Posted on 04/04/2015 5:48:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This is an advice column about getting into an elite college. And, like every column about the anxiety of getting into an elite college, it must begin with a massive caveat: If you and your parents are worried about getting into an elite school, odds are that you are already elite.
The raw numbers are instructive. There are more than 4 million 18-year-olds in the United States. About 3.5 million of them will go to college. And just 100,000 to 150,000 of those—somewhere around 3 percent of the entire age group—go each year to selective schools that admit fewer than half of their applicants. College-admissions mania is a crisis for the 3 percent.
That said, the 3 percent mania is real. Hence the annual April blossoming of op-eds promising, with comforting certainty, that "it doesn't matter where you go to college." That is a really nice message. It's also wrong.
It matters where you go to college, plain and simple. Graduates of the most-select colleges often earn more than graduates of less-select public universities, who are employed at higher rates than those of community colleges, who get more calls from potential employers than graduates of online universities. A world where "44.8% of billionaires, 55.9% of [Forbes's most] powerful women, and 85.2% of [Forbes's most] powerful men" attended elite schools is not a place where college doesn't matter.
One of the most reproduced statistics from Frank Bruni's new book on this subject, Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be, is that just 30 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs went to elite colleges like the Ivies. (I have not read his book, and am not commenting on its quality outside of this statistic.) This factoid is being widely interpreted to prove that elite schools are overrated predictors of business success.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
It should read “It doesn’t matter where you go to college - if you are going to work for government.”
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Of course it matters. Try Hillsdale.
And, to make it worse, a significant portion of seats goes to foreigners and illegals. Otherwise, bet close to 7-10% could get into the so-called elite schools, plus the other higher tier schools.
In my long and varied career I have worked closely with many ivy grads and many state school grads. Of the three most talented and successful people I have worked with, two were University of Maryland grads and the third didn’t complete high school.
That said, the elite colleges are a requirement if you want to play the Establishment's game - in business or politics. Conform to the trendy world views, earn your pat on the head from Yale and then your six figure salary (less ~50% for taxes), and hope you don't get old before your usefulness runs out. University of Phoenix isn't going to open any of those types of doors.
The Ivy League teaches a lot of crap, but you go there for connections and indoctrination, not education. Once you have the connections, it doesn’t matter that everything you were taught is bullsh-t - because all those connections were taught the same bullsh-t.
I’m more interesting in getting them and education without seeing them enslaved by debt. We have planned to that end, but will it be enough with the insane increases in tuition?!? May the left burn for their crimes against our children...
No, it doesn’t matter where you go to college UNLESS you are in certain fields in certain places. If you are in Virginia and want to be a white collar lawyer at one of the big firms you better go to UVA or William and Mary or university of Richmond. If you want the same in DC you better go to Grown, or GW, or Harvard.
No, it doesn’t matter where you go to college UNLESS you are in certain fields in certain places. If you are in Virginia and want to be a white collar lawyer at one of the big firms you better go to UVA or William and Mary or university of Richmond. If you want the same in DC you better go to Grown, or GW, or Harvard.
RE: Yes, for the other 97%, forget it, you get the community colleges and the local universities that recruiters pass over for the best jobs.
My daughter works as a Financial Analyst for the largest PR firm in the USA.
She graduated BS International Business Finance at Grove City College.
Her colleagues (those who work with her in her department ) are graduates of Duke, Brown, NYU and Northwestern University.
She tells me all of her colleagues have student debts to the tune of tens of thousands. She is debt free.
So, who is starting out in post-college life ahead?
Well the average person is never going to be a billionaire.
If you want to have normal achievable success in life any state university is going to give you a good education. Its more important to select the right tract of studies than the school. Make sure you major in something that will put you into a good paying job. Unless you want to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist the 4 year university n your state will be good enough.
An important consideration is that many corporations now refuse to hire any Ivy League or Seven Sisters graduates, some going as far as referring to them as “corporate cancer”. And there are several reasons for this.
First and foremost, Ivy League and Seven Sisters graduates are regarded as having no loyalty to their employers, instead being guided by burning ambition, their willingness to turn against their colleagues and employer if a better opportunity presents itself.
Add to that a reputation for being “ethically challenged”, acting as if rules and even the criminal law does not apply to them.
They are also compelled by their former school to give hiring preferences to classmates from that school, which creates the “corporate cancer” analogy in that they not only are a problem in and of themselves, they metastasize, bringing in more of their kind, until in some cases, their employer is ruined.
The icing on the cake is their frequent claims of superiority and contempt for those educated elsewhere. Hillary Clinton is a fine example. Educated at Wellesley College, she sneered at and savaged Tipper Gore for merely graduating from Boston College and getting a Masters from Peabody College; regarding Tipper as little more educated than a servant.
Needless to say, this does not ingratiate them with others.
Tipper, for her part, as well as her husband, are filled with bitter, burning hatred for both the Clintons, as Bill, though he graduated from Georgetown, also treated Al Gore, then VP, as little more than a servant boy.
Yes, it does matter what university you went to.
Let’s be realistic.
Ivy League lawyers dominate the national ruling class.
If you want to be in that class, it’s almost a requirement.
Well Marie Harf has a poli sci degree from IU Bloomington.
So her career options were selling women’s blouses at Forever 21 for 9 bucks an hour....or a six figure job at the State Dept.
She chose wisely.
I suspect that most people on this site, at least, don’t really care if their kids wind up as “movers and shakers”, at least regarding the financial angle of it.
I think that most of us would be happy if they can get an education that puts them in the Upper Middle Class, with the potential to earn their way higher (such as at a large company).
Obviously that doesn’t apply to a the Kennedys, or Bush family, for that matter.
Poly SyFy....
“... two were University of Maryland grads..”
GO TERPS! :)
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