Can you give an example of general knowledge that those with a specialization can pick up, while others are taking it as part of their classwork in school?
If the guy got shut out, it was probably because he didnāt have a tech background. Wharton was a place you went if you wanted to work in a finance/Wall Street-type job. It wasnāt known for teaching about tech start-ups.
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Hereāre a few examples:
Business, finance, many disciplines within social sciences (including economics and political science), enviromental science, even lower levels of math and computer science.
It may well be that with folks like Bruni who start with all of the advantages, it will be very hard to tell whether the extra boost that a Loomis can give would make any difference. The WSJ had an article a few years back where they had gotten access to quite a bit of information about the seniors from Groton Academy and where they ended up going to college. For the daughter of Sid (I think) Bass, it was no surprise that she got into Yale where her family had given buildings ā I donāt think it helped or hurt that she went to Groton. For upper middle class students it was unclear whether having the Groton Seal of Approval stamped on their foreheads made much of a difference in terms of their college admissions, but for URMs but not necessarily Asiana, it appeared to give a big boost. More like a stamp of certification that they were capable and prepared to do the work at Yale or other prestigious school.
I think about the key events that happen in oneās education and career in terms of conditional probabilities. What is the probability that Bruni gets the Morehead Fellowship conditional on his underlying skillset and attending Loomis? Is that different from the probability that he would get the Morehead Fellowship if he had gone to a public HS? Hard for me to know.
Whatās the probability that my friendās son gets into Harvard given his skills and abilities and the fact that his father is a Harvard professor. Itās significantly higher than the probability that the kid gets into Harvard without having a father who is a Harvard professor. In this case, the kid gets fabulous summer jobs and then first year job in journalism because of the proactive calls by one of his professors. Is the probability that he would have gotten those jobs the same whether he was at Harvard or U Michigan Honors College? Iād bet not. These things cascade and the paths that people take can be quite different as a result.
Whatās less clear to me is what @CTDad-classof2022 asked. Is the probability of working at Morgan Stanley or getting the prestigious writing jobs different conditional on going to Brown versus Michigan or Wesleyan versus Michigan or Mills College versus UC Riverside or Claremont-McKenna versus UCLA or UCSD.
It seems likely that the market is probably mis-pricing private schools below the top 15 or 20 if there is no difference in the probability of getting whatever the next step is conditional on knowing whether you went to a less than top 20 private school versus a state school. [And, I know, the sticker price is way higher than the average price paid because of financial aid].
Even if there is no difference, there may still be reasons why a parent might see a difference for an individual child. I didnāt think either of my kids was going to perform to their potential in a large school that were largely big lectures and tests (without smaller interactions and judgments made in other ways). In my sonās case, I was buying small size (it was actually no larger than his HS) because I thought professors would notice his strengths much more quickly in small classes in a not quite as prestigious school (but reputation is more regional/national than international). In the other case, my daughter spent the first semester at a big school with large lecture/test mode and was not going to show her potential there. So, she switched to a much smaller school that also gave nearly guarantee admission into an MSN program to be a nurse practitioner. I had learned that getting into NP school has become very competitive and I thought it would be better to get in now rather than finish undergrad and then have to apply. Worked out well and took a lot of stress out of life. But, this applies to these individuals and not to everyone.
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My Daughter was a top student and
Skipped the Ivy applications altogether 
.
She caught some grief at the time choosing UMass from her peers headed to GTown , UVA etc. but is heading to law school debt free.
She also got to eat the best college food in the country (Iāll miss those visits to Berk) and watch the hockey team win this years national Championship. Not so bad for state U!
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This is not necessarily true. Some college students may do very well at the most advanced courses in their majors, but struggle with their collegesā general education requirements in other areas.
Of course, oneās major is already a specialization. But majors do vary in how large their āupper level major coreā is, versus the amount of upper level in-major electives that can be used for additional specialization within the major. Some majors, like physics, mechanical engineering, and nursing, have large āupper level major coresā, but others like history can have much less. Some majors vary across different schools, depending on the departmentās viewpoint on the matter (computer science seems to be such a major).
General education requirements are requirements, which obviously mean that students wouldnāt have a choice. What I meant by generalized knowledge are those electives that are general in nature.
No hard data either, but having a kid who just graduated from a prestigious college and joined TFA we have seen some of this path first-hand. First of all, your shot at getting admitted is much higher, all else equal, if you attend prestigious private or public for undergrad. These institutions will be top feeders to the TFA corps, they will have career advising that works with TFA, and TFA will have liaisons who are alums of those institutions. Second, per the TFA website a large majority actually do pursue careers that impact the education system and/or low-income communities. However, from what I can see many will progress from āteachingā to advanced degrees and careers in leadership, even if they remain as teachers after their time with TFA. Are these opportunities available to those who follow the more standard path of attending ed school, gaining the bachelors degree, student teaching and so forth? No doubt, but it might be a more localized career progression - and perhaps a slower one, too. TFA not only āfast-tracksā their teachers (temporary teaching license, direct-to-classroom teaching experience, possibility for quick advancement as needs arise, including teaching AP!) but it has the advantage of alumnae connections across the country serving in a wide array of career opportunities in āeducationā above and beyond teaching, as well as a network of K-12 schools that give a preference to TFA alums. So my guess is that those Ivy Psych or English majors (or, in my DCās case, an Ivy+ History major who will be teaching 8th grade science this fall) actually do ābetterā career-wise than teachers following the more conventional path, though itās important to note that personal goals, ambition, smarts, and other things will impact how well one does overall.
VCs can also reject applicants/proposals for reasons other than the undergrad/grad degree name. Just because a person thinks his Wharton MBA was the reason for rejection doesnāt mean it was actually the case.
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My daughter just finished TFA and I agree with you. Sheās not staying in teaching long term, but many do. She still plans to work in low income communities.
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One could also reason that having a background of attending prestigious educational institutions puts him in a better position to evaluate the benefits given by those institutions than an outsider. However, Iād suggest focusing on whether Bruniās claims are accurate, rather than on his educational credentials.
Iām not familiar with Bruniās book, but agree with the general idea of where you attended college generally becomes far less important after the first job. As noted in the previously linked survey, employers generally focus on work experience, preferably experience doing something similar to the job that the person is applying for. Working for years in a job environment during your first job fits this bill extremely well. However, among applicants without a first job, then it generally falls to doing an internship (preferably at the company you are applying to) or having having other relevant work experience in college. In the survey, employers marked internships and employment during college as the 2 most influential criteria in hiring for new college grads, and marked college reputation as the least influential criteria for new grads.
Itās a similar idea for networking and connections. The ideal networking connections are from persons in the industry doing something similar to the job you are applying for, preferably at the company you are applying to. For example, your first job is at company A. Several people from company A that you have worked with go to company B. If you apply to company B, those former colleagues are likely to serve as a great networking benefit. However, for the first job, networking benefits might more relate to things like which companies recruit on campus or have a strong network of alumni working at the company. Itās not as good, but can also be influential.
Note that Iāve said āgenerallyā several times in the comments above. I realize that different industries show different patterns. For example, when applying to a 2nd job, Iād expect a law firm is far more likely to be concerned about prestige of degree name (law degree, not undergrad degree) than a tech company hiring an engineer.
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āIf the guy got shut out, it was probably because he didnāt have a tech backgroundā
No, he had a BS and Masters in CS, from a very good place but not a college that would be considered elite to people that are making decisions based on college attended.
āJust because a person thinks his Wharton MBA was the reason for rejection doesnāt mean it was actually the caseā
I tend to agree, and maybe the VC was using that as excuse when there were other reasons.
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Like everything else in life, it kind of depends, but in fields where an MBA is expected (consulting, PE, I-Banking), the vast majority of senior and mid-level people have an MBA from a top school. On the financial side, it is possible to breakthrough to VP or higher level without one, but you basically have to rise up the first firm you started at. It is really hard to jump firms from Analyst to Associate without an MBA. The people who pull that off mostly get really lucky, or are top 5% in the field through 3-5 years out of college.
One of the problems that non-MBAās run into is that the consulting, I-Banking and PE/VC firms donāt need just need model jockeys at the associate/VP level. They want people with real work experience with real companies, not just banking and consulting. This is absolutely the case in VC. There is an irony that a state school grad that worked at a real company for a few years and then got his MBA is usually a lot more useful to a consulting or VC/PE firm than someone trying to rise up the ranks that went to HYPSM.
One of the aspects of this debate that is missed is the burnout rate of those that go to Wall Street right out of college. Parents love bragging that their kid went to Yale and then Morgan/Morgan Stanley/Goldman, but working 100 hours a week, week after week, can be soul crushing for the recent grads. 4 years and $300k of education, and a lot of kids are applying to any financial job they can find 2 years out of college just to get out of I-Banking.
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This is the point I was making. I think the cutoff is closer to #8 or #10 for the prestige privates, especially in engineering and sciences, where many of the public schools are excellent. It gets hard to justify the extra cost of the private. To each their own though.
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Iāve seen this argument many times about Frank Bruni. In his book, he actually credits his time and experience at the UNC newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, not his prep school. It likely helped him land at Columbiaās Graduate School of Journalism.
Nonetheless, I encourage everyone to read Bruniās book. It really is enlightening. He changed my outlook on college admissions and points out a lot of schools that provide an excellent education that arenāt overly selective.
I think the fact that he chose UNC over Ivies says a lot. He and I have a lot of similarities. I went to a similar prep school (not quite as famous, but very good), and our Valedictorian also received the Morehead Cain Scholarship and chose UNC over Harvard. Iām not as successful as Bruni, but I also chose a public university (Michigan) when nearly all of my friends went to private colleges. I was kind of a trailblazer at the time at my school.
Even though Michigan is a great school, I hardly attribute any of my success to it or my MBA school. Itās through a lot of hard work and job experience, plus luck, that I am where I am today in business. (I kid you not that I delivered pizzas to survive after my MBA from a Top 30 school). The job experience came about by being in the right place at the right time a couple of times. And no one gives a ratās a%& where I went to college. They wouldnāt if I went to an Ivy either. They just care that I can close deals and that I have good connections in the media and tech world.
For those that point to Investment Banking and Consulting, sure, the pedigree of the school may matter. For the 98% of the rest of college graduates that arenāt in IB or Consulting, it matters a lot less. Why focus on the 2% when for most students, your college matters less than you believe?
And for me, itās backed up not just in my experience, but also with my friends that all went to prestigious schools (Top 25) who say it doesnāt really matter where your degree is from.
This conversation has kind of run its course. Remember, only 39% of Americans have a bachelors degree. There are 3,285 2 and 4 year colleges in the US. So if you obtained a college degree from a Top 200 school, you are in roughly the Top 6% of Americans earning a degree (top 2% of ALL Americans), and by extension, a Top 20 college graduate is Top .6% of degree holders. To me, thatās prestigious enough.
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He can credit whom and whatever he wants but a quick review of the ānotableā alumniā on the Morehead Cain scholarship web site illustrates the importance of the āprestigeā high school. First person they list is Sallie Krawchek whose HS was the āelite Porter Gaud schoolā. Then David Gardner from St Albans, followed by Tim Sullivan from Palo Alto HS and Galahad Clark who is the ā7th generation heir to the Clark shoe companyā. Even your own example is drawn from your prep school.
āCreditingā one element of your past while dismissing the impact of another in this manner is self serving. If you read Frank Bruni thoroughly his narrative is that coming out of an extremely elite prep school (which didnāt open doors) he made the noble decision to chose a common state school over Yale and that low and behold it all worked out. Reality is the Elite prep was the means by which he got awarded the Morehouse and choosing the Moorehouse at NC is hardly the same as just choosing a state school. He was blessed to have multiple safe and prestigious options.
He now tries to down play the impact of his privilege because it detracts from his personal virtuous story and undermines the books he peddles. āYou donāt need an elite education because I am a success and I āonlyā went to a state schoolā. Comfort food for the masses but out of touch with reality.
Actually Frank Bruni went from an elite prep to a super elite scholarship to an Ivy grad school. Do as I say not as I did.
Not saying itās a fair, appropriate or correct system but denying the inherent and long lasting impacts of prestige and privilege is naive.
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The top of the page states mentions āmore than 3100ā alumni. The 4 alumni listed in the business section you mentioned are assumed to either attend selective private HSs or a quality public HSs in a wealthy area. Therefore it illustrates the importance of attending a prestige HS for obtaining the Morehead Scholarship?
I think there are some missing steps in that conclusion. To start with, looking at 4 of the 3100+ alumni is not a good sample size, particularly since it is a biased selection. If you look at the less biased sample of the class of 2025 Morehead scholarship winners at Introducing the Class of 2025 | Morehead-Cain , āprestigiousā HSs seem far less represented. The overwhelming majority of scholarship recipients appear to attend publics HS, and extremely few of the listed HSs are prestigious enough for me to have heard of before.
More importantly and more relevant to the general theme of this thread, correlation is different from causation. If kids who attend highly selective HSs are overrepresented among scholarship winners, that doesnāt mean the scholarship selection committee is favoring applicants from the HS. It could have more to do with the selective HS is selecting students based on criteria that overlaps with what the scholarship is looking for. It could have more to do with people from that HS being more likely to apply to the scholarship. It could have to do with countless other factors.
If you are going to jump to a causation conclusion without sufficient evidence, I think the more likely one is that coming from a wealthy family helps to succeed in business, particularly if the wealthy family owns a related business. For example, you mentioned Clark is the ā7th generation heir to the Clark shoe company." That probably has more to do with how Clark was able to start a successful shoe company than attending the unnamed and assumed to be elite high school. And owning a successful shoe company, he was highlighted on the alumni list. Itās not clear that the unnamed high school had anything to do with either the starting the shoe company or getting the Morehead Scholarship.
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Actually Bruni is the one selectively allocating causation by suggesting his success was attributable to one aspect of his personal history while conveniently diminishing the other.
I didnāt say all Morehouse scholars had come from similar prestige or privileged backgrounds but undeniably many have. My point being that those that have come from such backgrounds (specifically Bruni) shouldnāt be allowed to diminish the impact of that advantage simply to burnish their credibility as ānormal worked my way upā people. It is disingenuous of Bruni to attempt to distance himself from the very foundation of his journey when the true extent of its impact is impossible to quantify but self evident in its reality.
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I wasnāt thinking about finance, consulting, banking, etc. I guess I should since, a few years back, 40% of Harvard grads wanted those fields. Drew Faust was making an effort to increase diversity of interests on campus, particularly in the humanities and arts. Money at the motivator for education makes for a dull place.
Burnout happens in some of these fields, and in Silicon Valley too. I suppose burnout after making big bucks it a lot better than burnout when you are a nursing assistant at $10/hour. At least you can afford to take a break and think about next steps.
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Sorry. I will have to try harder. next time.
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