I am so paranoid about my Stanford application. I have a hard time falling asleep sometimes worrying that the fate of my life will be decided before December.</p>

<p>But really is this the case? Will going to Berkeley for my undergraduate degree really be as horrible as my friends and many CCers claim. Is going to one of the 6 most prestigious schools in the nation really that important?</p>

<p>All this hype has made my parents crazy as well. They push me to no end, saying things like "you'll shame our family if you go to berkeley" (yes i'm asian)</p>

<p>The way people talk about things, it seems to be the case. Maybe they're insecure. Maybe they like to boast about getting into HYPSMC. But maybe they're telling the truth.</p>

<p>My question is: will going to a school like berkeley have a significant impact on my life? How much better would my life be if i went to HYPSMC?</p>

<p>If not, then why are people so crazy about getting into the top schools in the nation?</p>

2

<p>Your doomed for life.</p>

3

<p>
[quote]
All of my friends who have gotten into schools like Harvard and Stanford laugh at the idea of settling for UC Berkeley, and are very keen to remind me of it.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You need better friends. Going to Berkeley is not going to "doom" you in any way, shape, or form. Do you think that Lawrence Ellison (Oracle), Michael Dell, or Steve Jobs (Apple) really would have been any more or less successful if they had gone to the almighty and wonderful HYPMSC?</p>

<p>I doubt it.</p>

<p>Jonas Salk went to CUNY and then NYU.
Einstein didn't even graduate from an American university! (that dunce!)
Spielberg and Lucas didn't need Ivies to be successful.
Bill Clinton only went to an Ivy (Yale) for law school! He even managed to be a Rhoades Scholar with a Georgetown degree! And President of the US!
John Mather, a recent Nobel Laureate, didn't go to an Ivy (but I guess a Nobel Prize isn't THAT prestigious...)</p>

<p>The list goes on and on. If you feel like any of the aforementioned aren't successful enough, then I can't help you.</p>

4

<p>I could understand someone worrying about not going to college ruining their life - but not HYPS? Give me a break.</p>

5

<p>For engineering, only Caltech or MIT is more prestigious (and Berkeley actually has a better engineering dept. than Caltech.)</p>

<p>In terms of professional careers like law or medicine, you basically are in line to go anywhere. I know guys from less prestigious places who ended up at Harvard Law or Med. Plus, if you do <em>really</em> well there you will be in line for the English Scholarships (Rhodes, Marshall, and Churchill scholarships.)</p>

<p>Also, Berkeley has so many great departments that recs from their professors are like gold. They are top 5 or 10 in everything; I think I read that they have more top 10 departments than any other school in the country. Getting into a great grad school in science, engineering, or the humanities will be easy as long as you do ok at Berkeley grade wise (3.0/4.0 or above.) If you do really well there (3.7/4.0 or above), getting a very prestigious NSF Fellowship will be a possibility.</p>

<p>I know that Berkeley is less prestigious than Stanford and HYP because its sheer size makes it impossible to be as selective and because of the stigma of state schools. However, everyone knows that Berkeley is probably harder than HYPS in terms of the rigor of the classwork and maybe its equal in terms of the competition for the curve. If you go to Berkeley, you had better be psyched to be there, because it is an unforgiving place and anyone could get raped by the classes if they weren't taking the classwork extremely seriously.</p>

6

<p>OP: How much better would my life be if i went to HYPSMC?</p>

<p>There are certain doors it opens, like, for example, Wall Street recruits heavily at HYPSMC. I still think you could probably get a Wall Street job at an elite place like Goldman Sacchs--I defer to those that would know on this issue. Also, real newspapers actively recruit from the Harvard Crimson (the school newspaper.) It also may fasttrack you in politics because of the strong network HYP has (I'm not as familiar with this area, though.) However, this doesn't explain why people are so crazy about it. Most people who go to HYPSMC never use these connections anyway. And for someone with a high school record such that Berkeley would be a safety, you have nothing to worry about in terms of future success. The people who need HYPSMC on their resume' are the people for whom Berkeley is NOT a safety.</p>

7

<p>
[quote]
Jonas Salk went to CUNY and then NYU.
Einstein didn't even graduate from an American university! (that dunce!)
Spielberg and Lucas didn't need Ivies to be successful.
Bill Clinton only went to an Ivy (Yale) for law school! He even managed to be a Rhoades Scholar with a Georgetown degree! And President of the US!
John Mather, a recent Nobel Laureate, didn't go to an Ivy (but I guess a Nobel Prize isn't THAT prestigious...)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Okay, I don't think going to HYPMSC is of fundamental importance and i agree with you but I'm so tired of these anecdotal examples of why HYPMSC is important. People do this all the time: OMG i have a list of 500 millionaires who did't go to Ivies!! Yayy!! Seriously, men like Clinton, Einstein, whatever, are one in a million (perhaps one in a few million), literally. To each Clinton you pull out of the bag, I can drag out 100's of nameless people who went to average colleges and then lived 'unsignificant' lives. Your argument says nothing about how secure the future of a college grad is in relation to where he went to graduate or undergraduate school, even though you may think it's revealing.</p>

<p>Collegealum's post is much more informative. It's certainly true that, with an Ivy degree, you may have an easier time at the recruiting stage, and there are connections to be made at elite schools, but many people do not necessarily need those connections to live happy and comfortable lives... I also agree that Berkeley is a very strong school in some areas and you should be quite happy there.</p>

8

<p>The funny thing is, you only really care about what college you attend when you are in high school. Once you are actually in college, you'll forget all about things like SAT scores, and where your college places on US News. (well, not exactly true, you'll care but only because of school pride) Colleges are more similar than they are different, and while attending a top 25 school versus a community college is a big difference, attending a top 25 school versus another top 25 school really doesn't matter. It's sad how competitive college admissions has become, only due to the immaturity and short-sightedness of high school students. Is it fun to gloat about getting into HYPSM? Sure, for a few months until you actually start college, and then no one will care. Will it give you a boost later in life? Possibly, depending on your goals. Is it life-changing? Not by a long-shot. Some myths that lead people to believe there's actually a big difference between attending HYPSM and another top 50 school:</p>

<ol>
<li>HYPSM is more challenging than other colleges.</li>
</ol>

<p>Actually, college is as easy or as hard as you make it. At almost any college, you can make your life harder by taking upper-division courses, graduate courses, do research, etc., or easier by taking easy classes and only the minimum units required.</p>

<ol>
<li>HYPSM have better faculty/peers.</li>
</ol>

<p>A lot of cutting-edge technology is done at no-name schools. And actually, if you happen to attend a school with many nobel-prize winners, chances are they won't be teaching undergraduate classes. And if they are, chances are they won't be fantastic teachers because they're so into research.</p>

<p>As for peers, even at the top colleges there will be people who make you wonder how they got in, as well as those who just don't do a lick of work. As long as you do the work, you'll never end up at the bottom of the curve.</p>

<ol>
<li>HYPSM will give me a better job when I graduate.</li>
</ol>

<p>If you're majoring in something like English or Theater, chances are someone from a no-name college who's majoring in engineering will be making more than you in four years. Getting a good job depends on a lot more than what college you attended, such as how you performed at said college, interviews, etc. And after your first job or two, no one will really care where you went to college. Just like after the first year of college no one will care about what you did in high school.</p>

<p>Okay, I can probably think of more examples later, but you get the idea.</p>

9

<p>
[QUOTE]
Okay, I don't think going to HYPMSC is of fundamental importance and i agree with you but I'm so tired of these anecdotal examples of why HYPMSC is important. People do this all the time: OMG i have a list of 500 millionaires who did't go to Ivies!! Yayy!! Seriously, men like Clinton, Einstein, whatever, are one in a million (perhaps one in a few million), literally. To each Clinton you pull out of the bag, I can drag out 100's of nameless people who went to average colleges and then lived 'unsignificant' lives. Your argument says nothing about how secure the future of a college grad is in relation to where he went to graduate or undergraduate school, even though you may think it's revealing.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>The people who go on to lead insignificant lives would have lived them out at HYP as well. Only you can decide where your life goes, no one else.</p>

10

<p>This is an interesting article re Fortune 500 CEOs and their educational backgrounds-- <a href="http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2005_CEO_Study_JS.pdf#nameddest=edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2005_CEO_Study_JS.pdf#nameddest=edu&lt;/a> See pages 6 & 7 for the educational background statistics.</p>

11

<p>"A thorough bred runs his own race...... "</p>

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<p>A couple of weeks ago I was at a real estate law seminar. I normally don't even pay attention when the moderator is reading the speakers' bios, but this year I did since we're in a college selection mode. One speaker had a Harvard undergrad and one had a Yale undergrad. They are doing the same thing that I am, with my Illinois State undergraduate degree...and given the types of firms in which we are practicing, I'm pretty sure I make more money.</p>

13

<p>It only matters if you want to go into business, law, or medicine, and even then its more about grad than undergrad.</p>

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<p>Chill the heck out! The prestige of where you go to college is not nearly as important as what you make of it, and your success in life is determined by your personality and work ethic, not whether you went to berekely over stanford...</p>

15

<p>amb3r,</p>

<p>I'm trying to make the OP feel better, that's all. I know that HPYMSC open up many doors. Trust me, I know. But all I'm trying to do is show that you can be successful anywhere. Is that so horrible?</p>

16

<p>OP:</p>

<p>I had nice chat with my next door neighbor last night. She is Asian (Chinese) but has been living in this country for a while. Her take is that the Asian focus on getting into the top of the elite schools dates back to the ancient Confucian system of taking tests to move ahead in civil service. To this day, I gather, it's important to go to the "right" school in much of Asia because of this sense that learning in the be-all and end-all of future accomplishment.</p>

<p>This is not the way it works in US culture. This is not to say that certain careers don't benefit from having gone to the most prestigious schools, or that having "Harvard" on your resume won't give you a bit of a tailwind in a job interview, but attending Harvard in the US is not like attending the U of Tokyo in Japan. It is not a ticket and it is not necessary for future success.</p>

<p>Berkeley is a wonderful school.</p>

17

<p>Claremont Mckenna graduates, per capita, make more money than any other college graduates in the country.</p>

<p>Screw HYPS.</p>

18

<p>Tarhunt,</p>

<p>I've always suspected that your argument holds some (most?) truth in it. Until VERY recently, going to Todai or Kyodai or a few other schools in Japan was the fast ticket to success. Today, it's becoming increasingly less true as the market forces people to rethink universities. Heck, even in Japan many of the most successful businessmen (and yes, most were men) were not graduates of the top schools. Honda Soichiro comes to mind.</p>

19

<p>HYPSMC doesn't matter at all. Really. A lot of people are going to waste a lot of time typing paragraphs in defense/criticism of HYPSMC/etc., but it doesn't matter... you won't listen until you see for yourself when you get into the real world. I know people that went to community colleges for two years and transferred into "lowly" state u's, and are making bigger bucks than 4 year Harvard/Yale/Princeton graduates.. Just like the brand of cereal you buy, name doesn't really matter when it comes to colleges. ESPECIALLY for undergrad. You could go to Bumble**** State U for undergrad, and then get your advanced degrees at HYPS, etc.. and nobody would care one iota about your first degree.</p>

<p>Name doesn't matter. What you learn does.</p>

20

<p>UCLA:</p>

<p>Thanks for the info. I'm really just going on hearsay, and I know very little about Asia other than that. Thanks again.</p>