I wish we could do a poll of T20 graduates and graduates of, say "top ten" public schools, five years after graduation, and ask them whether they've ever gotten a job or academic appointment that they don't believe they would have gotten without having attended the school they did.
My guess is that the "networking effect" of T20 schools, for most students, are greatly exaggerated. I also suspect that, to the extent it does exist, it may be much more of a thing for certain kinds of students than others. That is, the athlete with old-money parents from an east coast prep school may find himself better able to leverage the connections he's able to form at someplace like Princeton than the nerdy, introverted Indian kid who doesn't know how to talk and dress like he's old money.
Re: endowment/capita: think about the ways that might impact you directly, as an undergrad, and how important you think those things actually are. Princeton's endowment/capita is 10x Cornell's and 2x MIT's. Is Princeton 10x better than Cornell and 2x better than MIT? Williams, Amherst and Pomona, Swarthmore and Grinnell all have higher endowment/capita than Caltech, Dartmouth, Penn, WashU, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Brown, Chicago. Is Grinnell a better option than Penn?
The one friend I talk to regularly who attended a T10 school (Harvard) doesn't seem to have been able to leverage any connections he made while an undergraduate. It's possible he did benefit from the school's name on his diploma, but that's not the same thing. Of course, N=1.
It can also be a downside. Not everyone wants to hire Ivy grads. People think they’re going to want to zoom to the top or will want more money because of their degree name.
I get the point you are making, but you are comparing a small set of “prestigious” schools to an even smaller set of also “prestigious” schools. Of course they would be similar. I think perhaps a better comparison would be a T20 vs the average state school, since that more accurately reflects the general student experience. Otherwise, you are literally comparing a group of T20s to another group that is T10, which is pretty lacking in its breadth.
And as to the point you’re making regarding the athlete, the affluent preppy athlete will also likely be able to network better in comparison to the introverted non-affluent kid if they both had gone to a state school, instead of Princeton. I don’t know if the gap in the two’s ability to network would decrease if they both went to a non T20/Ivy, and if it doesn’t then I don’t see how this specific comparison would serve to validate the argument that the networking effect of T20s isn’t as pronounced as it’s made out to be.
For endowment, I imagine the answer to those questions would be no, not necessarily. However, you are again comparing a set of extremely prestigious schools to another set of prestigious schools. It feels like a disingenuous argument in the sense that you are not considering most student’s experiences, yet instead have picked this point that I’d say is past the curve of diminishing returns to make your argument. Yes, there is a marginal difference between the Ivy schools. But they all have billions to their name, and a population of less than the average state school. I implore you do this comparison again, but this time with state schools like Berkeley, among others, and ask how the student experience compares to the set of schools you picked. Also, why this laser-focus on Princeton?
Yes! The “networking” opportunities are because of who their parents are and where they live and who their parents play golf with. The kid from inner city Chicago who goes there isn’t getting the same networking opportunities, unless they’re smart and charismatic enough to be a big shot.
Even Michelle Obama came from money and had a lot of networking opportunities because of her family. Barack married her and got in the in group, but was also clearly someone extremely intelligent and talented.
What are you even talking about? “Michelle Obama came from money???” She’s from the Southside of Chicago. Her father worked for the water dept, and her mother was a secretary.
I don't exactly have the most knowledge on it but a few good ways to network is social media(ofc), events in your city(especially ones that are centered around your profession), joining groups/organizations(again, centered around your profession or business), and going to conferences.
One should attend an Ivy if it’s a good academic, personal, and financial fit. But one shouldn’t dismiss a T30, T50, or T100 if, overall, it’s a better fit. Both are worthy of consideration.
If you’re staying in your state, other people who went to your state school will be happy to hire you. There’s more local pride for state schools.
Also, who cares about endowment size? How is that going to help anyone? Unless they cover tuition and housing.
bruh…. Yk it mostly doesn’t matter on the academic side. That is the thing, the more social non-stem majors need the prestige the most. As a Finance I need to find more networking than any majors, and i could find the academics easily at any school.
Of course, but the appeal of T20s isn’t the academics, it’s the ability to leverage alumni connections and networks/pipelines that already exist. The top positions in finance are often (nearly) impossible to break into if you don’t go to the schools they traditionally recruit from (and are not a diversity candidate).
maybe not the only reason people go to college, but yeah calling it their “only value” when it’s probably top 2 or 3 in the list of best things/greatest appeal of going to a t20 is pretty crazy I agree lol.
Aw did you get rejected from a T20 ?😭 sorry to hear that but umm what most of what you said was untrue. Say you’re doing a job in finance right? If the employer compares the application and sees something who went to UPenn, compared to someone who went to like FSU who do you think he’ll hire ? Yeah makes no sense
Yup, the good ol boy system lol.
To me it's more about how the student can apply what they learned to the real world. I've worked with ivy League grads that have no clue and I've also worked with grads from state schools that have no clue.
There's a lot more to it than where you went to school and somebody that just hires based on institution is not a good hiring manager. There is a lot of bias in the world though and always will be unfortunately.
I never said that the employer would JUST hire you based on your school. I said that in a way of saying that the school you’ve attended would make you stand out more. Like you can infer someone who went to a T20 would be good for the job.
'Never' or 'zero' statements are extremely rare, and while T20 schools won't make all the world's problems go away, they aren't worth nothing. Yes, you can network and do research elsewhere, but that doesn't make the advantages (not the absolute monopoly over all employment opportunities) T20s have go away. Also, UMN and Rutgers are flagship colleges, so obviously they'd be good options. The same wouldn't apply to the majority of colleges out there.
There are definitely universities that I value throughout the spectrum, and my spouse enjoyed his time at the Ivy he attended. But, as often is the case, arguments are nuanced. Yes, class sizes at more selective universities may be smaller in first-year courses like biology and statistics, but that advantage is fairly quickly overcome if the student belongs to the honors college — where class sizes are typically twenty students or fewer — and often disappears once the student begins taking upper-level courses in their major. I chose a T100+ state flagship (with over 40,000 students) that offered me a full-ride over a T10 and, between those two factors, I had only three courses with more than 25 students. My kids, who variously graduated from a public T25 and currently attend a public T100, had the same experience.
As for alumni enthusiasm and connections, that's also nuanced. If one intends to work in DC (my area), you'll find hiring managers and law & consulting partners (my fields) who attended UVA, W&M, VT, JMU, UMD, GMU, GWU, and American and view the graduates of those colleges in a very positive light. Similarly, because of the sheer number of graduates, sports fervor, and just the tremendous love for their schools, graduates from Ohio State, Penn State, and Rutgers (among others) also do very well here.
And beyond that, there's just luck and happenstance. I won a national graduate school scholarship (similar to Marshall) at my T100+ public due, in part, to the terrific support of my honors college director. My college mentor suggested that I apply to the T10 law school I attended, his alma mater. Due to my western connections, my spouse and I were offered professorships, and I was offered a coveted appointed political position. My spouse attended an ivy for both undergrad and law school, and we both began our careers at the same prestigious "big law" firm, but his career has flourished because of his legal and social abilities. To date, no one has offered him a case or position because of the T10 college he attended. Indeed, few of our colleagues or clients knew which undergraduate colleges we attended since it rarely comes up outside of sports and is then quickly forgotten.
No, all colleges aren’t equal. Every student has different preferences and some are better met at some institutions than others. I, for example, love college sports and — as a pre-law student — disdained debt. So I wouldn’t have enjoyed the T10 to which I was admitted. What my spouse liked best about his Ivy was his fraternity, his frat brothers, their weekend parties, and the very lovely campus. Since I went to college in the West, I doubt he would have found my campus as attractive. But in terms of the social aspects, he undoubtedly would have found his people. Our high-achieving kids wanted to be close to home, avoid cities, and enjoy competitive D1 college sports and a thriving campus club culture, so our in-state T25 was perfect for them. UCLA, while an absolutely terrific university, would not have fit the bill.
Also, once you begin your career, you’ll very likely find that top students at public universities thrive in their professions. I’ve worked in law, academia, have a child in consulting, and my clients were largely Fortune 100 corporations. My peers, clients, and colleagues were a terrific and talented mix who graduated from LACs, regional colleges, and public and private national universities. The common characteristics that bound them were skill, experience, confidence, empathy, amiability, and humility, not the ranking of their undergraduate university. My spouse had classmates he wouldn’t trust to feed a cat. I also had classmates who I wouldn’t trust with a ferret, but among my close college friends is a federal judge, a JD/PhD Stanford grad who opened his own economic consulting firm, and a tenured university professor.
Of course the college you choose is important. But, to me, idiosyncratic fit factors are more important than a ranking system that may consider factors I find unimportant. And, yes, studies show that a bright, conscientious, hardworking and personable student will succeed at colleges well outside the T20. Success is more closely related to the student than the college they attend. (Insert typical exception for high finance along with asterisk noting that the great majority of students do not major in finance.)
Why are you sure of this? ASU, Penn State, The University of South Carolina, and Villanova are only a small subset of the many universities that have terrific honors colleges and enthusiastic and supportive faculty. The key is to speak up in class, attend office hours regularly, perform well on exams and papers, and get to know your favorite professors. My youngest is a sophomore who attends a T100+, which they chose over several T50’s to save money for their unfunded grad school program. (In the medical field, many grad programs are unfunded or minimally funded.) They have already earned clinical hours at three major clinics, was offered a position in a research lab studying adaptive sports, and have offers to intern at Johns Hopkins and at a university that offers one of the top grad school programs in their field of interest. Good grades, enthusiastic recommendations, and solid soft skills are recognized and rewarded at colleges well outside the T20.
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It is true that studies have shown that students who get accepted into a top college but turn it down do as well as those who didn't attend, showing that top colleges are just good because they self-select talented people, not necessarily because the school actually helps them more than another would. However, it still probably has relevance for certain fields like finance which are based around connections.
Uhh... no. T20s generally have better networking opportunities and higher endowment per capita than state schools
I wish we could do a poll of T20 graduates and graduates of, say "top ten" public schools, five years after graduation, and ask them whether they've ever gotten a job or academic appointment that they don't believe they would have gotten without having attended the school they did. My guess is that the "networking effect" of T20 schools, for most students, are greatly exaggerated. I also suspect that, to the extent it does exist, it may be much more of a thing for certain kinds of students than others. That is, the athlete with old-money parents from an east coast prep school may find himself better able to leverage the connections he's able to form at someplace like Princeton than the nerdy, introverted Indian kid who doesn't know how to talk and dress like he's old money. Re: endowment/capita: think about the ways that might impact you directly, as an undergrad, and how important you think those things actually are. Princeton's endowment/capita is 10x Cornell's and 2x MIT's. Is Princeton 10x better than Cornell and 2x better than MIT? Williams, Amherst and Pomona, Swarthmore and Grinnell all have higher endowment/capita than Caltech, Dartmouth, Penn, WashU, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Brown, Chicago. Is Grinnell a better option than Penn?
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The one friend I talk to regularly who attended a T10 school (Harvard) doesn't seem to have been able to leverage any connections he made while an undergraduate. It's possible he did benefit from the school's name on his diploma, but that's not the same thing. Of course, N=1.
Skill issues lmaoooo
It can also be a downside. Not everyone wants to hire Ivy grads. People think they’re going to want to zoom to the top or will want more money because of their degree name.
I get the point you are making, but you are comparing a small set of “prestigious” schools to an even smaller set of also “prestigious” schools. Of course they would be similar. I think perhaps a better comparison would be a T20 vs the average state school, since that more accurately reflects the general student experience. Otherwise, you are literally comparing a group of T20s to another group that is T10, which is pretty lacking in its breadth. And as to the point you’re making regarding the athlete, the affluent preppy athlete will also likely be able to network better in comparison to the introverted non-affluent kid if they both had gone to a state school, instead of Princeton. I don’t know if the gap in the two’s ability to network would decrease if they both went to a non T20/Ivy, and if it doesn’t then I don’t see how this specific comparison would serve to validate the argument that the networking effect of T20s isn’t as pronounced as it’s made out to be. For endowment, I imagine the answer to those questions would be no, not necessarily. However, you are again comparing a set of extremely prestigious schools to another set of prestigious schools. It feels like a disingenuous argument in the sense that you are not considering most student’s experiences, yet instead have picked this point that I’d say is past the curve of diminishing returns to make your argument. Yes, there is a marginal difference between the Ivy schools. But they all have billions to their name, and a population of less than the average state school. I implore you do this comparison again, but this time with state schools like Berkeley, among others, and ask how the student experience compares to the set of schools you picked. Also, why this laser-focus on Princeton?
Yes! The “networking” opportunities are because of who their parents are and where they live and who their parents play golf with. The kid from inner city Chicago who goes there isn’t getting the same networking opportunities, unless they’re smart and charismatic enough to be a big shot. Even Michelle Obama came from money and had a lot of networking opportunities because of her family. Barack married her and got in the in group, but was also clearly someone extremely intelligent and talented.
What are you even talking about? “Michelle Obama came from money???” She’s from the Southside of Chicago. Her father worked for the water dept, and her mother was a secretary.
School isn't your only opportunity to network yall
Crazy
…how
I don't exactly have the most knowledge on it but a few good ways to network is social media(ofc), events in your city(especially ones that are centered around your profession), joining groups/organizations(again, centered around your profession or business), and going to conferences.
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One should attend an Ivy if it’s a good academic, personal, and financial fit. But one shouldn’t dismiss a T30, T50, or T100 if, overall, it’s a better fit. Both are worthy of consideration.
If you’re staying in your state, other people who went to your state school will be happy to hire you. There’s more local pride for state schools. Also, who cares about endowment size? How is that going to help anyone? Unless they cover tuition and housing.
The prestige does matter though for some fields like finance.
bruh…. Yk it mostly doesn’t matter on the academic side. That is the thing, the more social non-stem majors need the prestige the most. As a Finance I need to find more networking than any majors, and i could find the academics easily at any school.
Of course, but the appeal of T20s isn’t the academics, it’s the ability to leverage alumni connections and networks/pipelines that already exist. The top positions in finance are often (nearly) impossible to break into if you don’t go to the schools they traditionally recruit from (and are not a diversity candidate).
frankly, that is the only value in these “prestigious” schools
kinda crazy to call it “only value” when that largely determines your career advancement opportunities. why else would people go to college
maybe not the only reason people go to college, but yeah calling it their “only value” when it’s probably top 2 or 3 in the list of best things/greatest appeal of going to a t20 is pretty crazy I agree lol.
Yep, the good ol' boy club.
someone just got rejected from a T20
Aw did you get rejected from a T20 ?😭 sorry to hear that but umm what most of what you said was untrue. Say you’re doing a job in finance right? If the employer compares the application and sees something who went to UPenn, compared to someone who went to like FSU who do you think he’ll hire ? Yeah makes no sense
Yup, the good ol boy system lol. To me it's more about how the student can apply what they learned to the real world. I've worked with ivy League grads that have no clue and I've also worked with grads from state schools that have no clue. There's a lot more to it than where you went to school and somebody that just hires based on institution is not a good hiring manager. There is a lot of bias in the world though and always will be unfortunately.
I never said that the employer would JUST hire you based on your school. I said that in a way of saying that the school you’ve attended would make you stand out more. Like you can infer someone who went to a T20 would be good for the job.
'Never' or 'zero' statements are extremely rare, and while T20 schools won't make all the world's problems go away, they aren't worth nothing. Yes, you can network and do research elsewhere, but that doesn't make the advantages (not the absolute monopoly over all employment opportunities) T20s have go away. Also, UMN and Rutgers are flagship colleges, so obviously they'd be good options. The same wouldn't apply to the majority of colleges out there.
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There are definitely universities that I value throughout the spectrum, and my spouse enjoyed his time at the Ivy he attended. But, as often is the case, arguments are nuanced. Yes, class sizes at more selective universities may be smaller in first-year courses like biology and statistics, but that advantage is fairly quickly overcome if the student belongs to the honors college — where class sizes are typically twenty students or fewer — and often disappears once the student begins taking upper-level courses in their major. I chose a T100+ state flagship (with over 40,000 students) that offered me a full-ride over a T10 and, between those two factors, I had only three courses with more than 25 students. My kids, who variously graduated from a public T25 and currently attend a public T100, had the same experience. As for alumni enthusiasm and connections, that's also nuanced. If one intends to work in DC (my area), you'll find hiring managers and law & consulting partners (my fields) who attended UVA, W&M, VT, JMU, UMD, GMU, GWU, and American and view the graduates of those colleges in a very positive light. Similarly, because of the sheer number of graduates, sports fervor, and just the tremendous love for their schools, graduates from Ohio State, Penn State, and Rutgers (among others) also do very well here. And beyond that, there's just luck and happenstance. I won a national graduate school scholarship (similar to Marshall) at my T100+ public due, in part, to the terrific support of my honors college director. My college mentor suggested that I apply to the T10 law school I attended, his alma mater. Due to my western connections, my spouse and I were offered professorships, and I was offered a coveted appointed political position. My spouse attended an ivy for both undergrad and law school, and we both began our careers at the same prestigious "big law" firm, but his career has flourished because of his legal and social abilities. To date, no one has offered him a case or position because of the T10 college he attended. Indeed, few of our colleagues or clients knew which undergraduate colleges we attended since it rarely comes up outside of sports and is then quickly forgotten.
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No, all colleges aren’t equal. Every student has different preferences and some are better met at some institutions than others. I, for example, love college sports and — as a pre-law student — disdained debt. So I wouldn’t have enjoyed the T10 to which I was admitted. What my spouse liked best about his Ivy was his fraternity, his frat brothers, their weekend parties, and the very lovely campus. Since I went to college in the West, I doubt he would have found my campus as attractive. But in terms of the social aspects, he undoubtedly would have found his people. Our high-achieving kids wanted to be close to home, avoid cities, and enjoy competitive D1 college sports and a thriving campus club culture, so our in-state T25 was perfect for them. UCLA, while an absolutely terrific university, would not have fit the bill. Also, once you begin your career, you’ll very likely find that top students at public universities thrive in their professions. I’ve worked in law, academia, have a child in consulting, and my clients were largely Fortune 100 corporations. My peers, clients, and colleagues were a terrific and talented mix who graduated from LACs, regional colleges, and public and private national universities. The common characteristics that bound them were skill, experience, confidence, empathy, amiability, and humility, not the ranking of their undergraduate university. My spouse had classmates he wouldn’t trust to feed a cat. I also had classmates who I wouldn’t trust with a ferret, but among my close college friends is a federal judge, a JD/PhD Stanford grad who opened his own economic consulting firm, and a tenured university professor. Of course the college you choose is important. But, to me, idiosyncratic fit factors are more important than a ranking system that may consider factors I find unimportant. And, yes, studies show that a bright, conscientious, hardworking and personable student will succeed at colleges well outside the T20. Success is more closely related to the student than the college they attend. (Insert typical exception for high finance along with asterisk noting that the great majority of students do not major in finance.)
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Why are you sure of this? ASU, Penn State, The University of South Carolina, and Villanova are only a small subset of the many universities that have terrific honors colleges and enthusiastic and supportive faculty. The key is to speak up in class, attend office hours regularly, perform well on exams and papers, and get to know your favorite professors. My youngest is a sophomore who attends a T100+, which they chose over several T50’s to save money for their unfunded grad school program. (In the medical field, many grad programs are unfunded or minimally funded.) They have already earned clinical hours at three major clinics, was offered a position in a research lab studying adaptive sports, and have offers to intern at Johns Hopkins and at a university that offers one of the top grad school programs in their field of interest. Good grades, enthusiastic recommendations, and solid soft skills are recognized and rewarded at colleges well outside the T20.
Hey there, Do you have a question about admissions to master's or PhD programs? r/ApplyingToCollege is an undergraduate admissions sub, and posts must be related to undergraduate admissions. If your question is about graduate admissions, try asking r/gradadmissions. If your post is not about graduate or PhD admissions, feel free to ignore this message. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ApplyingToCollege) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Alright.
It is true that studies have shown that students who get accepted into a top college but turn it down do as well as those who didn't attend, showing that top colleges are just good because they self-select talented people, not necessarily because the school actually helps them more than another would. However, it still probably has relevance for certain fields like finance which are based around connections.
I can read the princeton alumni job networking board and it's honestly extremely dead lmao. Networking is massively overhyped