<p>I see that almost 90% of the poeple from various lists like Top 100 richest people in the world , top entrepreneurs , top this , top that are all from some of the best colleges like Harvard , Stanford (mainly) and many others which are all world famous US colleges ( I'm from India)</p>
<p>So how is that?</p>
<p>*Is it that like these colleges made these men great , or these men made their colleges great? *</p>
<p>What role do you think the college plays in entrepreneurial development , considering all the resources available on the internet now?</p>
<p>I'm in senior High school right now - college next year! And I am extremely motivated to be an entrepreneur and develop world changing products - and the fact that almost all the big word changing software products were developed by people from the best colleges , ( facebook , Microsoft , Adobe , Yahoo , Google etc ) again brings me to the same question : did the college these people went to play a major role in them ending up making all these products , or it was all their innovation and they would have done the same job even if they were not from that top college?</p>
<p>( By World leaders here I mean leaders in business and entrepreneurship )</p>
<p>Here’s a list from a similar post :</p>
<ol>
<li>Bill Gates - Harvard (dropout)</li>
<li>Warren Buffett - U. of Nebraska; Columbia</li>
<li>Larry Ellison - UChicago (dropout)</li>
<li>George Soros - London School of Economics</li>
<li>Sheldon Adelson - City College of New York (dropout)</li>
<li>Michael Bloomberg, Johns Hopkins; Harvard</li>
<li>Jeff Bezos, Princeton;</li>
<li>Mark Zuckerberg, Harvard (dropout)</li>
<li>Sergey Brin, University of Maryland; Stanford</li>
<li>Larry Page, University of Michigan; Stanford</li>
<li>John Paulson, NYU; Harvard</li>
<li>Michael Dell, University of Texas Austin (dropout)</li>
<li>Steve Ballmer, Harvard; Stanford (dropout)</li>
<li>Paul Allen, Washington State (dropout)</li>
<li>Phil Knight, University of Oregon; Stanford</li>
<li>Carl Icahn, NYU (dropout), Princeton</li>
<li>Donald Bren, University of Washington</li>
<li>Ronald Perelman, Penn</li>
<li>James Simons, MIT; Berkeley</li>
</ol>
<p>Post : <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1362392-where-10-richest-americans-went-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1362392-where-10-richest-americans-went-college.html</a></p>
<p>This is the list where those whose wealth was primarily from large inheritances was omitted (e.g. Kochs, Waltons)?</p>
<p>Two reasons: </p>
<p>1) the best schools tend to attract the best individuals at a higher rate. That’s not to say that other schools don’t (plenty of influential people didn’t go to an elite university), and that’s also not to say that the school is the reason for their success. Most agree that these individuals probably would have been successful regardless of where they went.</p>
<p>2) Privilege begets privilege. This is less important than (1), but it’s still common.</p>
<p>Pretty sure the schools deserve some credit, too, in some cases.</p>
<p>It’s funny how there are people who think “world leaders” can be used to respond primarily to people who aren’t world leaders. >.></p>
<p>Those elite schools look specifically for leaders, movers/shakers and hugely ambitious people. A lot is expected of them (One 17 year old told me of his surprise when he was asked the question “how will you change the world?” during his Harvard interview) and, given their personalities and opportunities, many do rise to and even exceed those expectations.</p>
<p>But yes, I do believe most of them would have been very successful had they chosen other universities.</p>
<p>[Treatment</a> Effects vs Selection Effects - Cobb](<a href=“Cobb”>Treatment Effects vs Selection Effects - Cobb)</p>
<p>To the extent the OP’s premise is true, I think it is primarily due to selection effects, not treatment effects. Why do I think that? Consider …</p>
<p>1… that 8 of the 30 people listed in post #3 were college dropouts. So their success could hardly be attributable to academic treatment effects (unless their colleges were so good that exposure to even a few semesters was enough … in which case, why wouldn’t they have stayed in school longer to get more of the effect?)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>… the finding of Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale that, among students accepted to both highly selective and less selective schools, those who choose to attend the more selective schools wind up with approximately the same earnings as those who choose to attend the less selective schools ([Estimating</a> the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables](<a href=“http://www.nber.org/papers/w7322]Estimating”>Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables | NBER))</p></li>
<li><p>… the fact that most “elite” colleges tend to have an arts & science focus, not a pre-professional (business, engineering) focus. So, their students probably aren’t being taught very much (not directly, anyway) about how to start up companies or design the next best user interface. Steve Jobs credits a course he took in calligraphy at Reed College with inspiring Apple’s focus on high-quality typography. How many other students would have taken away the same lesson?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>First of all, I’m going to beat this horse until it’s a pulp: Ellison not only went to UIUC first, he also stayed there longer. So Illinois should get partial recognition, if not all. </p>
<p>Secondly, that list actually makes the opposite argument. You don’t have to be from a top 10 University to be a “leader”. Many are from state colleges. Albeit great state colleges. </p>
<p>Sent from my HTC Glacier using CC</p>