State schools, private schools, and you.

JCampbell · December 12, 2006, 1:22pm

Just a couple of ponts- again I see replies that pull several companies out of thousands...tens of thousands. I hate to say this, but your chances of getting those cushy jobs at specific firms out of school will be very slim. Even out of school, you start at the bottom. In IT, your school doesn't matter as much as you think.

someone mentioned Cisco... funny you should mention that.

Average salary for Cisco Certs as my memory serves me (I have a CCNA)

CCNA - ~40-50k
CCNP - ~60-80k
CCIE - ~90-150k

If you have a CCIE and know your stuff, you WILL get an excellent job and that is what matters, not where you got your degree. a Masters from ANYWHERE will be beneficial however.

If you know your stuff and can show it, that will speak volumes more.

Sakky, you will not go from school to an executive position. Even if you are a top grad from Harvard Law.

There are top people-millionaires and billionaires-who have worked and proven themselves coming from state schools. Hell, our Secretary of State got her Ph.D from Denver.

While there ARE selective jobs...nowhere have I ever denied it... the jobs that the majority of people reading CC are going to end up are the typical job. You and others MUST get off of this grand illusion! Northrop Grumman, HIM and other Government contractors, Bell, etc... those that work and have an MS (because these days a BS usually is just a way to get started) do fantastic. They make a good living, they are happy, and that again is where the large percentage will end up. And to think of it as something that would be a failure sets one up to live life disappointed over something that's a significant milestone and a very good living.

Chedva, I should have expanded on it. Your major is what you should focus on at the time. My suggestion to anyone is to get a degree in a practical form of what they enjoy. A Sociology major (since we're talking football) is almost completely pointless. Even for a social worker it doesn't help much. A degree in Mechanical Engineeering, Chemical Engineering, even in Art or Design will be more helpful to a job off the bat.

However, the point of a major "being what you should want to do" is to start broad then focus down. Don't focus on one specific area unless you're like me and have had the time to consider everything... even I changed majors because I chose IT based on the money and not because of my own feelings.

If you go 3 years in one field, then decide to change your major, it's better to finish it off then move to the new degree, on a practical level.

I'm still finishing up my IT/Business degree simply because I can use i to support my met degree in the real world.

sakky · December 12, 2006, 5:40pm

[quote]
Average salary for Cisco Certs as my memory serves me (I have a CCNA)

CCNA - ~40-50k
CCNP - ~60-80k
CCIE - ~90-150k

If you have a CCIE and know your stuff, you WILL get an excellent job and that is what matters, not where you got your degree. a Masters from ANYWHERE will be beneficial however.

[/quote]

Actually, I know about Cisco certifications fairly well. And I think you overgeneralize. The cisco cert salaries are mostly based on experience. For example, most CCIE's have extensive field experience, and it is that experience that is really drawing their salaries, not the cert. Even without the cert, most of these people would be making good salaries anyway simply by virtue of their experience.

On the other hand, there are CCIE's who get only mediocre, low-paying jobs. Their problem? No experience. You can become a CCIE without any working experience, just by practicing in a lab. In fact, I would estimate that if you had 3-6 months with absolutely nothing else to do (no job, no family commitments), and had a fully stocked lab, and you studied every day, you could pass the CCIE exam at the end of that time even if you started out knowing nothing. In fact, I know people who have done just that. But that doesn't mean that you will get a good job. There is a big difference between lab study and practical Cisco networking experience. For example, commands like "clear ip route *", which you have to do in the lab are considered to be completely anathema in the real world. Floating static routes are a common tactic in the real world, but you're not allowed to use them in the CCIE.

Look, the CCIE is just an exam of fast configuration. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't teach you proper design. In the exam, you are just given a set of conditions to fulfill, and it's your job to fulfill them, regardless of how convoluted or inefficient your final configuration is. For example, if you need to redistribute 4 routing protocols into each other all on the same low-end router, you do it, even if you would never do that in the real world. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that having strong design skills can actually be a * hindrance * in the sense that if your design skills are good, then you would actually refrain from doing some of the things that the exam wants you to do, because they aren't really good design practices. For example, in the real world, sometimes the best routing design choice is a floating static route. But that's not available to you in the exam.

[quote]
Sakky, you will not go from school to an executive position. Even if you are a top grad from Harvard Law.

[/quote]

Really? That's news to both me and to the numerous people I know who have done just that. Not from law school (I don't know that many lawyers), but from business school? Oh yeah. For example, I know plenty of people who have graduated from Harvard Business School or the MIT Sloan School of Management who were immediately hired into executive positions. In fact, just a few days ago, a guy I know from HBS just got offered a Vice President position at financial services firm. Granted, it's a relatively small firm but it's still an executive position.

[quote]
There are top people-millionaires and billionaires-who have worked and proven themselves coming from state schools. Hell, our Secretary of State got her Ph.D from Denver.

[/quote]

First off, Denver is not a 'state school'. It is a private school. Just because a school is named after a city doesn't make it a state school. For example, NYU and UChicago aren't state schools either.

But more to the point, nobody is disputing that there are people from state schools who are extremely successful. Heck, given the sheer number of students at the state schools, just from a statistical standpoint, you would expect this to happen. For example, I believe that the Arizona State University system (all 3 campuses), with about 50,000 undergrads, actually has more undergrads than the ENTIRE Ivy League does. And that's just one state university system in a state that isn't even close to being the most populous state in the country. The entire University of California system has about 190,000 undergrads, and the entire California State University system has about 350,000. You can then add up all of the other state systems and clearly they make the private school students look miniscule by comparison. Obviously when you have that many people, you are going to have some of them who are highly successful.

But the point is that the top schools students enjoy * disproportional * success. For example, I believe that Harvard, from its undergrad program, has produced more US Presidents than all of the non-military-academy public schools combined. {Military academies are a special case because they are also extremely selective, just like the Ivies}. That's an amazing feat when you consider that Harvard has only 6000 undergrads.

[quote]
While there ARE selective jobs...nowhere have I ever denied it... the jobs that the majority of people reading CC are going to end up are the typical job. You and others MUST get off of this grand illusion! Northrop Grumman, HIM and other Government contractors, Bell, etc... those that work and have an MS (because these days a BS usually is just a way to get started) do fantastic. They make a good living, they are happy, and that again is where the large percentage will end up. And to think of it as something that would be a failure sets one up to live life disappointed over something that's a significant milestone and a very good living.

[/quote]

First off, nobody is saying that these people are 'failures'. And I agree that most people will end up in these jobs.

But just because you are statistically unlikely to get one of the coveted jobs doesn't mean that you shouldn't TRY to get it. It would be a sad world indeed if people no longer tried to get what they wanted. Trying means giving yourself the maximum chance of getting something. Sure, statistically speaking, you'll probably fail. But at least you tried and so you have the psychological peace of knowing that you tried. It's a lot better to try and fail than to never try at all. Otherwise, you might spend the rest of your life wondering "what if".

sakky · December 12, 2006, 6:02pm

[quote]
Basically, I just wanted to say that JCampbell makes incredible points. There is no reason whatsoever that a person should go to a private school just because it's a private school. And really, don't be like the friends I have and look down upon the people who want to go to a public school. It's, like most people said, all about the match.

[/quote]

[quote]
So the other night I go see "The Messiah" which had 4 wonderful, accomplished opera singers. Reading the playbill I was pleased to read of one of the main singers who...............graduated from Penn State........and was now teaching at.......... UPENN. Darn good thing the state kids are willing to teach at your fancy, prestigious schools.

[/quote]

I don't think anybody ever said to go to a private school just because it is a private school. There are plenty of mediocre private schools out there. Nobody is recommending that anybody go to any of them.

Furthermore, nobody is saying that public schools are all bad. Some public school programs are among the best in the world. Berkeley, for example, is an absolutely fantastic place to get your PhD, probably among the top 3 in the country overall, and for some disciplines, it is THE top place to go. I know people who have happily turned down PhD programs at Stanford, Harvard, and MIT to get their PhD at Berkeley. Similarly, UCSF, Michigan, UCLA, and Washington have great medical schools. Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, and Virginia have top notch law and business schools. Illinois, Georgia Tech, Purdue, and Michigan are darn fine places to get your engineering PhD. These are all public programs. Even if we were talking about undergrad, which has always been the weak spots of public schools, I would still probably prefer to go to Berkeley for undergrad than, say, Emory, or Johns Hopkins or Carnegie Mellon.

The issue is not really about public vs. private, but rather about top programs vs. non-top programs, regardless of whether the programs are public or private. I know people who are getting their PhD's in chemistry who really wanted to go to Berkeley to do it, but didn't get in, so they got "stuck" going to places like Penn or Duke to do it. For them, it was the public school that was the "fancy prestigious school", and they got stuck with the less prestigious, less fancy * private * school. Berkeley (along with MIT) has the top chemistry PhD program in the country. For many chemists, having a PhD from Berkeley is the gold standard. I hardly doubt that anybody who is pursuing a career in chemistry academia is "looking down" upon people who want to go to a public school. If anything, they are looking up to these people.

So the issue has nothing to do with public schools vs. private schools * per se *. It has to do with wanting to go to whatever is the top program, public or private, in your particular field. If it's somehow "misguided" for people to want to go to Harvard for undergrad, then it's equally misguided when people want to go to Berkeley for their chemistry PhD.

To me, it all comes down to ambition. What's wrong with wanting the best (whatever that happens to be in your field)? People should be striving to get the best they can get. That's simple human nature. Everybody should be trying to do the best they can. To say otherwise is to say that people should have no ambition.

Like I said, nobody is saying that you will always get what you want. Sure, the very highly selective jobs out there are only available to a small percentage of people. But does that mean that you shouldn't try to get them? Because something is hard to get, you're not even going to try? What kind of defeatist attitude is that? If you try to get something and fail, hey, at least you tried.

barrons · December 13, 2006, 1:06pm

Applied Security Analysis Program Hailed by Smart Money Magazine
December 11, 2006

The Applied Security Analysis Program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business is featured as producer of top fund managers in the January issue of Smart Money magazine, now on news stands.

Where are the next crop of top-rated fund managers coming from? the magazine asks. Nope, its not Harvard or Wharton. Take a look at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

The article examines the 36-year history of the program and tracks the experiences of current MBA students in the Applied Security Analysis Program, as they manage real portfolios totaling $44 million. The article follows students as they make presentations to sometimes hard-to-impress investment professionals, most of whom are ASAP alumni, who serve as board of directors. The article explores the reasons behind the success of the rigorous program.

According to the article, Wisconsin has quietly produced some of the best mutual fund managers in the country, including Bill Nygren of Oakmark and Fidelitys Stephen Petersen.

Eight other Wisconsin alumni who are prominent investment managers are also featured:

Michael Casey, Cliffwood Partners
William Frels, Mairs and Power
Foster Friess, Friess Associates/Brandywine Funds
Jill Greueninger, Mason Street Advisors/Northwestern Mutual
Brian Hellmer, Northern Capital Management
Betsi Hill, Credit Suisse
Ted Kellner, Fiduciary Management
Jay Sekelsky, Madison Investment Advisors
The article also outlines the impressive credentials of students enrolled in the Applied Security Analysis career specialization of the Wisconsin MBA, many of whom turned down admission at other top business schools due to the reputation of the ASAP program.

Chedva · December 13, 2006, 1:20pm

I don't think anyone is disputing that there are some excellent state schools, like UW - Madison, UCLA, Berkeley, U Michigan. However, just as not all private schools are on the same level as HYP, not all public schools are on the same level of those. And once you move out of your own state school system, the financial benefits of attending a public school go down considerably. (And for many of those kids, you also have to factor in travel expenses.)

Besides, not all kids will thrive at huge universities, and in order to get the jobs cited in the article, you still have to be at the top of your class.

JCampbell · December 13, 2006, 1:35pm

[quote]
Actually, I know about Cisco certifications fairly well. And I think you overgeneralize. The cisco cert salaries are mostly based on experience. For example, most CCIE's have extensive field experience, and it is that experience that is really drawing their salaries, not the cert. Even without the cert, most of these people would be making good salaries anyway simply by virtue of their experience.

On the other hand, there are CCIE's who get only mediocre, low-paying jobs. Their problem? No experience. You can become a CCIE without any working experience, just by practicing in a lab. In fact, I would estimate that if you had 3-6 months with absolutely nothing else to do (no job, no family commitments), and had a fully stocked lab, and you studied every day, you could pass the CCIE exam at the end of that time even if you started out knowing nothing. In fact, I know people who have done just that. But that doesn't mean that you will get a good job. There is a big difference between lab study and practical Cisco networking experience. For example, commands like "clear ip route *", which you have to do in the lab are considered to be completely anathema in the real world. Floating static routes are a common tactic in the real world, but you're not allowed to use them in the CCIE.

Look, the CCIE is just an exam of fast configuration. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't teach you proper design. In the exam, you are just given a set of conditions to fulfill, and it's your job to fulfill them, regardless of how convoluted or inefficient your final configuration is. For example, if you need to redistribute 4 routing protocols into each other all on the same low-end router, you do it, even if you would never do that in the real world. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that having strong design skills can actually be a hindrance in the sense that if your design skills are good, then you would actually refrain from doing some of the things that the exam wants you to do, because they aren't really good design practices. For example, in the real world, sometimes the best routing design choice is a floating static route. But that's not available to you in the exam.

[/quote]

The problem is that you need to go CCNA->CCNP->CCIE which means that unless you (not you specifically) are a complete idiot with no drive, you'll be working in that timespan.

And yes, you do need to have the job expierence. The trend in IT is gearing more towards that and more away from the "Paper-MCSEs" that have plagued and saturated the industry, making a niche job suddenly competitive and allowing the position to be easily expendable.

[quote]
Really? That's news to both me and to the numerous people I know who have done just that. Not from law school (I don't know that many lawyers), but from business school? Oh yeah. For example, I know plenty of people who have graduated from Harvard Business School or the MIT Sloan School of Management who were immediately hired into executive positions. In fact, just a few days ago, a guy I know from HBS just got offered a Vice President position at financial services firm. Granted, it's a relatively small firm but it's still an executive position.

[/quote]

I would never work for a company if I knew they hired board memebers or officer positions to people with no expierence at all. Sure, they're great schools, but the element of actually being in the world for several years makes me much more confident. But hey, that's my personal opinion.

[quote]
First off, Denver is not a 'state school'. It is a private school. Just because a school is named after a city doesn't make it a state school. For example, NYU and UChicago aren't state schools either.

But more to the point, nobody is disputing that there are people from state schools who are extremely successful. Heck, given the sheer number of students at the state schools, just from a statistical standpoint, you would expect this to happen. For example, I believe that the Arizona State University system (all 3 campuses), with about 50,000 undergrads, actually has more undergrads than the ENTIRE Ivy League does. And that's just one state university system in a state that isn't even close to being the most populous state in the country. The entire University of California system has about 190,000 undergrads, and the entire California State University system has about 350,000. You can then add up all of the other state systems and clearly they make the private school students look miniscule by comparison. Obviously when you have that many people, you are going to have some of them who are highly successful.

But the point is that the top schools students enjoy disproportional success. For example, I believe that Harvard, from its undergrad program, has produced more US Presidents than all of the non-military-academy public schools combined. {Military academies are a special case because they are also extremely selective, just like the Ivies}. That's an amazing feat when you consider that Harvard has only 6000 undergrads.

First off, nobody is saying that these people are 'failures'. And I agree that most people will end up in these jobs.

But just because you are statistically unlikely to get one of the coveted jobs doesn't mean that you shouldn't TRY to get it. It would be a sad world indeed if people no longer tried to get what they wanted. Trying means giving yourself the maximum chance of getting something. Sure, statistically speaking, you'll probably fail. But at least you tried and so you have the psychological peace of knowing that you tried. It's a lot better to try and fail than to never try at all. Otherwise, you might spend the rest of your life wondering "what if".

[/quote]

it's disporportinate because you are taking in accout law firms and other "good ol boy" companies.

A person can graduate from Harvard and be a complete idiot, provided they have enough money, just as often as a person can go to a state school and become highly successful.

Again, the point of this thread is because there is a trend that if you don't get into some of the more prestigious schools you won't get anywhere in life, that "settling" for a state school is a disappointment.

I see people using High School as a college-entrance builder and doing everything they can to pad thier stats... joining what is assumably every club they can, taking AP classes and losing a large chunk of thier life to get into one of these schools because of pressure that they would somehow fail at something if they didn't. While it's great that they're working hard to get into one of them, it sets them up for complete disapointment. An example is a notable thread that's been posted and linked to for over a year... a member posted about her son, who applied to only somethign like 5 schools, all of them were matches but so selective the S was waitlisted for a year. The story turned out ok, but the way she described the S's devistation was even more saddening.

If your grades aren't great, if you didn't jin every club or take every AP class, there is no reason to think of yourself as a failure... because proving yourself in the world after you graduate with what you learned on your own, and what you build on your own merit is much more rewarding.

Getting a high-paying job just beause you went to Harvard or MIT is great. But I'd feel better if I got that high-paying job because of what I knew, and not where I came from.

barrons · December 13, 2006, 1:41pm

Related topic--use of part-time and other non tenure track faculty. The American Association of University Professors just published a study of the numbers of adjuncts at a number of top schools. The number of adjuncts as a % of tenure-track faculty is shocking. Yale-50%, Columbia-44%, Harvard-57%, MIT 45%, Carnegie Mellon-55%, Johns Hopkins 54%, NYU 72%, Princeton 31%, USC 60%. Stanford was low at only 8.5%. Some major state schools included Indiana 31%, UCB 34%, UCLA 36%, Mich 46%, UNC 32%, Wisconsin 39%, UVa 33%.

JCampbell · December 13, 2006, 1:49pm

[quote]
I don't think anybody ever said to go to a private school just because it is a private school. There are plenty of mediocre private schools out there. Nobody is recommending that anybody go to any of them.

Furthermore, nobody is saying that public schools are all bad. Some public school programs are among the best in the world. Berkeley, for example, is an absolutely fantastic place to get your PhD, probably among the top 3 in the country overall, and for some disciplines, it is THE top place to go. I know people who have happily turned down PhD programs at Stanford, Harvard, and MIT to get their PhD at Berkeley. Similarly, UCSF, Michigan, UCLA, and Washington have great medical schools. Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, and Virginia have top notch law and business schools. Illinois, Georgia Tech, Purdue, and Michigan are darn fine places to get your engineering PhD. These are all public programs. Even if we were talking about undergrad, which has always been the weak spots of public schools, I would still probably prefer to go to Berkeley for undergrad than, say, Emory, or Johns Hopkins or Carnegie Mellon.

[bThe issue is not really about public vs. private, but rather about top programs vs. non-top programs, regardless of whether the programs are public or private.** I know people who are getting their PhD's in chemistry who really wanted to go to Berkeley to do it, but didn't get in, so they got "stuck" going to places like Penn or Duke to do it. For them, it was the public school that was the "fancy prestigious school", and they got stuck with the less prestigious, less fancy private school. Berkeley (along with MIT) has the top chemistry PhD program in the country. For many chemists, having a PhD from Berkeley is the gold standard. I hardly doubt that anybody who is pursuing a career in chemistry academia is "looking down" upon people who want to go to a public school. If anything, they are looking up to these people.

So the issue has nothing to do with public schools vs. private schools per se . It has to do with wanting to go to whatever is the top program, public or private, in your particular field. If it's somehow "misguided" for people to want to go to Harvard for undergrad, then it's equally misguided when people want to go to Berkeley for their chemistry PhD.

To me, it all comes down to ambition. What's wrong with wanting the best (whatever that happens to be in your field)? People should be striving to get the best they can get. That's simple human nature. Everybody should be trying to do the best they can. To say otherwise is to say that people should have no ambition.

Like I said, nobody is saying that you will always get what you want. Sure, the very highly selective jobs out there are only available to a small percentage of people. But does that mean that you shouldn't try to get them? Because something is hard to get, you're not even going to try? What kind of defeatist attitude is that? If you try to get something and fail, hey, at least you tried.

[/quote]

It's not defeatist... it's not putting your eggs in one basket, or making a huge life decision based upon the wrong reasons.

As I stated before, i'm learning firsthand the time and effort that can be wasted by making a school choice based on the potential money made and not what would make me happy.

I think you and I agree completely, we just got sidetracked into a private vs public school which was not my intent.

Every school has strong points and weak points in regards to programs. If you love marine life, don't feel like you need to go to Yale, which I'm assuming (although I could be wrong, but that's not the point) has no program just because you want to be from an exclusive school.

willpower102 · December 13, 2006, 3:01pm

I agree that the argument has been sidetracked. When discussing private vs. public, there are going to be all kinds of things brought up involving the top publics vs. the worst privates to try to support ones view.

I think the real question is, top ranked vs. lower ranked.
At what rank does rank stop mattering so much? Georgia Tech is ranked in the 30's, Virginia Tech in the 70's, and Tennessee Tech is so far down i don't even know the rank. But I've been there, and their engineering program is awesome. If you didn't get accepted to Ga Tech, is it really worth it to pay 25k a year for the next two years to go to Va (OOS) instead of Tn (5k, In state)? How important is that 3rd tier rank?

I don't think anyone is arguing the fact that the top 25 universities in America are well worth the money but, below that line, where does the value become negligible?

sakky · December 15, 2006, 1:02pm

[quote]
The problem is that you need to go CCNA->CCNP->CCIE which means that unless you (not you specifically) are a complete idiot with no drive, you'll be working in that timespan.

[/quote]

Uh, no you don't. Take a look at the cert requirements. You don't "need" to have done the lower certs in order to become a CCIE. The CCIE requirements are simple - pass the written CCIE exam, and then pass the lab CCIE exam. At no time do you need to have passed the CCNA or CCNP exams, which are separate exams.

<a href="http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/exam/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/exam/</a>

Now, granted, many people do in fact complete the lower certs before tackling the CCIE. But you don't * need * to do that. You can just jump right to the CCIE. In fact, I know people who have done just that. If you think you're ready, you can make that jump. Nobody is going to say "Oh, you didn't get the lower certs, so we're not going to allow you to take the CCIE exam". That's not how it works.

In particular, you should keep in mind that some of the lesser certs contain things that you don't need to know for the CCIE. Take the R/S version of the CCIE, and then compare that to the CCNP. To become a CCNP, you need to pass either the BCRAN or the new ISCW exam. That means either knowing how to configure async dialup modems on the router, or configuring DSL/cable-model commands (i.e. PPPoE and PPPoA stuff). But that stuff is not on the R/S CCIE exam. I know plenty of R/S CCIE's who have never done any of those things. Now, granted they're not that hard to learn. For example, knowing PPPoE/PPPoA simply means understanding how a virtual template interface works. But the point is, you don't really "need" to know that to become a CCIE. Hence, the CCIE is not really a superset of the CCNP, as each cert test you on things that the other cert does not. Heck, in theory, a person could pass the CCIE and fail the CCNP. Unlikely to be sure, but still possible.

Nor will you necessarily be working in that timespan. Like I said, I think somebody who is motivated and has 3 months with nothing else to do and access to a lab can become a CCIE even if starting from nothing. 3 months is not a very long time at all. That's just one summer.

[quote]
I would never work for a company if I knew they hired board memebers or officer positions to people with no expierence at all. Sure, they're great schools, but the element of actually being in the world for several years makes me much more confident. But hey, that's my personal opinion.

[/quote]

Well, think about what that means. It means that you would never work for many tech startups, including some that have become extremely successful companies, such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and the like. Alll of these companies were founded, and their initial management consisted largely of, people who had minimal, usually no actual practical full-time work experience (internships and part-time work don't count as full-time experience). Bill Gates never held a real job before running Microsoft. Brin and Page never held real jobs before starting Google. And much of the initial management at all of these companies were school buddies of the founders, because that's what startups generally do - the founders staff up their companies by hiring a whole bunch of their friends, and if those founders just came out of school (or in Gates's case, dropped out of school), then most of their friends will themselves be fresh out of college with no experience.

So if you say that you would never work for a company that hires officers with no experience, then that basically would have meant that you would have never worked for these startups in their early days. But apparently other people didn't have this qualm, and anybody who was an early employee at any of these companies and stayed with them are now multi-millionaires from their stock options who are laughing all the way to the bank. For example, from its founding until 2000, Microsoft was estimated to have generated over 10,000 stock-option millionaires among its employee ranks, most of them obviously having joined in the early days. I hardly doubt that many of these people regret theri choice of working for a company that, at least back in the old days, hired officers right out of school.

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/business/yourmoney/29millionaire.html?ei=5088&en=719bdf75eedf80c8&ex=1275019200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1166132969-tx8MqXrvxNhQwVDr1luiFg%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/business/yourmoney/29millionaire.html?ei=5088&en=719bdf75eedf80c8&ex=1275019200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1166132969-tx8MqXrvxNhQwVDr1luiFg</a>

In fact, if anything, Microsoft is probably a far less appealing company nowadays to work for, as opposed to in the past. After all, the days of Microsoft hypergrowth are over, and so there is little opportunity to become filthy rich through Microsoft stock options. Microsoft nowadays has traditional hiring schemes that did not hire officers with no experience. But back in the old days, especially the startup days, Microsoft did hire inexperienced officers. But be honest, when would you have rather joined Microsoft - today, or back in 1975? I think that's not a close call.

[quote]
it's disporportinate because you are taking in accout law firms and other "good ol boy" companies.

[/quote]

I would actually argue that this is not 'disproportionate', but is in fact another reason to prefer the top schools. After all, much of business success is not so much about what you know than about * who * you know. College is a proven place to get to know people that you would never know otherwise. If you aren't born with connections, then you have to build them yourself.

Take Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft and billionaire. How did he even get into Microsoft in the first place? Don't you think that the fact that he was Bill Gates's old poker-playing pay back at Currier House at Harvard had something to do with it? I would argue that it had * everything * to do with it. Let's face it. If Ballmer had never went to Harvard, he would have never met Bill Gates, and he wouldn't be a billionaire right now. Ballmer is obviously an extremely competent manager, but there could have been somebody else out there that was even better than Ballmer, but Gates didn't hire that person because that person wasn't Gates's old Harvard buddy.

Here are Gates and Ballmer talking about their deep personal relationship, which would have obviously never happened in the first place if they had never gone to Harvard.

<a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/10/25/267787/%5B/url%5D">http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/10/25/267787/</a>

[quote]
Again, the point of this thread is because there is a trend that if you don't get into some of the more prestigious schools you won't get anywhere in life, that "settling" for a state school is a disappointment.

[/quote]

I don't believe anybody is proposing that all state schools are simply a matter of 'settling' for a school. Like I said, there are plenty of mediocre private schools too. Furthermore, depending on your program, state schools may be the best program in your field. Like I said, if you are looking to get a PhD in Chemistry, you can't really do much better than Berkeley. I know people who wanted to go to the PhD Chemistry program at Berkeley, but didn't get in, and so were forced to 'settle' for the PhD Chem program at places like Yale, which is not as good of a program. In these cases, it is actually the people who are going to the private schools who could be said to be 'settling'.

What I am saying is that there is nothing wrong with people ambitiously striving for the best program in their field, whatever that program happens to be. That's not to say that if you don't make it, you're a failure. But you still try to get to the best program you can.

[quote]
I see people using High School as a college-entrance builder and doing everything they can to pad thier stats... joining what is assumably every club they can, taking AP classes and losing a large chunk of thier life to get into one of these schools because of pressure that they would somehow fail at something if they didn't. While it's great that they're working hard to get into one of them, it sets them up for complete disapointment. An example is a notable thread that's been posted and linked to for over a year... a member posted about her son, who applied to only somethign like 5 schools, all of them were matches but so selective the S was waitlisted for a year. The story turned out ok, but the way she described the S's devistation was even more saddening.

[/quote]

Well, I don't want to be harsh, but I think the problem here is a case of carelessness. If you need to go to a school, then you ALWAYS apply to a safety school, so that you don't end up in a situation where you end up not getting in anywhere. I think this is rather common knowledge. Come on, not choosing a safety school is like driving a car without wearing your seatbelt. You're needlessly playing with fire.

The major exception of course is when you don't really "need" a school. This tends to happen with graduate degrees. For example, I know many highly successful people who have said that the only MBA program they would go to is Harvard's. That's because their career is going well enough that they don't really 'need' an MBA, and so the only program that they would put their career on hiatus for is the one that will give them the best boost, and for them, that's Harvard. If they don't get in, fine, they'll just continue with their current job. So in this case, they don't need a safety because the status quo is the safety.

[quote]
Getting a high-paying job just beause you went to Harvard or MIT is great. But I'd feel better if I got that high-paying job because of what I knew, and not where I came from.

[/quote]

Well, look. The truth is, we live in a world where markeitng is important. Companies spend billions of dollars a year in marketing their products because the better marketing you have, the more you tend to sell. A lot of good products fail because they are poorly marketed, and a lot of mediocre products succeed because of great marketing. Fair or not fair, that's the reality. For example, in the movie industry, some terrible movies generate huge ticket sales, whereas some great movies generate terrible sales, because of the marketing.

Going to a brand-name school is just another form of marketing, and leveraging that brand name to get a job is akin to companies marketing a product to generate more sales. I see nothing wrong with it.

sakky · December 15, 2006, 1:51pm

[quote]
It's not defeatist... it's not putting your eggs in one basket, or making a huge life decision based upon the wrong reasons.

As I stated before, i'm learning firsthand the time and effort that can be wasted by making a school choice based on the potential money made and not what would make me happy.

[/quote]

Nobody is saying that happiness doesn't matter. But that, in itself, ought not to be overrated. After all, just think about the situation from a career standpoint. There are very few careers in which you don't sometimes have to do things you don't really want to do, in order to advance your career. Whether it's taking a job project that you're not really interested in but that you know will help you advance in the company, or completing a checklist of things that will help your promotion, even if some of those things on the checklist are not interesting to you, or even taking a job that you don't really like just to get the experience, the point is, if you want to advance, you don't always get to do what you want to do. You don't always get to do things that make you happy. It gets down to self-discipline and delayed gratification. Sometimes you have to do things you don't like in order to get to do the things that you do like.

An analogy would be military bootcamp. I am quite certain that no budding soldiers actually 'enjoy' bootcamp. But if you want to be a soldier, you have to do it. Similarly, I am fairly sure that few doctors really enjoyed the grueling process of being medical students and then serving their internship/residency, and few lawyers actually enjoyed their time as a young overworked law associates. These are the things you have to go through to advance your career. Sometimes you have to put up with initial pain.

The real question is not whether you sometimes you have to put up with pain, but rather when does that pain become unnecessary? Like I said, if your goal is to simply be a line engineer at some no-name manufacturing company, you don't really need to put up with the pain of MIT.

[quote]
Every school has strong points and weak points in regards to programs. If you love marine life, don't feel like you need to go to Yale, which I'm assuming (although I could be wrong, but that's not the point) has no program just because you want to be from an exclusive school.

[/quote]

But see, even this is, I believe, more complex than meets the eye. You say that you should choose a school with a good program. The problem with that is that, frankly, most people will not end up working in whatever field they majored in. After all, think about it. How many history majors actually become professional historians? How many poli-sci majors actually become political scientists? How many math majors actually become professional mathematicians.

To give you some examples, Sam Palmisano, CEO of IBM, was a history major. Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, was a math major. Tom Anderson, President and Founder of MySpace, was a Rhetoric and English major, and also has a master's degree in Film Studies. Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder of YouTube, majored in Fine Arts. Numerous other examples exist of people pursuing careers that have nothing to do with their undergrad major. You can even end up being an extremely successful academic in a field that has nothing to do with what you did as an undergrad. Vernon Smith, for example, got his BS in EE from Caltech, then got a PhD in Economics from Harvard. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his groundbreaking work in behavioral economics. It's not clear to me what EE has to do with behavioral economics. But that just goes to show you that people can and do successfully switch fields.

The truth is, much of the value of the top schools is in the networking. Look at Steve Ballmer. They are also largely a branding/marketing exercise - a signal that you were good enough to get into that school in the first place. There are also strong socialization benefits to be had, for by simply surrounding yourself with sharp, motivated people, as that will tend to spur you to become motivated yourself. Contrast that with the situation where lots of surrounding students are lazy and unmotivated, which will tend to make you unmotivated also.

I'll give you a personal example. I know a guy from Turkey who is getting his doctorate at Harvard. He knows full well that for his particular discipline, Harvard is probably not the best school in his field to ge a doctorate, and if his goal was to become an academic in the United States, there are other schools that have better programs. But that's not really his plan. His plan is to actually go back to Turkey and either work for a ministry or perhaps run for political office, and if he does that, the Harvard brand name will be a huge asset. Regular voters in Turkey don't know what the top schools are in his particular field. All they know is that Harvard has a famous brand name. So basically, he's at Harvard just for the branding, and that's entirely rational because he knows that that branding will help him achieve his goals to become successful in Turkey. I don't see anything wrong with that. These are the things you do when you want to advance your career.

JCampbell · December 15, 2006, 2:48pm

As I also said before, you are looking at specific cases to support your case instead of all companies as a whole.

Internet companies are in no way traditional, and of the few successes (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc) there are tens upon thousands of companies that failed due to horrible decisions and overinflated investments/expenditures.

In cases where people have a degree in a general field, they are not hired of right away into a Sr. Executive position.

You agred to what I said, that the top schools are best for networking, and as such the "good ol' boy" club. you continue to point out specific examples from a large minority of not only college graduates but also of positions and companies in the workforce. You cannot use such examples when on the whole the large majority will not be hired off the bat so high. The companies they work for will not be Microsoft or a large firm in Manhattan.

This is the problem I see.. not a real problem per se, but one in which CC does not represent the majority of the undergrad population of the nation.

The point of my thread continues to get lost on you. I'm not dissuading people from trying or applying to a top school. I am stating that many of the percieved "lesser schools" may have stronger programs, and that depending on one's chosen major that applying or struggling to attend those schools because of the prestiege may be a bad idea simply because while the school may be strong on a whole, the specific program might not.

Again, you keep directing this into the assumption that going to an Ivy is worthless. I'm not saying that.

I am saying with a selected major, a "lesser school" may in fact be a better choice.

i'd also like to add that Bill Gates was successful because he was at the right place at the right time, and took someone else's idea and ran to the right people with it. But that's another topic I don't want to get into.

barrons · December 15, 2006, 2:52pm

Funny, the Chairman of Cisco is a UW grad and the CEO is from Indiana U. Ballmer is an idiot. He should have been fired years ago. The stock finally got back to $30 yesterday--breakout the bubbly.

sakky · December 15, 2006, 5:34pm

[quote]
As I also said before, you are looking at specific cases to support your case instead of all companies as a whole.

[/quote]

Uh, I thought I had explained that previously. I am well aware of what I am doing - and it is to illustrate a point. I obviously agree that the vast majority of jobs out there are 'regular' jobs, and the vast majority of people will end up with 'regular' careers. The question is, what if you don't just want to end up like the vast majority of people? What if you want to enjoy unusual success, or at least have the best shot you can get at having that success?

[quote]
Internet companies are in no way traditional, and of the few successes (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc) there are tens upon thousands of companies that failed due to horrible decisions and overinflated investments/expenditures.

[/quote]

I think this is a bit of an unfair characterization. The fact is, the vast majority of any new business ventures in any field fail. For example, I've read somewhere that 95% of new restaurants will fail in the first 5 years. I'm quite sure that all of them had rosy predictions of all of the patrons they were going to attract, only to see those predictions fail to materialize. After all, nobody opens a restaurant thinking that it's going to fail. The only difference between that and the Internet is that the scale of the Internet failure was larger in terms of money - in that many of them took plenty of investor capital and then failed. But the notion of new businesses that fail is not new, but is actually an endemic feature of all entrepreneurship. Anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur or small business owner in ANY field has to understand that the chances of failure are high. That's business.

[quote]
In cases where people have a degree in a general field, they are not hired of right away into a Sr. Executive position.

You agred to what I said, that the top schools are best for networking, and as such the "good ol' boy" club. you continue to point out specific examples from a large minority of not only college graduates but also of positions and companies in the workforce. You cannot use such examples when on the whole the large majority will not be hired off the bat so high. The companies they work for will not be Microsoft or a large firm in Manhattan.

[/quote]

Why can't I use those examples? This is all about maximizing your chances of success. Even if those chances are still low, you should still strive to maximize them. For example, if you want to make it to the NFL, it behooves you to go to one of the college football 'factory schools' such as USC, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida, Notre Dame, etc., because that is where you are going to get the most exposure to NFL scouts and where you will get the best training and coaching that will help you prep for the NFL draft. Most players at these schools STILL don't make it to the NFL. But that doesn't invalidate the model - if anything, it strengthens.

What you are saying is that because the superstar jobs are hard to get and so few in number, you shouldn't worry so much about choosing a good school. If anything, I would say that the exact opposite is true - that it is ** precisely ** because these jobs are hard to get makes it important to go to the right school, just like because it's so hard to get into the NFL makes it important to get the best boost you can by choosing the right college football program.

[quote]
The point of my thread continues to get lost on you. I'm not dissuading people from trying or applying to a top school. I am stating that many of the percieved "lesser schools" may have stronger programs, and that depending on one's chosen major that applying or struggling to attend those schools because of the prestiege may be a bad idea simply because while the school may be strong on a whole, the specific program might not.

[/quote]

Again, trust me, it's not that I don't understand your point. I understand your point perfectly. It's that I fundamentally disagree with it.

On this particular point, I disagree also - simply because, like I said, most people do not end up working in jobs that pertain to their major anyway. Like I said, most history majors will not become historians. Most sociology majors will not become sociologists. So who really cares if you go to a top program in your field if you don't actually end up working in that field, which most people will not? When that is the case, it once again comes down to the general strength of your school, because of the networking and the branding and all of the things I mentioned. To make something up, let's say that Harvard has a weak German program (I don't know if this is true, but let's say it's true). Yet the fact is, most students studying German in Harvard are not going to be pursuing that for a career, so who really cares how weak the specific program is? What matters is that they got to spend years networking with other Harvard students, and they have that Harvard brand name which will help them to market themselves to companies.

[quote]
i'd also like to add that Bill Gates was successful because he was at the right place at the right time, and took someone else's idea and ran to the right people with it. But that's another topic I don't want to get into.

[/quote]

Sure enough. But what about all of the guys around him? All of the guys he pulled from Harvard, who became Microsoft's first few employees, like Ballmer? All of these guys became rich too. Whether Bill Gates stole the idea or not, at least he somehow got the idea. Those other guys didn't even have the idea, yet they got rich anyway, which would never have happened if they had never known Bill Gates, which in turn would never have happened if they hadn't gone to Harvard.

Now, I know what you are going to say - that this is rare. Of course it is. You don't go to Harvard expecting this to happen. But the point is, it MIGHT happen. By going to a top school, you open the door to these possibilities, just like playing quarterback for Notre Dame opens the door to the possibility for you to get to the NFL. It's all about chances.

That's not to say that people who end up in lower-ranked schools are 'failures'. I wouldn't be so harsh in that characterization. But at the end of the day, getting admitted to a top school is a good thing.

[quote]
Funny, the Chairman of Cisco is a UW grad and the CEO is from Indiana U

[/quote]

Even more funny, the 2 founders of Cisco (Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack) are Stanford graduates. In fact, the reason why they founded the company in the first place is because they were working in 2 separate computer labs on the Stanford campus and they wanted to send electronic love letters to each other (they were engaged to be married), so they designed a router to do that, and then they decided to start selling that router. And many of the first employees at Cisco were Stanford grads, because they were buddies of Lerner and Bosack.

Furthermore, let's keep in mind that the Chairman, John Morgridge, is also a Stanford grad (Stanford MBA), in addition to being a Wisconsin grad.

[quote]
Ballmer is an idiot. He should have been fired years ago. The stock finally got back to $30 yesterday--breakout the bubbly.

[/quote]

So what if he's an idiot. He's a * billionaire * idiot. So whether he's stupid or not, he's laughing all the way to the bank.

And in fact, if he's really an idiot, then that reinforces my point even more. You can be an idiot and be successful anyway just because you know the right people, which you can get by going to a top school with top students. That's evidently what Ballmer did as far as getting to know Bill Gates at Harvard.

JCampbell · December 15, 2006, 8:57pm

[quote]
Uh, I thought I had explained that previously. I am well aware of what I am doing - and it is to illustrate a point. I obviously agree that the vast majority of jobs out there are 'regular' jobs, and the vast majority of people will end up with 'regular' careers. The question is, what if you don't just want to end up like the vast majority of people? What if you want to enjoy unusual success, or at least have the best shot you can get at having that success?

[/quote]

Because going to a private school will not give you the best shot. It's one "strength" and I say this with quotes... amongst many one can have.

[quote]
I think this is a bit of an unfair characterization. The fact is, the vast majority of any new business ventures in any field fail. For example, I've read somewhere that 95% of new restaurants will fail in the first 5 years. I'm quite sure that all of them had rosy predictions of all of the patrons they were going to attract, only to see those predictions fail to materialize. After all, nobody opens a restaurant thinking that it's going to fail. The only difference between that and the Internet is that the scale of the Internet failure was larger in terms of money - in that many of them took plenty of investor capital and then failed. But the notion of new businesses that fail is not new, but is actually an endemic feature of all entrepreneurship. Anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur or small business owner in ANY field has to understand that the chances of failure are high. That's business.

[/quote]

completely off topic, fair enough. businesses fail and very few made it. the LUCKY ones. Which was statistically rare and completely inappropriate to use as an example.

[quote]
Why can't I use those examples? This is all about maximizing your chances of success. Even if those chances are still low, you should still strive to maximize them. For example, if you want to make it to the NFL, it behooves you to go to one of the college football 'factory schools' such as USC, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida, Notre Dame, etc., because that is where you are going to get the most exposure to NFL scouts and where you will get the best training and coaching that will help you prep for the NFL draft. Most players at these schools STILL don't make it to the NFL. But that doesn't invalidate the model - if anything, it strengthens.

What you are saying is that because the superstar jobs are hard to get and so few in number, you shouldn't worry so much about choosing a good school. If anything, I would say that the exact opposite is true - that it is precisely because these jobs are hard to get makes it important to go to the right school, just like because it's so hard to get into the NFL makes it important to get the best boost you can by choosing the right college football program.

[/quote]

Wrong. D1 schools scout some of the best players from high school, however a very large number of players do not come from Miami, UM, FSU, UT, OU, NU, ND, USC, etc. Many come from D2 or D1-AA schools.

Again, you're still using chances as an argument...i'll finish this later n in the post.

[quote]
On this particular point, I disagree also - simply because, like I said, most people do not end up working in jobs that pertain to their major anyway. Like I said, most history majors will not become historians. Most sociology majors will not become sociologists. So who really cares if you go to a top program in your field if you don't actually end up working in that field, which most people will not? When that is the case, it once again comes down to the general strength of your school, because of the networking and the branding and all of the things I mentioned. To make something up, let's say that Harvard has a weak German program (I don't know if this is true, but let's say it's true). Yet the fact is, most students studying German in Harvard are not going to be pursuing that for a career, so who really cares how weak the specific program is? What matters is that they got to spend years networking with other Harvard students, and they have that Harvard brand name which will help them to market themselves to companies.

[/quote]

However, many Biochem majors end up working in that field. Many geology majors work in that field. Many CS majors end up in that field. Many medical majors end up in that field. I could go on but I won't.

And personally, we're getting down to opinion. Studying German in Harvard just to get the status is like taking Sociology just to get and attend a D-1 school to play football.

But then again, it's just me. And it's going to the school for all the wrong reasons. It makes me sick that people use education not as a tool to enhance thier knowledge, or to do something they like to do, but to "buy more lottery tickets" to become a millionaire.

I love how you pointed out "Harvard brand name" because it reminds me of kids who pay $200 for a shirt that has a company logo on it.

Later on you're going to make a reference to making money. I'm going to address that now-I would turn down a million dollar a year job if it involved doing something I wasn't happy with.

[quote]
Sure enough. But what about all of the guys around him? All of the guys he pulled from Harvard, who became Microsoft's first few employees, like Ballmer? All of these guys became rich too. Whether Bill Gates stole the idea or not, at least he somehow got the idea. Those other guys didn't even have the idea, yet they got rich anyway, which would never have happened if they had never known Bill Gates, which in turn would never have happened if they hadn't gone to Harvard.

Now, I know what you are going to say - that this is rare. Of course it is. You don't go to Harvard expecting this to happen. But the point is, it MIGHT happen. By going to a top school, you open the door to these possibilities, just like playing quarterback for Notre Dame opens the door to the possibility for you to get to the NFL. It's all about chances.

That's not to say that people who end up in lower-ranked schools are 'failures'. I wouldn't be so harsh in that characterization. But at the end of the day, getting admitted to a top school is a good thing.

[/quote]

The problem is that there's an illusion that it brings up that false opportunity. That statistically if you even take a generalization of the amount of successful people that attend and do well after going to a state school to those in top schools they will be roughly the same.

You continue to imply that your chances of becoming successful in ANY position are greater if you go to a top end school.

[quote]
Even more funny, the 2 founders of Cisco (Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack) are Stanford graduates. In fact, the reason why they founded the company in the first place is because they were working in 2 separate computer labs on the Stanford campus and they wanted to send electronic love letters to each other (they were engaged to be married), so they designed a router to do that, and then they decided to start selling that router. And many of the first employees at Cisco were Stanford grads, because they were buddies of Lerner and Bosack.

Furthermore, let's keep in mind that the Chairman, John Morgridge, is also a Stanford grad (Stanford MBA), in addition to being a Wisconsin grad.

[/quote]

So?

I can name 20 employees with Cisco who are geneerously paid who are graduates of state schools. Again, you are selecting your examples and that is the basis of a flawed argument.

There is more to life then becoming an executive and serving on several boards. There is more to life than making money. There is more to life then struggling through a place that for all reasons might not even be enjoyable just to have a chance to play the super-success lottery.

I still stand that people should never feel like a failure or sacrifice happiness just to obsess over a "top rated" school.

sakky · December 16, 2006, 10:12pm

[quote]
Because going to a private school will not give you the best shot. It's one "strength" and I say this with quotes... amongst many one can have.

[/quote]

First off, I never said anything about necessarily going to a 'private' school. I was talking about going to a GOOD school, whether public or private. There are plenty of mediocre private schools out there. Nobody is advocating going to one of them.

Secondly, in the context of this thread, getting into a good school WILL give you a better shot, as compared to going to a mediocre school. That's the point. Obviously we can always bring in other things that come into play. Sure. But so what? Given the choice between going to a good school or a mediocre school, a good school gives you a better chance.

It's like saying that smoking hurts your health. Granted, lots of other things hurt your health too. Getting hit by a bus will hurt your health. But that's irrelevant. Given the choice between smoking and not smoking, the choice to not smoke is the healthier choice. Obviously you can choose not to smoke and still die by getting hit by a bus. But that's not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is, should you smoke or not?

[quote]
completely off topic, fair enough. businesses fail and very few made it. the LUCKY ones. Which was statistically rare and completely inappropriate to use as an example.

[/quote]

How so? It is COMPLETELY appropriate. Again, that's why aspiring NFL players are better off going to one of those college football factory schools, even though the majority of players at even those schools will not make it to the NFL. If you goal is a difficult one, then it behooves you to muster all the help you can get.

Just think about the situation from a psychological standpoint. Yeah, statistically, you'll probably still fail anyway. But at least you gave it your best shot. Then you can at least tell yourself that you gave it your all, and so you can walk away with no regrets. That's better than spending the rest of your life wondering if you might have succeeded if you had played your hand differently.

[quote]
Wrong. D1 schools scout some of the best players from high school, however a very large number of players do not come from Miami, UM, FSU, UT, OU, NU, ND, USC, etc. Many come from D2 or D1-AA schools.

Again, you're still using chances as an argument...i'll finish this later n in the post.

[/quote]

Of course I am still using chances. Life is all about chances. Sure, "many" come from D2 or D1AA schools. But so what? My grandfather smoked 3 packs a day and still lived to be 90. So does that mean that I should also smoke 3 packs a day if I want to live to be 90? Heck, even he recommended to us not to take up smoking.

[quote]
However, many Biochem majors end up working in that field. Many geology majors work in that field. Many CS majors end up in that field. Many medical majors end up in that field. I could go on but I won't.

And personally, we're getting down to opinion. Studying German in Harvard just to get the status is like taking Sociology just to get and attend a D-1 school to play football.

[/quote]

And that's precisely what does happen! You know and I know that plenty of D-1 football players are not in school to learn anything, they are there just to play ball and make it to the NFL. Heck, if I was sure I'd make it to the NFL, I'd probably not care about what I majored in either.

But anyway, you are basically just reinforcing my point which is that it isn't all that important what you major in, because frankly, most people end up in careers that are not tightly related to their undergrad major anyway.

[quote]
But then again, it's just me. And it's going to the school for all the wrong reasons. It makes me sick that people use education not as a tool to enhance thier knowledge, or to do something they like to do, but to "buy more lottery tickets" to become a millionaire

[/quote]

It may be the 'wrong reasons' to you, but it is what it is. Come on, you and I have both seen how companies will demand bachelor's degrees for interviews for jobs even though, frankly, the job has nothing that actually requires a bachelor's degree. Like it or not, lots of employers use the bachelor's degree simply as a hiring screen. I've known companies where every employee, including the secretaries, had at least master's degrees, despite the fact that few of the jobs in that company actually required the knowledge of a master's degree.

Like it or not, this is a matter of signalling and screening. To use econ-speak, labor markets are riven with information asymmetries, because employers just don't know who is going to be a good employee and who isn't. Bad employees are going to try to present themselves as good ones. Hence, under normal conditions, labor markets will be greatly distorted and thus behave highly imperfectly by that lack of proper information. The way to restore a competitive, functioning market is therefore to introduce information signals, and like it or not, college degrees are one form of information signal.

I'll put it to you this way. Let's say that college degrees did not boost anybody's salary, did not provide an advantage in the job market. I think we would have to agree that in such a world, very few people would go to college. Like it or not, that's the truth. Most people who go to college are doing so because they want to improve their career prospects. Nothing more, nothing less. To them, school is just a credentialing process. Maybe that's not the way it should be, but that's the way it is, like it or not.

[quote]
I love how you pointed out "Harvard brand name" because it reminds me of kids who pay $200 for a shirt that has a company logo on it.

[/quote]

You're making a reference to Veblenian conspicuous consumption. But allow me to point out that such behavior is far from specific to just kids. Plenty of older men buy BMW's just to be able to show off that they're rich enough to afford a Beamer. Plenty of grown women buy Manolos just to be able to show off that they can afford Manolos (ever seen Sex and the City?).

Look, the psychology of mankind is such that people like to look good to others. That's why the cosmetics, fashion, and jewelry industries are billion dollar industries. That's why the luxury car sector is the most profitable sector of the entire auto industry. The vast majority of these goods are bought not by "kids", but by grown adults.

So even if you are correct that people are going to Harvard just to be able to say that they are going to Harvard, what's so unusual about that? That's no worse than a grown man buying a luxury car just so that he can show off that he can afford a luxury car. When we're talking about the ultra-luxury car market like the Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, Bentley, Maybach, let's be honest, why else does anybody buy these cars except to show off?

But I would argue that the value of Harvard is far more than just simply the value of showing off (yet, as established above, even that, by itself, is valuable). See below.

[quote]
The problem is that there's an illusion that it brings up that false opportunity. That statistically if you even take a generalization of the amount of successful people that attend and do well after going to a state school to those in top schools they will be roughly the same.

[/quote]

Have I been creating an illusion? How many times have I said taht your chances are low no matter what?

The REAL issue to me is psychological solace. If you did everything you could to succeed and you still don't, then you can at least tell yourself that you gave it your best shot. That's a lot better than going through life with the nagging doubt that maybe you could have succeeded if you had made a different decision. You don't want to spend the rest of your life wondering 'What if?'. If you get into Harvard or some other top-ranked program, and you turn it down for some no-name program, and you don't achieve the success you want, you will always be nettled by the possibility that you might have made it had you accepted that Harvard admission.

[quote]
You continue to imply that your chances of becoming successful in ANY position are greater if you go to a top end school.

[/quote]

In ANY position? Of course not. That's not the point. The point is - it is the SAFE choice, because it maximizes your chances in the aggregate. Just like putting on your seat belt doesn't guarantee that you won't get hurt in an accident. There are no guarantees in life. But putting on your seat belt is the safer choice.

[quote]
So?

I can name 20 employees with Cisco who are geneerously paid who are graduates of state schools. Again, you are selecting your examples and that is the basis of a flawed argument.

[/quote]

You ask 'so'? Here's why - the lion's share of the wealth generated by Cisco accrued to the original founders and employees, most of whom were Stanford graduates. That's true of ANY company - the bulk of the riches accrue to the founders and first employees. In fact, that's the way it SHOULD BE. The founders and first employees SHOULD get the bulk of the riches.

Think of it this way. If Lerner and Bosack had never went to Stanford, they would never have founded Cisco and people like Chambers and all of those other state school grads at Cisco wouldn't have their current jobs because those jobs wouldn't even exist because Cisco wouldn't even exist.

And besides, let's look at it statistically. Like I said before, the vast vast majority of college grads are grads from no-name schools. Again, Arizona State University has more undergrads than does the ENTIRE Ivy League. So obviously you can find plenty of grads from no-name schools who do well, simply because there are lots of these grads to begin with. Hence I would argue that, if anything, YOUR argument is a flawed argument. When group A simply has far more people than group B, you would expect group A to have more people who are succesful than group B simply due to sheer numbers.

This is all about the ODDS. Just because my grandfather smoked and still live to be over 90 doesn't mean everybody else should smoke. The issue is what the odds of success are. Going to a better school tends to give you better odds. Guaranteed? Of course not. But better odds.

[quote]
There is more to life then becoming an executive and serving on several boards. There is more to life than making money. There is more to life then struggling through a place that for all reasons might not even be enjoyable just to have a chance to play the super-success lottery.

[/quote]

You constantly bring up this issue of 'struggling', or 'happiness' or 'enjoyment' or whatnot. Yet you are presuming that people who go to the top programs somehow struggle or are unhappy. I have no reason to believe that these people are less happy or struggle more than people who go to no-name schools. Heck, if anything, I would argue that they are MORE happy. After all, compare the graduation rate of the top programs to the no-name programs. Ivy League schools graduate over 90% of their students. Plenty of no-name schools graduate less than 50%. If Ivy students are so unhappy, and students at no-name schools are happy, then why don't more of those Ivy students drop out, and why don't more of those students at no-name schools stick around and graduate? After all, nobody goes to college with the intention of dropping out. Presumably, you go to college with the intention of graduating.

Nevertheless, I agree with one part of what you said. I never said anything about giving up happiness. If the top programs don't make you happy, then don't go to one. On the other hand, I see no inverse relationship between top programs and happiness.

[quote]
I still stand that people should never feel like a failure or sacrifice happiness just to obsess over a "top rated" school.

[/quote]

This is the one part that I agree with, and have always agreed with. Nobody should feel like they are a failure, or sacrifice happiness to obsess over a top-rated school.

On the other hand, let's not kid ourselves. Going to a top program is a useful thing, and trying to deny this fact is simply not being truthful. The value of a top program is that

1) It gives you a very useful marketing weapon to use when you go job-hunting. It is entirely appropriate to give yourself all of the marketing help you can when you're looking for a job when you consider just how much money companies spend trying to market their products to you.

2) You get access to a better alumni network. Like I said, often times, it's not what you know, but WHO you know that determines your success.

3) You put yourself in a more positive sociological environment. When people around you are brilliant and are accomplishing amazing things, that will tend to inspire you to accomplish amazing things. On the other hand, when the people around you are not so amazing, then you will tend to not be motivated to be amazing. Throughout history, it has been shown that innovation tends to come in spurts that are centered both chronologically and regionally. For example, much of the best artwork in world history was produced in Italy during the few decades that represented Renaissance. And not in all of Italy, but only certain areas in Italy - Florence, Venice, to some extent Rome, etc. There wasn't much art being produced in, say, Sicily. Similarly, the most prolific time of philosophy in Western civilization was a certain roughly 200-year period of ancient Greece - when most of those Greek philosophers knew of each other and were inspired by each other, and some were actually direct students of each other (i.e. Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle). The presence of profound thinkers tends to inspire other profound thinkers, and that is why innovation throughout history has tended to proceed in spurts.

But again, I would reiterate, nobody is saying that anybody is a 'failure' if they don't get into a top school. Obviously life goes on. But let's not kid ourselves. Going to a top school is a good thing.

JCampbell · December 17, 2006, 12:14am

[quote]
First off, I never said anything about necessarily going to a 'private' school. I was talking about going to a GOOD school, whether public or private. There are plenty of mediocre private schools out there. Nobody is advocating going to one of them.

Secondly, in the context of this thread, getting into a good school WILL give you a better shot, as compared to going to a mediocre school. That's the point. Obviously we can always bring in other things that come into play. Sure. But so what? Given the choice between going to a good school or a mediocre school, a good school gives you a better chance.

It's like saying that smoking hurts your health. Granted, lots of other things hurt your health too. Getting hit by a bus will hurt your health. But that's irrelevant. Given the choice between smoking and not smoking, the choice to not smoke is the healthier choice. Obviously you can choose not to smoke and still die by getting hit by a bus. But that's not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is, should you smoke or not?

[/quote]

sorry, again I used the word "private" where I sould have used "top rated."

i'll give you an example of my major, meteorology.

PSU is much higher ranked than OU. Both are large, D1 schools. PSU has a much tougher admissions policy as well. Both have a met. program.

However, in this case a met graduate from OU would have a much better shot at getting a "better" job in the field. PSU.. you'd have a good shot as well, but not the best.

That's the reverse of what you continue to say, because you are still treating everything under a blanket statement. I've been falling into your trap because job-wise I let us talk about specific programs that top rated schools tend to pump out for. The only anomoly that we discussed is Cisco.

[quote]
How so? It is COMPLETELY appropriate. Again, that's why aspiring NFL players are better off going to one of those college football factory schools, even though the majority of players at even those schools will not make it to the NFL. If you goal is a difficult one, then it behooves you to muster all the help you can get.

Just think about the situation from a psychological standpoint. Yeah, statistically, you'll probably still fail anyway. But at least you gave it your best shot. Then you can at least tell yourself that you gave it your all, and so you can walk away with no regrets. That's better than spending the rest of your life wondering if you might have succeeded if you had played your hand differently.

[/quote]

Wrong, it's not even related. You're comparing the number of successful business ventures to...what again?

we were discussing companies like Google hiring straight from those top rated schools (even though they don't anymore) and how successful they were. I pointed out that many of those same models failed. That has nothing to do with this argument nor with what you've compared it to just now.. again, it went off topic.

[quote]
Of course I am still using chances. Life is all about chances. Sure, "many" come from D2 or D1AA schools. But so what? My grandfather smoked 3 packs a day and still lived to be 90. So does that mean that I should also smoke 3 packs a day if I want to live to be 90? Heck, even he recommended to us not to take up smoking.

[/quote]

going on that analogy, there are many non-smokers that develop lung cancer. Should they smoke because of that chance?

If a football player is good, they will be drafted.. scouts go to every game all over the U.S. it's the same principle. Now those programs are much more elaborate, and the stadiums and training centers rival those of the NFL.. because they build on one another.

However, let's look at some other schools.. Texas Tech, or UAB..how about those schools? Do you feel they have more or less of a chance of exposing one to the NFL?

[quote]
And that's precisely what does happen! You know and I know that plenty of D-1 football players are not in school to learn anything, they are there just to play ball and make it to the NFL. Heck, if I was sure I'd make it to the NFL, I'd probably not care about what I majored in either.

But anyway, you are basically just reinforcing my point which is that it isn't all that important what you major in, because frankly, most people end up in careers that are not tightly related to their undergrad major anyway.

[/quote]

see above.

[quote]
It may be the 'wrong reasons' to you, but it is what it is. Come on, you and I have both seen how companies will demand bachelor's degrees for interviews for jobs even though, frankly, the job has nothing that actually requires a bachelor's degree. Like it or not, lots of employers use the bachelor's degree simply as a hiring screen. I've known companies where every employee, including the secretaries, had at least master's degrees, despite the fact that few of the jobs in that company actually required the knowledge of a master's degree.

Like it or not, this is a matter of signalling and screening. To use econ-speak, labor markets are riven with information asymmetries, because employers just don't know who is going to be a good employee and who isn't. Bad employees are going to try to present themselves as good ones. Hence, under normal conditions, labor markets will be greatly distorted and thus behave highly imperfectly by that lack of proper information. The way to restore a competitive, functioning market is therefore to introduce information signals, and like it or not, college degrees are one form of information signal.

I'll put it to you this way. Let's say that college degrees did not boost anybody's salary, did not provide an advantage in the job market. I think we would have to agree that in such a world, very few people would go to college. Like it or not, that's the truth. Most people who go to college are doing so because they want to improve their career prospects. Nothing more, nothing less. To them, school is just a credentialing process. Maybe that's not the way it should be, but that's the way it is, like it or not.

[/quote]

Exactly. in many aspects, especially management, the degree just shows a step. I've been involved in hiring many mid-level employees, and have done countless interviews as such. In not one case has what school they earned the degree from ever come up. Not once. It's listed, sure.. but what matters most on the resume is what the employee shows that he/she can do.

Saying, "I went to HARVARD!!" usually doesn't mean a damn thing in the IT world. I don't care what numbers you bring up, or what specific few cases you can point out... this is my expierence in the corporate world for 10 years now. I've met plenty of MIT graduates. They are the few that are looked at closely. But Harvard, Yale, Stanford... not really. And these MIT graduates have also been passed up by those from non top-rated schools. Why? Because there is more to a resume than just the school.

In NO WAY have I ever suggested turning down a top rated school. I have suggested not working so hard to shoot for a school that might not have anything to do with a major if you have chosen one. That's a key factor here. If you haven't, then the school's list of majors might not be an important factor. However, if you do know what you want to study, do not choose a school just by its overall rank.

If I were to be accepted to Yale, I would turn it down. I'm sure I'd get a large amount of aid, maybe even a free ride. But the program there isn't the best out there. And by what I've learned in the world is that the program quality is what matters, not the overall school.

Again, if you're undecided.. even if you have decided.. I have not said it was best to not go to a top rated school. If you're accepted into NYU or Chicago and it's a fit, by all means go there. It definately won't hurt.

However, don't spend your entire highschool life pushing yourself to get into a school if you don't have the capacity to. Work for it, but don't waste your youth for smething that can let you down. If you do happen to get A's and have a ton of ECs that you took BECAUSE YOU LIKED THEM, and end up having to go to a safety school, don't be dismayed because you can be just as successful and nobody should ever tell you otherwise. If you end up at a top school, congrats..there is nothing wrong with it.

[quote]
You're making a reference to Veblenian conspicuous consumption. But allow me to point out that such behavior is far from specific to just kids. Plenty of older men buy BMW's just to be able to show off that they're rich enough to afford a Beamer. Plenty of grown women buy Manolos just to be able to show off that they can afford Manolos (ever seen Sex and the City?).

Look, the psychology of mankind is such that people like to look good to others. That's why the cosmetics, fashion, and jewelry industries are billion dollar industries. That's why the luxury car sector is the most profitable sector of the entire auto industry. The vast majority of these goods are bought not by "kids", but by grown adults.

So even if you are correct that people are going to Harvard just to be able to say that they are going to Harvard, what's so unusual about that? That's no worse than a grown man buying a luxury car just so that he can show off that he can afford a luxury car. When we're talking about the ultra-luxury car market like the Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, Bentley, Maybach, let's be honest, why else does anybody buy these cars except to show off?

But I would argue that the value of Harvard is far more than just simply the value of showing off (yet, as established above, even that, by itself, is valuable). See below.

[/quote]

Look, I'm a simple man. I have no idea what a "Veblenian conspicuous consumption" is and really I see no reason fo you to bring in something like that unless it warrants an explination after my replies.

However the rest of what you state is that society looks upon such things and it should be accepted. Perhaps. But showing how it's a flaw in humanity as such should bring you to not support it, right? So why continue to imply that one should just go along with that? If it's something that is... what's the word I'm looking for...wrong, in a sense, it doesn't mean it's the right choice. Nor is it the wrong choice.

[quote]
Have I been creating an illusion? How many times have I said taht your chances are low no matter what?

The REAL issue to me is psychological solace. If you did everything you could to succeed and you still don't, then you can at least tell yourself that you gave it your best shot. That's a lot better than going through life with the nagging doubt that maybe you could have succeeded if you had made a different decision. You don't want to spend the rest of your life wondering 'What if?'. If you get into Harvard or some other top-ranked program, and you turn it down for some no-name program, and you don't achieve the success you want, you will always be nettled by the possibility that you might have made it had you accepted that Harvard admission.

[/quote]

Again, I never told someone to turn down a top rated school. This thread is not in the admissions forum, it is in the search & selection forum.

I made this post because I noticed people who stated they didn't want to post thier stats in chances threads because people would constantly call thier school choices "crap" and go on and on about H/Y/C/S/etc.

I feel that CC has been continually restricting itself, and preventing opening itself up to a larger group because of this habit of focusing on Ivy. i'm well aware it's been like this from its inception. My thread was to hopefully get people to understand that they're school might be just as good as those top rated ones. That they might have a stronger program than those in top schools.

I am not trying to equate a top school with a lower ranked university.
I am not trying to say it's bad to shoot for a top school.
I am not going to say to turn one down, every situation is different.

-BUT-

I am suggesting someone to look at all programs and find the fit for them. a FIT. that is what the right school is about. not the ranking. not the name.

[quote]
In ANY position? Of course not. That's not the point. The point is - it is the SAFE choice, because it maximizes your chances in the aggregate. Just like putting on your seat belt doesn't guarantee that you won't get hurt in an accident. There are no guarantees in life. But putting on your seat belt is the safer choice.

[/quote]

Again, chances of being successful in YOUR view. I.E. selective jobs and money.

There's more to life than money, there's more to a job than pay and benefits. You might disagree, but my priorities are apparently much different.

[quote]
You constantly bring up this issue of 'struggling', or 'happiness' or 'enjoyment' or whatnot. Yet you are presuming that people who go to the top programs somehow struggle or are unhappy. I have no reason to believe that these people are less happy or struggle more than people who go to no-name schools. Heck, if anything, I would argue that they are MORE happy. After all, compare the graduation rate of the top programs to the no-name programs. Ivy League schools graduate over 90% of their students. Plenty of no-name schools graduate less than 50%. If Ivy students are so unhappy, and students at no-name schools are happy, then why don't more of those Ivy students drop out, and why don't more of those students at no-name schools stick around and graduate? After all, nobody goes to college with the intention of dropping out. Presumably, you go to college with the intention of graduating.

Nevertheless, I agree with one part of what you said. I never said anything about giving up happiness. If the top programs don't make you happy, then don't go to one. On the other hand, I see no inverse relationship between top programs and happiness.

[/quote]

What's happy? Is staying home from weekly football games to study happy? Is not hanging out with friends happy? Is taking a ton of ECs just to pad a transcript happy?

I'm not saying that NOT doing those will make you happy, but if you are forcing yourself to do things you don't want to do then don't do it.

I hate Hollywood, and I hate pop culture movies. I hate bringing them up in what I would consider a debate... however there is a message in "Orange County" that some people might want to think about.

I think I could go to PSU, or at least work on going there. I can definately go to OU (Oklahoma). But I'm going to another school that's second to both of those because of other priorities that mean more to me.

Again, fit.

I think graduation rates are attributed more to the type of student.. a lower ranked school has a much larger student body, and much lower standards. I feel many take these lower standards to go into programs that are too difficult for them and they drop out. Or perhaps they get a job offer while in school. Maybe money is an issue, we'll never know.

it's no surprise an Ivy's rate is very high.. once you're in you probably have no reason to leave, even if you hate it there.

[quote]

1) It gives you a very useful marketing weapon to use when you go job-hunting. It is entirely appropriate to give yourself all of the marketing help you can when you're looking for a job when you consider just how much money companies spend trying to market their products to you.

[/quote]

It gives you the illusion of having a weapon. it's like bringing a beautifully crafted sword to a battle where you have no idea what the other side has.

It's hit or miss having that weapon. You might apply to someone who DOES hire you based on the school. You might not. In fact, chances are you won't.

Again, we cannot apply blanket statements to the specific nature of the subject.

[quote]

2) You get access to a better alumni network. Like I said, often times, it's not what you know, but WHO you know that determines your success.

[/quote]

I agree with the alumni statement, but that what you know/who you know statement...

You might get a job because of who you know. But you'll only keep it because of what you know.

I have known complete morons who have graduated from Princeton, Harvard, and I think Yale (I'm not 100% sure on that last one). Then again, I have known people from those schools who don't fail to impress me also. it's hit or miss, just like anywhere else.

[quote]

3) You put yourself in a more positive sociological environment. When people around you are brilliant and are accomplishing amazing things, that will tend to inspire you to accomplish amazing things. On the other hand, when the people around you are not so amazing, then you will tend to not be motivated to be amazing. Throughout history, it has been shown that innovation tends to come in spurts that are centered both chronologically and regionally. For example, much of the best artwork in world history was produced in Italy during the few decades that represented Renaissance. And not in all of Italy, but only certain areas in Italy - Florence, Venice, to some extent Rome, etc. There wasn't much art being produced in, say, Sicily. Similarly, the most prolific time of philosophy in Western civilization was a certain roughly 200-year period of ancient Greece - when most of those Greek philosophers knew of each other and were inspired by each other, and some were actually direct students of each other (i.e. Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle). The presence of profound thinkers tends to inspire other profound thinkers, and that is why innovation throughout history has tended to proceed in spurts.

[/quote]

I'm not sure I follow.. I don't see how this is relevant. Again, this is in regards to college search, not admissions.

If you are smart enough to go into those schools, and if you have the mental capacity to actually learn and know the stuff, then by all means go- just as long as you're not selling yourself short.

Honestly, I'm 27 and gradated highschool with no ECs and a 1.8 GPA. Looking at my trasncript one would think I was, well, an idiot. However I know personally I'm not. Sure, I don't know everything... hell, there's a lot I don't know, such as your phrase listed above. However I know I have the ability to learn more than people assume, and I know I'm smarter than what my grades in highschool report. I currenty take courses that push me to my limits.

However I do it to enhance myself, not to my resume. The only person I have to prove anything to is myself.

[quote]

But again, I would reiterate, nobody is saying that anybody is a 'failure' if they don't get into a top school. Obviously life goes on. But let's not kid ourselves. Going to a top school is a good thing.

[/quote]

Not if it isn't who you are.

sakky · December 18, 2006, 6:46pm

[quote]
sorry, again I used the word "private" where I sould have used "top rated."

i'll give you an example of my major, meteorology.

PSU is much higher ranked than OU. Both are large, D1 schools. PSU has a much tougher admissions policy as well. Both have a met. program.

However, in this case a met graduate from OU would have a much better shot at getting a "better" job in the field. PSU.. you'd have a good shot as well, but not the best.

That's the reverse of what you continue to say, because you are still treating everything under a blanket statement. I've been falling into your trap because job-wise I let us talk about specific programs that top rated schools tend to pump out for. The only anomoly that we discussed is Cisco.

[/quote]

I hardly think so. Once again, let me reiterate that the vast majority of students end up taking jobs that are not related to their major. Again, I ask - how many history majors end up becoming professional historians? How many poli-sci majors end up becoming professional political scientists?

The truth is, if you're going to end up not pursuing your undergrad major anyway as a career, then it doesn't really matter how 'strong' it happens to be. What will matter is the general strength of your school. Nobody is going to care if the Harvard German program is weak if you're not going to get a German job anyway. The only thing those non-German employers will see is the name "Harvard".

[quote]
Wrong, it's not even related. You're comparing the number of successful business ventures to...what again?

we were discussing companies like Google hiring straight from those top rated schools (even though they don't anymore) and how successful they were. I pointed out that many of those same models failed. That has nothing to do with this argument nor with what you've compared it to just now.. again, it went off topic.

[/quote]

Those were just EXAMPLES of a general theme. I could have just as easily used examples like management consulting, investment banking, or any of these other 'prestige' career fields, or any of these exclusive career fields. I believe I read a study that a greater percentage of Harvard graduates enter one of these career fields than, say, Notre Dame football players who make it to the NFL. Hence, it is ENTIRELY appropriate to talk about these particular careers. Going to a no-name low-tier school, even if it has a strong program in a particular field, gives you a far smaller chance of getting you into Goldman Sachs or McKinsey than going to Harvard will.

[quote]
going on that analogy, there are many non-smokers that develop lung cancer. Should they smoke because of that chance?

If a football player is good, they will be drafted.. scouts go to every game all over the U.S. it's the same principle. Now those programs are much more elaborate, and the stadiums and training centers rival those of the NFL.. because they build on one another.

However, let's look at some other schools.. Texas Tech, or UAB..how about those schools? Do you feel they have more or less of a chance of exposing one to the NFL?

[/quote]

Look, again, nobody is saying that you have ZERO chance of getting into the NFL if you go to a lower-level school. But the point is, the ODDS ARE REDUCED. Life is all about odds. There are no guarantees in anything.

After all, think of it this way. If what you are saying is really true, then why do college coaches bother to do any recruiting of the top prep athletes at all? Why does Charlie Weis go to prospective recruits' houses and flash around his 3 Superbowl rings in order the convince them to come to Notre Dame? If what you are saying is true, and going to particular college football programs doesn't increase your chances of going to the NFL, then those high school stars who aim to make it to the NFL shouldn't care about where they go, and so there would be no point in recruiting them anyway. So why go through this whole rigamarole? Are all these guys being stupid? It would basically mean that any old no-name Division 1-AA team ought to be able to get a recruiting class that is just as good as Ohio State's or Notre Dame's.

Why doesn't that happen in reality? Why do most of the best high school stars tend to go to the top football programs? Are they just being stupid? For example, year after year, USC tends to bring in the best recruiting class of the Pac-10. How does that happen, if your chances of making it to the NFL are really unaffected by which college team you play for?

[quote]
Exactly. in many aspects, especially management, the degree just shows a step. I've been involved in hiring many mid-level employees, and have done countless interviews as such. In not one case has what school they earned the degree from ever come up. Not once. It's listed, sure.. but what matters most on the resume is what the employee shows that he/she can do.

Saying, "I went to HARVARD!!" usually doesn't mean a damn thing in the IT world. I don't care what numbers you bring up, or what specific few cases you can point out... this is my expierence in the corporate world for 10 years now. I've met plenty of MIT graduates. They are the few that are looked at closely. But Harvard, Yale, Stanford... not really. And these MIT graduates have also been passed up by those from non top-rated schools. Why? Because there is more to a resume than just the school.

[/quote]

In your world, sure. But what I am saying is that there is ANOTHER world out there. The world that includes things like investment banking, management consulting, and, to some extent, high tech startups. In this world, you basically need a prestige degree just to be able to get the interview. Granted, once you're in the interview room, it doesn't matter where you went to school. But you have to get into the room to even have a shot.

[quote]
In NO WAY have I ever suggested turning down a top rated school. I have suggested not working so hard to shoot for a school that might not have anything to do with a major if you have chosen one. That's a key factor here. If you haven't, then the school's list of majors might not be an important factor. However, if you do know what you want to study, do not choose a school just by its overall rank.

If I were to be accepted to Yale, I would turn it down. I'm sure I'd get a large amount of aid, maybe even a free ride. But the program there isn't the best out there. And by what I've learned in the world is that the program quality is what matters, not the overall school.

[/quote]

Again, I disagree, and I would have definitely taken Yale. Why? Again, like I said, you probably won't even be getting a job in your program anyway.

Think of it this way. CNN has estimated that the average American changes careers (not just jobs, but actual CAREERS) about 3-4 times in their life. And like I said above, even your first job out of college is likely to have little to do with what you studied in college anyway. Hence, the upshot is, you are highly likely to, at some point in your career, end up working at a job that has nothing to do with what you studied in college. Hence, like I asked before, who really cares how good your particular 'program' was, if your job has nothing to do with that program?

[quote]
Again, if you're undecided.. even if you have decided.. I have not said it was best to not go to a top rated school. If you're accepted into NYU or Chicago and it's a fit, by all means go there. It definately won't hurt.

However, don't spend your entire highschool life pushing yourself to get into a school if you don't have the capacity to. Work for it, but don't waste your youth for smething that can let you down. If you do happen to get A's and have a ton of ECs that you took BECAUSE YOU LIKED THEM, and end up having to go to a safety school, don't be dismayed because you can be just as successful and nobody should ever tell you otherwise. If you end up at a top school, congrats..there is nothing wrong with it.

[/quote]

Now, see, what's up with that? I'm afraid that's just a paean to hedonism.

Look, in life, you sometimes have to do things you don't like to do. In fact, I would say that if you want to achieve success, you will often times have to do things you don't like to do. Hard work is painful. It's a lot easier for anybody to just sit around, drinking beer and watching TV all day long. I'd like to do that.

But sometimes you have to do things you don't like, even if it involves an uncertain payoff. That's life. For example, every job out there that I know sometimes involves doing things you don't really like but that will please your boss.

I would hardly call it a matter of 'wasting your youth'. I would call it a matter of learning responsibility. As an adult, you will always be asked to do painful tasks with uncertain payoffs. Parenting, for example, is often times a painful task in which the payoff is highly uncertain. You can do all of the right things as a parent, including the painful things - the midnight feedings, the financial sacrificing, the driving around your kids to events even when you don't want to do it - and STILL have your kids turn out badly. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to be a good parent, even when it's painful to do so. That's what responsibility is all about. Responsibility and maturity means not always being able to do what you like to do, but rather is learning that you sometimes have to put up with things you don't like to do.

What you're basically saying is that kids should just be allowed to do what they want to do, and if they don't want to work hard, they shouldn't have to. I can't agree with that.

Look, my point is this. Sometimes you have to do things you don't like in order to get the chance to do things that you do like. That's life.

[quote]
Look, I'm a simple man. I have no idea what a "Veblenian conspicuous consumption" is and really I see no reason fo you to bring in something like that unless it warrants an explination after my replies.

However the rest of what you state is that society looks upon such things and it should be accepted. Perhaps. But showing how it's a flaw in humanity as such should bring you to not support it, right? So why continue to imply that one should just go along with that? If it's something that is... what's the word I'm looking for...wrong, in a sense, it doesn't mean it's the right choice. Nor is it the wrong choice.

[/quote]

I don't think it's a flaw in humanity. In fact, I would argue that it is actually good. Striving for status compels people to improve. You see it every day in sports. Good, responsible athletes want to win, because that increases their status. Now, a pro athlete with a guaranteed contract can always say "Well, I've got my millions no matter what, so I don't care whether we win or lose", and some of them have that attitude. But the good athletes care deeply about winning or losing. Michael Jordan believed that winning was the most important thing in his life, and consequently he has 6 championships. Let's face it. If he didn't have that internal drive for status, he wouldn't have won all those championships. He wanted to prove to the world that he was the best player in NBA history, and he did. Was it painful? Darn right - read his biographies and you can tell that he put himself through psychological hell before every game in terms of manufacturing slights and disrespects that never even happened in order to mentally prepare himself for the game. But you can't argue with success.

sakky · December 18, 2006, 7:20pm

[quote]
Again, chances of being successful in YOUR view. I.E. selective jobs and money.

There's more to life than money, there's more to a job than pay and benefits. You might disagree, but my priorities are apparently much different.

[/quote]

Obviously there's more to life than money. But degrees are flexible tools. A top degree can help you to get ANY goal in life.

[quote]
What's happy? Is staying home from weekly football games to study happy? Is not hanging out with friends happy? Is taking a ton of ECs just to pad a transcript happy?

I'm not saying that NOT doing those will make you happy, but if you are forcing yourself to do things you don't want to do then don't do it.

[/quote]

Huh? Why not? Like I said, that's life. In life, you sometimes have to work hard even when you don't want to. You sometimes have to do things you don't want to do. To argue otherwise is simply hedonism. Self-control and self-discipline means learning to do things you don't want to do.

For example if somebody gets in my face and starts bawling me out, my first instinct might be to punch him out. That's what I WANT to do. But I know that I should not do that. That's an example of self-discipline - the deliberate choice to do something that you don't really want to do. In fact, one of the first things that responsible parents teach kids is that the kids should not always do whatever they want to do. Sometimes you have to eat your vegetables even when you don't want to. Sometimes you have to do your chores even when you don't want to. Like it or not, that's life. I don't know a single responsible parent in the world who has, at some point, not forced their kid to do something the kid didn't want to do. In fact, I would say that any parent who never forces their kid to ever do things they don't want to do is an irresponsible parent.

Human beings are, by nature, undisciplined. Self-discipline is something that every person has to learn. Self-discipline, by definition, means doing things that you don't really want to do.

[quote]
It gives you the illusion of having a weapon. it's like bringing a beautifully crafted sword to a battle where you have no idea what the other side has.

It's hit or miss having that weapon. You might apply to someone who DOES hire you based on the school. You might not. In fact, chances are you won't.

Again, we cannot apply blanket statements to the specific nature of the subject.

[/quote]

How is it a matter of applying blanket statements? My point is that, in general, the weapon is valuable. In all cases? No. But in general, it is true. Just like wearing your seatbelt is a good idea in general. In all cases? No. You might get stuck by your seatbelt in a burning car and die because you can't escape. But IN GENERAL, putting on your seatbelt is a useful idea because it saves more lives than it loses.

[quote]
I agree with the alumni statement, but that what you know/who you know statement...

You might get a job because of who you know. But you'll only keep it because of what you know.

I have known complete morons who have graduated from Princeton, Harvard, and I think Yale (I'm not 100% sure on that last one). Then again, I have known people from those schools who don't fail to impress me also. it's hit or miss, just like anywhere else.

[/quote]

Oh, I don't know. One guy here on this thread said that Ballmer was an idiot. I don't know if I agree with that statement, but if it's true, that's all the more reason for why you should go to a top school.

Besides, you are also treating the 'what you know' as an exogenous variable. Yet, I would argue that the opportunities you will get through a top school (hence, by your network) actually increase what you know. For example, if I get hired as a management consultant just because I went to Harvard, then my mere presence on the job, through the process of socialization, will increase my knowledge of business, and hence I will be able to utilize that increased knowledge on some other job even if I do get fired from my consulting job. Contrast that with somebody who went to a no-name school and thus never got an opportunity to be socialized into the business consulting milieu and thus never had an opportunity to improve what he knew.

Besides, I don't see how your notion of 'complete morons' from Princeton and Harvard is relevant to the discussion. Because, after all, there are complete morons at the no-name schools too. The difference is that the Harvard moron will get chances that the no-name school moron won't get. Sure, the Harvard moron may screw things up and get fired. But so what? It's better to get the chance and fail than to never get the chance at all. I'd love to be able to play for the Red Sox, even if I screw up royally, because I can then say that at least I played. Yeah, I sucked, but at least I played. Most people don't even get to do that.

[quote]
I'm not sure I follow.. I don't see how this is relevant. Again, this is in regards to college search, not admissions.

If you are smart enough to go into those schools, and if you have the mental capacity to actually learn and know the stuff, then by all means go- just as long as you're not selling yourself short.

Honestly, I'm 27 and gradated highschool with no ECs and a 1.8 GPA. Looking at my trasncript one would think I was, well, an idiot. However I know personally I'm not. Sure, I don't know everything... hell, there's a lot I don't know, such as your phrase listed above. However I know I have the ability to learn more than people assume, and I know I'm smarter than what my grades in highschool report. I currenty take courses that push me to my limits.

However I do it to enhance myself, not to my resume. The only person I have to prove anything to is myself.

[/quote]

That's nice and idealistic, but again, like I said, in the real world, we often times have to do things not for yourself, but for others. For example, anybody who has been in a serious relationship knows full well that sometimes you have to do things that your partner likes to do, but you don't really like to do. For example, I don't really like going to the ballet with my girlfriend. I don't really like watching chick flicks. But SHE likes it and that's why I do it.

Similarly, on the job, everybody invitably at some point in time has to do things that they don't really like to do, but that their boss orders them to do. When the boss demands people work on weekends to get a project done, I'm sure that the employees don't like it. But they do it because they are trying to advance their career. If you want to advance your career, sometimes you have to take assignments and projects that you don't really like.

The point is that while it's a nice thought that you can just do things just for yourself, in the real world, you often times end up having to do things for others. Sometimes you have to do things just to build your resume. For example, I know a lot of people who are entering investment banking who say that they don't really want to do Ibanking. So why do it? Because they know that it's useful experience for later in their life. It's a way of marketing themselves. Sometimes you have to do things that increase your marketability. Economists would call that a matter of the reduction of search costs. Who cares if you're really good for the job, if nobody knows that fact? That's why sometimes you have to do things you don't like just to improve your marketability. That's life.

JCampbell · December 18, 2006, 7:39pm

[quote]
I hardly think so. Once again, let me reiterate that the vast majority of students end up taking jobs that are not related to their major. Again, I ask - how many history majors end up becoming professional historians? How many poli-sci majors end up becoming professional political scientists?

[/quote]

How many forestry majors end up in agriculture? How many in the medical field work in medicine? How many History majors become... gasp.. history teachers?

[quote]
The truth is, if you're going to end up not pursuing your undergrad major anyway as a career, then it doesn't really matter how 'strong' it happens to be. What will matter is the general strength of your school. Nobody is going to care if the Harvard German program is weak if you're not going to get a German job anyway. The only thing those non-German employers will see is the name "Harvard".

[/quote]

however if you are persuing an undergrad degree in CS, then the chances are you won't be applying for a job at a vets office. Then again, you might. But everything in life is possible. Again, you cannot apply blanket statements to this but you continue to do so.

[quote]
Those were just EXAMPLES of a general theme. I could have just as easily used examples like management consulting, investment banking, or any of these other 'prestige' career fields, or any of these exclusive career fields. I believe I read a study that a greater percentage of Harvard graduates enter one of these career fields than, say, Notre Dame football players who make it to the NFL. Hence, it is ENTIRELY appropriate to talk about these particular careers. Going to a no-name low-tier school, even if it has a strong program in a particular field, gives you a far smaller chance of getting you into Goldman Sachs or McKinsey than going to Harvard will.

Look, again, nobody is saying that you have ZERO chance of getting into the NFL if you go to a lower-level school. But the point is, the ODDS ARE REDUCED. Life is all about odds. There are no guarantees in anything.

[/quote]

ND sucks and is overrated. They have hardly any talent. Again, it's a name and they hardly get anyone into the NFL. How about WF? NW?

[quote]
After all, think of it this way. If what you are saying is really true, then why do college coaches bother to do any recruiting of the top prep athletes at all? Why does Charlie Weis go to prospective recruits' houses and flash around his 3 Superbowl rings in order the convince them to come to Notre Dame? If what you are saying is true, and going to particular college football programs doesn't increase your chances of going to the NFL, then those high school stars who aim to make it to the NFL shouldn't care about where they go, and so there would be no point in recruiting them anyway. So why go through this whole rigamarole? Are all these guys being stupid? It would basically mean that any old no-name Division 1-AA team ought to be able to get a recruiting class that is just as good as Ohio State's or Notre Dame's.

[/quote]

So, they recruit..so does every school.

[quote]
Why doesn't that happen in reality? Why do most of the best high school stars tend to go to the top football programs? Are they just being stupid? For example, year after year, USC tends to bring in the best recruiting class of the Pac-10. How does that happen, if your chances of making it to the NFL are really unaffected by which college team you play for?

[/quote]

Maybe because they offer better scholarships and as many legal benefits as possible.

And Cal has just many top recruits, just like OSU and Wazzu.

[quote]
In your world, sure. But what I am saying is that there is ANOTHER world out there. The world that includes things like investment banking, management consulting, and, to some extent, high tech startups. In this world, you basically need a prestige degree just to be able to get the interview. Granted, once you're in the interview room, it doesn't matter where you went to school. But you have to get into the room to even have a shot.

[/quote]

In my world? you mean THE world. I've been out there, for 10 years. That other world? It's tiny. very small. so small that most here on CC will never see it.

[quote]
Again, I disagree, and I would have definitely taken Yale. Why? Again, like I said, you probably won't even be getting a job in your program anyway.

[/quote]

I'm sorry, what?

I am going to a career in meteorology. Probably isn't an issue.

Making that assumption is just plain ignorant. How can you say then when in the same breath you state top schools get high level jobs? it defies your own logic.

[quote]
Think of it this way. CNN has estimated that the average American changes careers (not just jobs, but actual CAREERS) about 3-4 times in their life. And like I said above, even your first job out of college is likely to have little to do with what you studied in college anyway. Hence, the upshot is, you are highly likely to, at some point in your career, end up working at a job that has nothing to do with what you studied in college. Hence, like I asked before, who really cares how good your particular 'program' was, if your job has nothing to do with that program?

[/quote]

How old do you think I am, or how many jobs do you think I have had?

if I had gone out of HS, and done the met program as I wanted to (before being sidetracked by life), I would still be in that field.

[quote]

Now, see, what's up with that? I'm afraid that's just a paean to hedonism.

Look, in life, you sometimes have to do things you don't like to do. In fact, I would say that if you want to achieve success, you will often times have to do things you don't like to do. Hard work is painful. It's a lot easier for anybody to just sit around, drinking beer and watching TV all day long. I'd like to do that.

But sometimes you have to do things you don't like, even if it involves an uncertain payoff. That's life. For example, every job out there that I know sometimes involves doing things you don't really like but that will please your boss.

[/quote]

See, that level of defeatism is just horrid. Sure, you have to do things you don't want to do. However this is not one of those cases.

Taking one or two courses is an example. Spending 4 years of your live planning on the potential for another 4 that may or may not happen is not.

[quote]
I would hardly call it a matter of 'wasting your youth'. I would call it a matter of learning responsibility. As an adult, you will always be asked to do painful tasks with uncertain payoffs. Parenting, for example, is often times a painful task in which the payoff is highly uncertain. You can do all of the right things as a parent, including the painful things - the midnight feedings, the financial sacrificing, the driving around your kids to events even when you don't want to do it - and STILL have your kids turn out badly. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to be a good parent, even when it's painful to do so. That's what responsibility is all about. Responsibility and maturity means not always being able to do what you like to do, but rather is learning that you sometimes have to put up with things you don't like to do.

What you're basically saying is that kids should just be allowed to do what they want to do, and if they don't want to work hard, they shouldn't have to. I can't agree with that.

[/quote]

whoa, again you're putting words in my mouth. you really haven't read what I posted AT ALL.

I said, if you take those courses and ECs and volunteer because you want to, that's FINE. Even if you don't want to. fine.

[quote]
I don't think it's a flaw in humanity. In fact, I would argue that it is actually good. Striving for status compels people to improve. You see it every day in sports. Good, responsible athletes want to win, because that increases their status. Now, a pro athlete with a guaranteed contract can always say "Well, I've got my millions no matter what, so I don't care whether we win or lose", and some of them have that attitude. But the good athletes care deeply about winning or losing. Michael Jordan believed that winning was the most important thing in his life, and consequently he has 6 championships. Let's face it. If he didn't have that internal drive for status, he wouldn't have won all those championships. He wanted to prove to the world that he was the best player in NBA history, and he did. Was it painful? Darn right - read his biographies and you can tell that he put himself through psychological hell before every game in terms of manufacturing slights and disrespects that never even happened in order to mentally prepare himself for the game. But you can't argue with success.

[/quote]

No, striving for status through appearence over substance is what is wrong with the world today. It's why we end up with complete morons in management positions. It's why you end up with shallow people. It's why real talent and potential is wasted.

I'm curious, you state things in this thread that contradict what you say in others:

<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=3341088#post3341088%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=3341088#post3341088</a>

[quote]
1) I hardly think it matters. I've known people who have gotten into top MBA programs with degrees in things like "Classics" or other humanities.

Look, the truth is, worrying about what specific kind of degree you are going to get is just quibbling. *Nobody really cares. What really matters for the purposes of getting into a top MBA program is the quality of your work experience and your leadership potential. *

2) Again, I think it hardly matters. The truth is, employers don't really care about what specific degree you have. They care about what you know. I've known people with degrees in management get beat out by people with degrees in the humanities for management roles.

[/quote]

<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=3334574&postcount=9%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=3334574&postcount=9</a>

[quote]
Bruno, you're actually preaching to the choir. I have always held that the quality of your publication record is important if you want to get an academic job, perhaps even more so than the brand name of your school.

*But again, the OP was asking for how important it is to attend a top program in your field, and I would argue that matters immensely if you want to be an academic. Whether it matters more than your publication record, perhaps not, but it still matters a great deal. *

And again, I would reiterate that placing at Harvard for EE is not a particularly amazing accomplishment, at least not more so than placing at any other good, but not elite, program. Harvard is not (yet) a powerhouse school in EE, or in signal processing, which is what I presume that you're talking about.

[/quote]

I am curious as to how old you are, what school you attend (or attended) and how many years you've been in the workforce. I'm wondering if you talk from actual expierence or over what you've read online. I'd like to know where you get your information from or at least who talks to me about the "real world"

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