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Krueger and Dale did a study 10 years ago and found that based upon current salary information those that were accepted to Ivy League schools but chose to go to lower ranked schools did as well as those that graduated from Ivy League schools...</p>
<p>The actual Krueger & Dale study is available for download for a fee. Here is a link to an article on the Krueger & Dale study from the Dartmouth Review:</p>
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<p>I've been thinking about this for awhile and the problem that I have is that the study presumes that those people who get into Ivies but choose not to go to lower-ranked schools not randomly selected from the entire population of people who got into Ivy schools. That is what the study implicitly assumes, but this it is not true. Rather, those people who choose lower-ranked schools over Ivies are a strongly self-selected group of people. In other words, there are REASONS for why those people went to lesser schools. Hence, any comparison of the two groups is inherently flawed. </p>
<p>Let me give you an example. One very popular reason to turn down an Ivy for a lesser school is to get into a BS/MD program of that lesser school. If I wanted to be a doctor, I'd be very sorely tempted to turn down Harvard for a BS/MD program at a lesser school because guaranteed admission to med-school is not something to be turned down lightly. It's therefore not surprising to me that these particular people will end up making more money than the average Ivy graduate, because these people are obviously gunning to be doctors. </p>
<p>There are also plenty of personal reasons why one might turn down an Ivy for a lesser school. A guy I know has a cousin who got into Princeton and turned it down for his no-name state school. Why? Basically, complicated personal circumstances. His father was about to bequeth to him the family business, and so he knew he only had maybe 1-2 years after high school before he would be expected to take over. So he wanted to finish his degree in that time. The local state school was highly generous in granting him extensive AP credits and community college transfer units, but Princeton was not. The upshot is that by going to his local state school and working very hard, he managed to graduate in 1.5 years, something that he could have never done at Princeton. Now he runs the family business. If he went to Princeton, he knew he would have to drop out sans degree. </p>
<p>The point is that by looking at people who got into Ivies but chose to go to lesser schools, you are really looking at a strong selectivity bias. These people are certainly not typical of the average Ivy student. People don't just choose to go to lesser schools lightly. They do it for very specific reasons. It's only people who have those reasons who will turn down Ivies for lesser schools. It's hence not surprising to me at all that people who have those specific reasons might be as successful (if not more successful) than the average Ivy graduate. After all, I'm sure those former BS/MD students are doing quite well for themselves. That guy who runs the family business I'm sure is doing very well for himself.</p>