What is considered elite?

<p>an elite university is a university whose alumni all make 6 figures or more a year, ie Harvard</p>

<p>what about other non ivy top 20s like Rice, Notre Dame, Emory, Vandy, JHU?</p>

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an elite university is a university whose alumni all make 6 figures or more a year, ie Harvard

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<p>I know plenty of HYPMS grads who aren't making close to 6 figures a year because they chose careers in the non-profit industry.</p>

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I know plenty of HYPMS grads who aren't making close to 6 figures a year because they chose careers in the non-profit industry

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<p>Ditto. I have seen people earn six figures coming from a tier 3 school's engineering deparment here in Houston.</p>

<p>I agree with UCLAri and RubenB84. There are plenty of people from lower tiered schools making well over 6 figures, and there are also plenty of people who went to HYPMS and are making much less than that, often by choice (my dad is one of them).</p>

<p>Texas Tech Engineers are from some reason, sought out here in Houston. University of Houston business/finance grads get some high quality jobs here too. Some of these alumni make high figures that rival even the Rice University grads. </p>

<p>am12388, I think that places like NYC and the east coast still harbor that elitist sense of choosing employees. Firms in the investment financial services and management consulting field are especially uber-elitist in this regard. Sometimes the best hope for amassing a high salary is to work for the regional firms out in South or the Midwest where they recruit the local schools.</p>

<p>the 3 columbia alumni that i know from my high school class are all elementary school teachers right now. dont think they're making 6 figures quite yet...</p>

<p>And why 6 figure incomes, anyway? I know tons of people doing incredible work (think Physicians without Borders) who make squat...</p>

<p>For the record, USN&WR rankings are really just glorified brochures for the top 5 universities.</p>

<p>
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an elite university is a university whose alumni all make 6 figures or more a year, ie Harvard

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</p>

<p>Trust me, Harvard has PLENTY of alumni who don't make anywhere near 6 figures a year.</p>

<p>While Harvard doesn't publish its salary data online, Princeton does. Not one person in Princeton's class of 2006 reported a 6-figure starting salary. These people are all obviously alumni now. So I guess that means that Princeton is not an elite school? </p>

<p><a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2006.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2006.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Similarly, the average starting salary of MIT grads in 2006 was nowhere near 6 figures. So I suppose that means that MIT is not an elite school?</p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>case in point. I have two buddies working for different firms. One graduated from Texas Tech and began working for Shell at 60k. I have another buddy working for Schlumberger and making the same amount after graduating with a masters degree from Cornell. Going to an ivy doesnt translate into big bucks. Unless maybe you want to work for a big end investment bank in NYC.</p>