@moscott, your own kid is heavily considering another U even though the cost differential is much less. You can’t understand why other people would as well?
And yes, the Ivies would consider a family with $270K in total income ($135K salary per parent) with 4 kids and little liquid savings (because they just recently got the salary bump or went through a divorce, etc.) in a high COL area to be wealthy, but that doesn’t mean they are.
Bigger point is based on what so many say(I don’t agree) why would any kid even want to go to an Ivy if the only thing they offer(as they perceive) is prestige and nothing else.
@Rivet2000:
“Consider two tech graduates at a party, one from MIT and one from UCSD.”
Depends on the company. Some companies would actually favor the UCSD grad.
@Data10 would have insight into this.
Oh wait, you said “party”, not “company”.
Yes, some people and members of the opposite sex would be attracted to prestige. It’s up to each person to determine how much that matters to them.
@moscott I don’t think anyone is saying there is no benefit to an elite school. The point is that for kids who can’t go there for any number of reasons, their life prospects are still excellent. They can achieve their dreams from other places, including lower tier schools. And yes, anyone who is shelling out $280K at any any school is wealthy.
@gallentjill I agree completely. Kids can and are successful regardless of being able to attend an elite college. That said read through this and numerous other posts. The only thing(according to a lot) an elite school offers is prestige. I don’t see where other redeeming qualities are listed.
@moscott Very few people will say there is no benefit to an ivy education. Is it worth “X” amount money more than another degree? Well, that is a totally different question.
Many people on this board have cited many examples and statistics about prestige and how it effects outcomes. To name a few: higher acceptance rate at top grad schools, more opportunity to be recruited for high paying jobs.
Does that mean that one can’t be successful without attending a prestigious school? Of course not! That’s like saying there is only one path that one can take in life to be successful.
I have no regrets that I went to CUNY schools for both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Back in the late 1970’s being a graduate from Brooklyn College had enough prestige in NYC. When I went back to school in the 1990’s for education, I knew that any local program would be fine and that going to Hunter College would probably give me an edge. And sure enough, on my first and only job interview on Long Island, the superintendent commented on how Hunter was still one of the best schools to prepare future teachers. So my CUNY degrees were more than adequate for my goals. Going to an ivy would not have changed whether I got the jobs I was offered, but then again, it might have opened different paths to consider or different connections to network.
I think it’s reasonable to think that 9 times out of 10 it would favor the MIT grad. If you have to place $1 bet - go MIT. The point is, prestige draws interest by default. If there was another UCSD alum there, they may talk to the other.
Re: MIT vs UCSD
A signal that the MIT person may have been a better high school student than the UCSD person?
@ucbalumnus No assumptions other that college
Can a person be successful going to a less prestigious undergrad? I’m living proof that yes it is possible. I graduated undergrad from a regional campus of Purdue University, IPFW, while working full-time and going to school 3/4 time. Upon graduation I landed a job as an IE at a local company, worked my way up and went on to get a Masters Degree from Purdue, main campus. Continued up the corporate ladder and landed a job as a Vice President at a small start-up medical device company and they sent me to Kellogg for my MBA. I’ve been a VP for many years at three companies one of them one of the most well known names in their industry.
When I look at my peers, I would say I am the exception. I’m the only person that worked full time and went to school part time for my undergrad. The vast majority of my peers graduated from State Flagships of higher level prestige (Virginia, UofM, etc.) and a few went to the Top 10. (The really weird thing is I don’t know anyone in my industry who is a top LAC graduate, but I digress).
So in my case, I did augment my resume with an MBA from a top 7 Business school and I would be foolish to think that my Kellogg MBA hasn’t opened doors for me.
However, when my son was looking for undergrad, it was very hard to turn away from UChicago when he saw that 84% of last years class that applied to law school were accepted to a T-14. As his current plan is to go on to law school, that made it worth our investment. The question is, was it because of prestige, the level of student who gets admitted to UChicago, and/or the rigor of the UChicago program of study. Most likely it is a combination of all three, but probably something like Acceptance at T14=LSAT+GPA=(prestige.20)+(level of student accepted.50)+(rigor of program*.30).
The bottom line is every situation is an individual situation. I shook my head in disbelief when I’d walk by the school of social work at Northwestern, wondering why someone would go there to be a social worker. Why would you go to Princeton to get an elementary education degree? I’m sure there is a case to be made for people who do in their minds, but it isn’t something I can rationalize.
@moscott- I agree with you that we should not reduce a college to its level of “prestige” or lack thereof, and fail to value other aspects of an education at a college.
My post #48 above purposely included a discussion of learning environment and on-campus opportunities… because college is much more than just a hurdle to be scaled en route to a job. I am not paying for my son to attend Williams so that he will get a job (although it is certainly also reassuring to know that it has a good record in grad school and job placement). Why Williams? It is in the hope that he will have a magical four years immersed in the life of the mind with peers who enjoy the world of ideas as much as he does.
And to this same point, I am an example of someone like @BrianBoiler described in his last paragraph. I went to Williams to get a top education, majored in English just because it was interesting, and then went on to get my masters in education at Columbia, becoming first an elementary school teacher and then a school administrator.
My goal has never been to make lots of money. I wanted intellectual stimulation and a career that is fulfilling because I am making a difference in the lives of others. Not everything needs a financial “return on investment.” My ROI was in the quality of the educational experience I had at college, as well as in the reading, writing, and thinking skills I apply to everything I do.
The world needs brilliant philosophers, experts in ancient Roman history, artists, theoretical physicists, etc. What a dull world it would be if no one made such career choices anymore!
Since admission and enrollment at MIT versus UCSD for undergraduate is dependent on high school achievement and family circumstances (mostly financial), it would be a fair assessment to see the difference between the two people as such, right?
I think this has been beat to death.
Everyone can’t be brilliant.
Everyone can’t be wealthy
Everyone can’t be a CEO
Everyone can’t go to a prestigious college.
I’ll leave it at that.
@ucbalumnus I don’t know. I’m just making an observation on established prestige. Back to the party example, I don’t think that anyone would say “MIT huh, what high school did you attend?”
It wouldn’t be about what high school the MIT person attended; it would be the implied assumption that s/he was a top student in high school with top end test scores, extracurriculars, essays, and recommendations, regardless of what high school s/he attended. (And, of course, family money / financial aid situation that made it work.)
Did you write that or did your roommate, the Wharton grad write it?
@ucbalumnus I really don’t subscribe to the skip-a-level theory. IMO I don’t think they would would think about where they went to high school at all. Instead, I think they would focus on them being a graduate of a prestigious college - MIT.
Of course @TheGreyKing many of those fields like theoretical physics require grad school. Based on the OP, is the advice that accepting the financial offers at lower ranked, non-prestigious schools valid? Grad school is not dependent on parental finances in the same way as UG.
Once again, it is not about where someone went to high school. It is about how s/he did in high school to get admitted to MIT or whatever prestigious college.
@ucbalumnus I can’t say that I’ve ever head that mentioned. “Oh you graduated from MIT? You must have done very welll in high school”???