The College Rejection Bonanza: Ivy League Schools are Over-rated Compared to Less Selective Colleges

THE AMERICAN THINKER ^ | 04/07/2006 | Richard Baehr

[SirLinksalot]

Here is the key sentence that is revealing to me ...

Despite more and more evidence that graduates of the most selective schools do not earn much more over their lifetimes than their counterparts at other very good but less selective colleges, many students (and their parents, who pay the freight) still believe there is the kind of earnings premium for attending elite schools that might have existed a half century back.

[Clemenza]

We alumni of U of Chicago like to refer to Harvard as a safety school.

[LA Conservative]

I'll be happy to get my daughter into Pepperdine, a halfway decent conservative university.

[martin_fierro]

[tbird5]

Yale (the school of choice for Taliban legacies)

HA HA HA

[tbird5]

If you have a really smart kid, some schools will pay him or her to attend!

[p. henry]

My eldest daughter will be entering Santa Clara U this fall, the university from which her eldest stepsister graduated. The more I hear about this school, the happier I am (at least so far). Two of her friends will be attending UC Berkeley and one will be attending Stanford, so she will have friends nearby. The article seems to be a fairly good summary of the madness that is college admissions and alumni giving.

[GSlob]

"The Bell Curve" has a nice graph about the typical students at different schools.

[stubernx98]

I can speak as owning a consulting firm for over ten years that had a retained search division. there are about ten things that had a correlation to success on the job. Approximate order the highest correlation first

1. Track record. What did you achieve, promotions, etc.
2. Level of education HS College, Masters PhD(not less than masters)
3. Degree subject. Business - technical - professional. Forget Liberal arts - Physchology - LLD a waste if you want to go into management.
4. references - real ones not the pre worked ones. The best reference - your bosses secretary.
5. Presentation - both written and physical BS factor may help, but if it does you wouldn't want to work there.
5. Resume' (short and to the point - should vary depending)
6. Grades - no correlation
7. School - no correlation unless processional, then only if recruiter is a dope.
8. The interview very low correlation. However a good interview can snow lots people when they ignore the first 5
9. Age negative correlation. Hire the old farts.
10. I can't remember - hey it works with grand juries.

[Young Scholar]

If you have a really smart kid, some schools will pay him or her to attend!

Unfortunately, they are rarely schools a good student would want to attend. There are a few really good scholarships out there, though.

[Tzimisce]

...and yet in this election year, we're going to hear all about how education is being screwed out of money. :(

[RayChuang88]

What's interesting is that the best business schools are mostly NOT Ivy League schools, if anyone read Business Week magazines knows. According to the Business Week lists, only the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has a world-renowned business school program on both the undergraduate and graduate levels for the Ivy League schools (a Wharton graduate actually has more prestige than a Harvard graduate with an MBA degree).

[Proud_USA_Republican]

True.

Wharton business grad is considered better than a Harvard MBA.
But the big advantage with Harvard and the Ivy league schools is the alumni organizations and the networking.
The networking aspect is what you pay all those hundreds of thousands for these schools. Once your in the club, more doors do open for you when it comes to jobs.

[traviskicks]

A very good article. FYI, some more in a similar vein:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/college.htm

[tbird5]

there are alot of great scholarships out there. my daughter got 6000 a year and my son got 10,000 a year both at catholic colleges and my son goes free to ave maria law school.

[Young Scholar]

I have a similar scholarship at a Christian college. It certainly helps, but still only covers about 1/3 the total cost.

[RayChuang88]

But the big advantage with Harvard and the Ivy league schools is the alumni organizations and the networking.

That's true in the past but given that the Wharton School has such high respect in the business community if you're a Wharton graduate there will be plentiful people looking for you for a management job.

[jcs1744]

I have a lot of friends who ended up going to Ivy League schools and places like Notre Dame. I'd say more than half of them are just so unhappy being at those places, they ended up having to major in things that they simply aren't interested in. All of their parents basically forced them into going to these schools. The ones that have graduated haven't exactly gotten prime "Ivy League" jobs. I'm pretty thrilled that I decided not to go to one of the Ivy League schools I got into. I decided to follow my heart and I'm really enjoying college and what I'm majoring in now.

[Herakles]

If the kiddies who go to Harvard are so smart, how come none of them are richer than Bill Gates, who I believe, dropped out of Harvard!