<p>I know there was an article saying they do. But why?</p>
<p>Would a kid that goes to Harvard make a lot more then a kid from Vanderbilt and would a kid from Vanderbilt make a lot more then a kid from Tulane? Why?</p>
<p>Reputations/prestige are associated with quality. Not just of the universities that the students attend, but of the students themselves. It’s so hard to get into some of these schools (e.g. Caltech) that even getting accepted is a large accomplishment and is very impressive. In the new Tron movie, when the main character’s dad asks him where he goes to college he’s like “i went to Caltech…but then i dropped out.” This is fictional though. If you want real world examples, look at Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerburg. Both Harvard dropouts. Not because they couldn’t finish, but because they felt their time could be utilized more productively. </p>
<p>It’s a certain level of quality, that goes off from the institution to the individual themselves. It’s not perfect (e.g legacy admits) but it’s the quickest, easiest way of looking at someone’s “quality” if you’re looking at applications. </p>
<p>If you look at Vanderbilt’s rankings on wikipedia, every other ranking except US news has it listed over 50. So being high on one ranking, in the long run, i don’t think will make that big of a difference. But schools do have large regional reputations, as i’m sure vanderbilt does in the south. </p>
<p>It isn’t surprising that the individuals in the highest income brackets also tend to be the ones who comprise the majority student population in the highest ranked universities. Getting even more philosophical, life isn’t fair, which is why some individuals have more advantages than others. If you want to look at the issue more substantively, here’s an article on distributive justice:</p>
<p>[Distributive</a> Justice (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](<a href=“http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-distributive/]Distributive”>Distributive Justice (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy))</p>
<p>It’s because the students at these colleges were go getters before they ever got there. That’s why they were accepted.</p>
<p>Historically, many of these institutions drew from an applicant pool that already came from a wealthy, well-connected sector of society. A more valid analysis of wealth/power/etc. following graduation requires removing those individuals from the sample.</p>
<p>I don’t have the link to the study, but one well validated project a number of years ago compared students who chose to study at other institutions even though they had been accepted at an Ivy, with socio-economic peers who chose to study at an Ivy. In this follow-up a number of years after graduation, there was no significant difference in the lives of those two sets of students. In other words, if you are a potential top whatever, you can get there from your home-state U. Your character counts for more than the name on your university’s letter-head.</p>
<p>In addition to Duke and the Ivies, grads from Holy Cross, Colgate and Notre Dame top payscale salary reports. Holy Cross and Colgate due to very loyal alumni networks have many alums in top positions in corporate world, Wall Street and HC has a lot of medical(doctors) as alums.</p>
<p>It’s because students at those schools are all Type A kids who have access to the best opportunities after graduation with regards to jobs and graduate schools. There’s also a halo effect where the ambition and academic excellence of the peers around you or lack thereof positively or negatively impact you.</p>
<p>You’re unlikely to go to a law school below a certain threshold from Harvard since you hold yourself to a higher standard because of the environment you’re placed in where all of your classmates are gunning for the top ranked ones. </p>
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I would be vary of spreading this around as if it was gospel since in a number of cases where you went to school does matter more than your personal attributes. Finance, consulting, non profit and government are all areas where if you’re not from a school of a certain caliber, its tough to break in.</p>
<p>Even for law school or medical school, where your undergraduate institution’s reputation supposedly doesn’t matter, students in environments where going to the top-ranked programs is a norm will fare much better as I discussed above. The level of encouragement, advising and ambition you have will depend on factors that are external and not in your control.</p>
<p>That’s why the strength of the student body matters a lot.</p>
<p>So basically since I can’t get into any fo these schools I’m screwed. Great.</p>
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<p>you’re talking about this study:</p>
<p>[The</a> Ivy League Earnings Myth - The College Solution (usnews.com)](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2011/03/01/the-ivy-league-earnings-myth]The”>The Ivy League Earnings Myth)</p>
<p>a good example of this is richard nixon who got accepted into harvard but couldn’t afford to attend so he had to go to whittier college (although he went to duke law.)</p>
<p>Not getting into a school does not mean you are screwed. Having an attitude/belief that you must get into a certain school or you are screwed is what will get you screwed.</p>
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<p>that’s an incredibly odd way of using a priori. A priori means knowledge without experience. I’m not sure how you can experience a methodology. Perhaps you meant necessarily? Unlike what kant thought, they’re not analogous, as was shown by kripke’s a posteriori necessary truths (e.g. “water is H20” which is known through experience since chemists, using an experiment, concluded that water is chemically H20. So necessarily, every instance of water will be H20. This is a very odd tangent, but this is what i’m working on in my finals right now so i just thought i’d throw it out there 
)</p>
<p>You can criticize a part of the methodology in how it relates to the rankings. And from that, infer that the ranking is garbage. (as i did) The ‘quality of life’ is a highly subjective and it accounts for 30% of the ranking.</p>
<p>Your premise is incorrect . . . students do NOT earn more just because they went to an Ivy . . . and there are plenty of schools that are non-Ivies that have graduates who earn a LOT of money . . . not that there is anything wrong with that.</p>
<p>Guess what college has the highest earnings after MIT? Hint: not an Ivy . . .
[Average</a> Cost for College - Compare College Costs & ROI](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/education/average-cost-for-college-ROI]Average”>Best Value Colleges | Payscale)</p>
<p>Look at all the other schools on the list: Lehigh, WPI, Rice, Vandy, Notre Dame</p>
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<p>You know something? I’m more than sick of a bunch of college students who have zero real-world job experience trying to tell forty- and fifty-somethings who HAVE had extensive job experience “what companies value” and “who is going to get where from whom.” Because you guys – you THINK you know, but you really don’t. You’re not out there. You think that everyone oohs and aahs over certain schools and spits out their gum at the mention of others, and you don’t have the life experience to realize that smart and hard working people rise to the top, and jerks stay at the bottom no matter what the name on the diploma.</p>
<p>I called a plumber to fix leaking from two of my outside faucets. He must have worked just over an hour. I got a bill for $450! I am sure that plumber didn’t go to Harvard. It’s just supply and demand. You have to be at the right time at the right place.</p>
<p>because kids here are gunning for investment banking (wall street), which not only pays a high base salary, but also pays 100%-500% bonus.</p>
<p>Agree with Waverly to large extent. Look at research resumes of some of the unhooked accepted students on the Stanford thread and you will understand why they might make more eventually. They are not just smart or well accomplished, but many appear to be very driven and really “go getters” on another level in order to have accumulated those kinds of outside school, above and beyond what most of us consider to be above and beyond, experiences.</p>
<p>Yes, ambition. 3’s got it.</p>
<p>Smarter people probably tend to make more money than less smart people. The average person at one school is smarter than the average person at another. The school with the smarter people has a higher average starting salary.</p>
<p>I would like to add that there is a difference between correlation and causation - it could be viewed as either:
(1) People that get into ivy league schools have a tendency make more money.
(2) People that are bound to make more money have a tendency to get into ivy league schools.</p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell had a great New Yorker article about it (and a speech on YouTube). All else equal, graduates with similar SAT scores, but different schools (i.e. Penn vs. Penn State) still make the same salary. Ivy League schools are basically a modeling agency.</p>
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Agreed. Banking and consulting account for almost half (!) of all Duke students who choose immediate employment. Wall Street actively recruits at only a small number of colleges, so these WS hopefuls tend to congregate at certain colleges. </p>
<p>Another factor may be that most of the Duke graduates choosing further education are aiming for a JD or MD rather than a PhD.</p>