I said ‘employer’, not ‘employee’.
There is no question that there is talent to be found at the Ivies, but I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘discrimination’.
I’d say go for it, just because it makes me annoyed reading all of the naysayers in this thread. Follow your dreams! If that means getting rejected from 3 more schools after a year at NU or someplace, then whatever. College is supposed to be fun anyway.
"Clearly you don’t know jack about what employers look for. Of course they look for experience and prize that more than education, but when comparing two 22 year olds that just graduated and neither have any experience or internships, "
Yes, that’s right. You, a high school kid, clearly have your finger on the pulse of what employers want - certainly greater than forty or fifty something parents who actually have jobs and who have professional networks and who actually hire people.
@Akashi Your friend’s rejection from Google is supposed to tell us what? Sample size is killing your extrapolations
Here’s an article that caught my eye however: http://www.the-american-interest.com/2013/06/24/google-is-not-impressed-by-your-fancy-ivy-league-credentials/
The interview cited is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
So this pretty much blows your “Stanford degree > USC/Notre Dame” line. Sure, some fields heavily favor some Ivy-type schools – but it’s FAR from universal and the exception rather than the norm.
@Akashi Don’t lump in CS companies with banking companies. One of the biggest feeders to Apple is San Jose State, Berkeley and UCLA are huge feeders to Google, and the largest feeder to Microsoft is University of Washington by far, followed by super prestigious schools Washington State, University of Waterloo, and Western Washington University.
Yes, Stanford, MIT, and CMU sends plenty of kids to tech companies but that says more about what kind of smart kids are being admitted to Stanford, MIT, and CMU than whether Stanford, MIT, and CMU are the golden ticket to a CS company.
Disappointed? Sure. Very understandable.
I think the reaction here was to “I desperately want…”
“Desperately?” Disappointed is one thing, but “desperately?” Especially considering the schools the paster actually got in to? “Desperately?” That suggests an alarming lack of perspective, of balance.
And then, the goal - the single-minded fixation on the Ivy League, doesn’t suggest that the poster wanted to go to one of these schools because of the inherent attributes associated with the particular school, but rather for the purpose of name-dropping, brand identification. It is the fetishization of the Ivy label. Ironically, something that folks often react negatively to with folks who go Ivy, especially Harvard, is the perception of that fetishization, projected onto those associated with the school. These folks are sometimes thought of as snobby or elitist, because they wear their Harvard or Ivy association on their sleeve.
Most folks have their stories about the dropping of the “H bomb,” that moment when you reply to the question, “Where do yo go to school?” and you answer, “Harvard.” At that moment, Harvard ceases to be a really good school to get an education, really good in specific things, and becomes an icon, a token, and not one that is unmixed in the feelings it produces in the ears of hearer. Often, people don’t see anymore the best classics program in the US, or the top math program in the US, or the opportunity to study math with some of the greatest math minds alive (both of these sets of facts are true), but rather they see snooty, stuffy, snobby sorts looking down their noses at the hoi polloi, and thinking to themselves, “I’m just as good as any Harvard folks!” and carrying away an unearned resentment of their Harvard interlocutor.
So, a lot of folks who actually go to these schools, or are associated with those who do, react negatively to this view of Ivy as a totem or a brand name. This poster seems to suffer from seeing “ivy stars,” and it is legitimate to think that’s not a good thing.
The Ivies are good schools. Getting into one is a good thing. It should be celebrated, and the accomplishment savored. But they are schools, not the Elysian fields. They are places to learn, very good places to learn, but they are not tickets to heaven, or guarantees of life-long success. They reflect the accomplishments of those who are accepted, but failure to be admitted hardly invalidates a person’s self-worth. And stacked up against entry to Northwestern, and other great schools, they are not so uniquely wonderful or good as to legitimatey cause “desperation” in the one not admitted thereto.
I see that the original poster seems to have regained his sense of balance and proportion, and moved on. At least, I hope that’s the case. Perhaps, we should, too.
@OP : what did you end up deciding on ?
Northwestern
^^ Northwestern is a wonderful school. Look at this list and take comfort in knowing that several famous Harvard professors, as well as many business, government, science, law, and entertainment leaders received their undergrad degree from Northwestern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Northwestern_University_alumni
If anyone is interested, I was at my local Harvard Club board meeting today, and Harvard admitted 19 transfers out of 1400+ applicants, still in the 1% range.
One of my clients was accepted as a Yale transfer this month. This is the first Yale transfer admit I have ever had in my 15+ years. I’ve coached several Harvard and Stanford transfers; both used to have much larger transfer classes and admit rates approaching 5%. The good old days!