Why do people pay SOOOO much to go to a presitgious college?

[Zebo]

chiztow is hitting the nail on the head. If you can get into whaton and graduate the total median starting package is around $150K starting out. #1 business school.

Try and graduate a little state school with an MBA you'll be lucky to be a manager at your local Hertz renta car facilty.

A good school investment in your future just like getting in the presidents list is. As far as recruiting it's totally different world. My brother graduated Chicago MBA and had firms flying in to see him, flying him to see them, and begging to work for them. Think "the firm" , and no not a beemer but any car he wanted less than $1000 a month. I graduated calpolySLO (decent school but no ivy leage), and had to really work to get a job. I applied for over 50 and only got interveiwed for about 10 of those.

Continue to beleive the "it's the individual not the school" line if you choose to. Some of us have seen the difference and I'm saving now for my kids Wharton, MIT etc tuition.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Adul

Originally posted by: chizow
Simple answer: Many top-tier firms ONLY recruit out of the "prestigious colleges".

Chiz

sadly, and yet idiots are chosen over someone who knows what they are doing simply because of the school :|

You don't want an idiot actually doing anything! So instead they make them managers.

 

[DigDug]

What it comes down to is that business nor law (I exclude medicine for obvious reasons) is something that is inherently difficult. In fact, the choice jobs, the ones at the now-defunct Donaldsen, Lufkin and Jenrette (business) or Cravath, Swaine and Moore (law) are the most mindnumbing of all, since you are essentially a glorified grunt pushing paper around for years before anything truly substantial and meaningful is sent your way (you think billion-dollar companies want know-nothings on their deals?). This being the case, there is really no way to filter out those who will succeed from those who will fail, since conceptually a monkey could handle it. Here is where business and law schools come in, whose sole reason (more so for law than business) is to seperate the hardworkers from the slackers. Those who got into Penn's Wharton School of Business or Yale Law were either brilliant and lazy, or incredible hardworking or somewhere in between. THAT is the cutoff that the firms are looking for. They don't really care what the hell you know because they plan on molding you to their specifications. They just want someone who will put in the 110% (or be so brilliant that they may already be there) to get to that point.

 

[BruinEd03]

Originally posted by: Carbonyl
chiztow is hitting the nail on the head. If you can get into whaton and graduate the total median starting package is around $150K starting out. #1 business school.

Try and graduate a little state school with an MBA you'll be lucky to be a manager at your local Hertz renta car facilty.

A good school investment in your future just like getting in the presidents list is. As far as recruiting it's totally different world. My brother graduated Chicago MBA and had firms flying in to see him, flying him to see them, and begging to work for them. Think "the firm" , and no not a beemer but any car he wanted less than $1000 a month. I graduated calpolySLO (decent school but no ivy leage), and had to really work to get a job. I applied for over 50 and only got interveiwed for about 10 of those.

Continue to beleive the "it's the individual not the school" line if you choose to. Some of us have seen the difference and I'm saving now for my kids Wharton, MIT etc tuition.

keep in mind MBA's and JD's are professional degrees. You can get those degrees via going to a state college for undergrad...THEN going to a nice private school. To me that makes more sense.

-Ed

 

[Deeko]

I go to Drexel, its a private school, tuition of 19K, room/board/fees and all totals around $31K. Why am I going there? 1) School has a good name, which is important 2) It is costing me LESS to go to Drexel than it would have Pitt, my 2nd choice school, because of scholarships/grants.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: BruinEd03

Originally posted by: Carbonyl
chiztow is hitting the nail on the head. If you can get into whaton and graduate the total median starting package is around $150K starting out. #1 business school.

Try and graduate a little state school with an MBA you'll be lucky to be a manager at your local Hertz renta car facilty.

A good school investment in your future just like getting in the presidents list is. As far as recruiting it's totally different world. My brother graduated Chicago MBA and had firms flying in to see him, flying him to see them, and begging to work for them. Think "the firm" , and no not a beemer but any car he wanted less than $1000 a month. I graduated calpolySLO (decent school but no ivy leage), and had to really work to get a job. I applied for over 50 and only got interveiwed for about 10 of those.

Continue to beleive the "it's the individual not the school" line if you choose to. Some of us have seen the difference and I'm saving now for my kids Wharton, MIT etc tuition.

keep in mind MBA's and JD's are professional degrees. You can get those degrees via going to a state college for undergrad...THEN going to a nice private school. To me that makes more sense.

-Ed

Where do you think these top teir professional schools admit thier applicants from? Sure a couple outstanding individuals get in from cheaper state schools but I'd be willing to bet the farm the majority come from thier own undergrad ranks or a similar institutions.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
What it comes down to is that business nor law (I exclude medicine for obvious reasons) is something that is inherently difficult. In fact, the choice jobs, the ones at the now-defunct Donaldsen, Lufkin and Jenrette (business) or Cravath, Swaine and Moore (law) are the most mindnumbing of all, since you are essentially a glorified grunt pushing paper around for years before anything truly substantial and meaningful is sent your way (you think billion-dollar companies want know-nothings on their deals?). This being the case, there is really no way to filter out those who will succeed from those who will fail, since conceptually a monkey could handle it. Here is where business and law schools come in, whose sole reason (more so for law than business) is to seperate the hardworkers from the slackers. Those who got into Penn's Wharton School of Business or Yale Law were either brilliant and lazy, or incredible hardworking or somewhere in between. THAT is the cutoff that the firms are looking for. They don't really care what the hell you know because they plan on molding you to their specifications. They just want someone who will put in the 110% (or be so brilliant that they may already be there) to get to that point.

I would'nt exclude medicine either! Come match time who do you think will do better a Caribbean grad or Johns Hopkins? Image is everything.

 

[BruinEd03]

Originally posted by: Carbonyl

Originally posted by: BruinEd03

Originally posted by: Carbonyl
chiztow is hitting the nail on the head. If you can get into whaton and graduate the total median starting package is around $150K starting out. #1 business school.

Try and graduate a little state school with an MBA you'll be lucky to be a manager at your local Hertz renta car facilty.

A good school investment in your future just like getting in the presidents list is. As far as recruiting it's totally different world. My brother graduated Chicago MBA and had firms flying in to see him, flying him to see them, and begging to work for them. Think "the firm" , and no not a beemer but any car he wanted less than $1000 a month. I graduated calpolySLO (decent school but no ivy leage), and had to really work to get a job. I applied for over 50 and only got interveiwed for about 10 of those.

Continue to beleive the "it's the individual not the school" line if you choose to. Some of us have seen the difference and I'm saving now for my kids Wharton, MIT etc tuition.

keep in mind MBA's and JD's are professional degrees. You can get those degrees via going to a state college for undergrad...THEN going to a nice private school. To me that makes more sense.

-Ed

Where do you think these top teir professional schools admit thier applicants from? Sure a couple outstanding individuals get in from cheaper state schools but I'd be willing to bet the farm the majority come from thier own undergrad ranks or a similar institutions.

DEAD WRONG! At least for law school it's all about GPA and LSAT. Guess what a 3.8, 165 from Clown College will trump a 3.2, 165 from Harvard. Of course a 3.8 165 from Harvard will trump the Clown College dude.

-Ed

 

[Zebo]

DEAD WRONG! At least for law school it's all about GPA and LSAT. Guess what a 3.8, 165 from Clown College will trump a 3.2, 165 from Harvard. Of course a 3.8 165 from Harvard will trump the Clown College dude.

 

[BruinEd03]

Originally posted by: Carbonyl
DEAD WRONG! At least for law school it's all about GPA and LSAT. Guess what a 3.8, 165 from Clown College will trump a 3.2, 165 from Harvard. Of course a 3.8 165 from Harvard will trump the Clown College dude.

Yeah...but how many people get 3.8 165 from Harvard? Think about it. Harvard law school has about 550 people in it's first year class and represents about 145 colleges. There's PLENTY of people that get into the law school who don't come from Ivy Leagues. If you're in the Ivy's, you still have to do WELL there. Oh yeah and a 4.0 161 from Princeton won't get you into Harvard law school. a 3.5 178 from Clown College will.

-Ed

 

[LS20]

Originally posted by: Carbonyl
chiztow is hitting the nail on the head. If you can get into whaton and graduate the total median starting package is around $150K starting out. #1 business school.

Try and graduate a little state school with an MBA you'll be lucky to be a manager at your local Hertz renta car facilty.

A good school investment in your future just like getting in the presidents list is. As far as recruiting it's totally different world. My brother graduated Chicago MBA and had firms flying in to see him, flying him to see them, and begging to work for them. Think "the firm" , and no not a beemer but any car he wanted less than $1000 a month. I graduated calpolySLO (decent school but no ivy leage), and had to really work to get a job. I applied for over 50 and only got interveiwed for about 10 of those.

Continue to beleive the "it's the individual not the school" line if you choose to. Some of us have seen the difference and I'm saving now for my kids Wharton, MIT etc tuition.

little schools like uc davis, which isnt the best in the state...its not even 3rd or 4th best in the UC system alone, can still produce grads making 80K a year (chicago 85k, mit 93k, northwestern 90k)


hell, id be happy to direct a fleet of mercury sables for 60k/year

 

[DiamondJ]

It depends on what your going into. If your gonna do corporate law or something (the firm..if you like) then you'll need an expensive ivy league school. But I have a friend who's going Ivy to be a friggin elementary school teacher. Give me a break. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You'll end up paying more in four years of tuition than you'll make back the rest of your career as a freakin faculty member at Lincoln Elementary School. Like they're not gonna higher ya to be an elementary school teacher because your credentials aren't good enough.

 

[McPhreak]

Well, all the grad schools I applied to this year are all prestigious colleges (Harvard, MIT, JHU, Stanford, etc) simply because those names can't hurt me in any way. Granted, I get free tuition and a stipend out of any of the schools I'm accepted to, but even if I had to pay my way through, I would still choose the prestigious university over any other. Why? Because the best professors flock to the best universities. With the professors come funding, distinction, and of course brilliance. Here's Proof

I guess it's a little different when it comes to going to a prestigious college in your undergrad vs. grad. In one sense, the brilliant professors are able to teach you more in grad school than undergrad (you're more of an apprentice now), but in another sense, you don't need to go to a good school to do great science...but it helps I guess.

 

[acidvoodoo]

with Science and engineering degrees, is it genrally ofay to undergrad at a large state school, then go to a prestiegous one for your masters/phd (if u choose too)

 

[tcsenter]

little schools like uc davis, which isnt the best in the state...its not even 3rd or 4th best in the UC system alone, can still produce grads making 80K a year (chicago 85k, mit 93k, northwestern 90k)

A friend of mine earned a Bachelors in Electronics Engineering Technology with highest honors (#1 in his class) from, of all places, ITT Indianapolis and had several companies actively recruiting him before graduation. First job = $52,000 out of college plus all the bennies, that was ---> 11 years <--- ago, before the labor pool crunch in the tech/engineering sector.

He has since earned his Masters in EE from the University of Michigan, all expenses paid by his employer.

It really doesn't matter where you go, if you're in the highest one or perhaps two percent in your class, you'll have relatively little trouble getting a job. If you're further down on the class list, you'll have to work at finding a job.

 

[vegetation]

Yea, there's a big difference here between undergrad and grad. The fact is, nobody really cares where you got your bachelors from. And if you think ending at the bachelor level is a good career choice, then you've got it wrong. Maybe that was the case 10+ years ago, but certainly not today.

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo
with Science and engineering degrees, is it genrally ofay to undergrad at a large state school, then go to a prestiegous one for your masters/phd (if u choose too)

 

[blues008]

Quite a few good points have been made so far, but this is what it boils down to:

1) No matter what you decide to study in college you're going to get a job at some point in your life or pursue a higher degree in another program. A degree from a 'prestigous' school like Chicago, Rice, Cal Tech, Berkeley, the Ivies, MIT, etc. is worth more because top companies in their respective fields only hire from these schools.

2) Many of you may be pursuing a technical degree - CS/Engineering/Biology/Chemistry - a degree from one of these schools is worth more because the quality of eduation you receive is simply better because of three reasons:

a) Better facilities

b) Better teaching or teaching from respected people in a certain field

c) Tougher competition

3) The 'good old boy connection' - If you decide to pursure a career in business or law, you're going to need more than your transcript to get your foot in the door at top level companies. The Ivy League is notorious for nepotism and unfortunately that's the way the real world works.

Ultimately, an education is worth only what you put into it, and you need to decide for yourself whether or not a degree from Brandeis at $37000 (tuition plus living) a year is worth more than a degree from UCLA at $15000 (tuition plus living).

 

[yoda291]

I look at it like I looked at high school. I went to a POS HS...it was 2nd from the bottom in the state at the time. As a result, I had to bust my arse just to have places like MIT and Stanford even look at me. Eventually, I got into NYU for CompSci, not too bad, but I know other people who got into MIT and NYU and Stanford,etc simply because the schools they went to were better equipped to teach, didn't pander to people who just didn't care about their high school careers, etc. Now that I'm in a good school, the school provides OPPORTUNITIES that I know for a fact are not an option in most schools that cost less. For computer architecture, we had a professor who worked on the Itanium for Intel. For Internet Tech, we had a very respected authority on SOAP to teach. We were also given the option to hear seminars by authorities in various fields like database management, cryptography, etc. The reason I emphasize that these are opportunities is that they are optional. Those who don't want to take what they can from them and gain an expansion to the network of people they know, don't have to. So while, you can get a far superior education than a lot of people in a prestigious university, the more expensive university has the resources to OFFER its students more.

 

[acidvoodoo]

Originally posted by: vegetation
Yea, there's a big difference here between undergrad and grad. The fact is, nobody really cares where you got your bachelors from. And if you think ending at the bachelor level is a good career choice, then you've got it wrong. Maybe that was the case 10+ years ago, but certainly not today.

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo
with Science and engineering degrees, is it genrally ofay to undergrad at a large state school, then go to a prestiegous one for your masters/phd (if u choose too)

does a masters take 1 year or 2 years? how about a phd?

 

[fizmeister]

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo

Originally posted by: vegetation
Yea, there's a big difference here between undergrad and grad. The fact is, nobody really cares where you got your bachelors from. And if you think ending at the bachelor level is a good career choice, then you've got it wrong. Maybe that was the case 10+ years ago, but certainly not today.

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo
with Science and engineering degrees, is it genrally ofay to undergrad at a large state school, then go to a prestiegous one for your masters/phd (if u choose too)

does a masters take 1 year or 2 years? how about a phd?

Depends on the major. You can probably get a masters in 1 year in an engineering discipline (especially if you stay at your undergrad school), and stuff like physics (which I'm doing) will take 5-6 years to get a PhD, and it's useless to even get a master's (many places don't even offer it).

 

[LS20]

Originally posted by: BruinEd03
Yeah...but how many people get 3.8 165 from Harvard? Think about it. -Ed

almost everybody

 

[Gulzakar]

If your going to an IVY league school for the name, thats fine, just be prepared when your future employer can tell your an idiot. There are many who attend these schools because they are smart. There are also many who attend because they have money. My highschool English tacher attended Cornell...she was a Grade A numbnut with a wealthy daddy. I think you'll find that the right school gets you in the door easier but from there on it's how "good" you are. That is a lesson many of these IVY league kiddies have learned. "Hey, meeza smart guy, but meeza have the interpersonal skills of Jar-Jar".

It takes more than your school these days and thats a lesson business is starting to understand. What most people don't see is that A LOT of SMART people attend the "lesser" univerities because it's cheap. But, as it was said before, an education is only good if the student actually puts 100% into his/her work. Personally, aside from teachers and facilities, I don't see how the material from one school can be different from another. I only had two megasections and that was for BASIC courses like Intro to Marketing (for all Bus majors) and a general MGMT course (for all Bus majors). If people need their hands held for such courses, then I guess a good school would make up for their lacking abilities.

I had the opportunity to attend such a school, but I refused to put my parents through such a financial burden. Plain and Simple.

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: Adul

Originally posted by: chizow
Simple answer: Many top-tier firms ONLY recruit out of the "prestigious colleges".

Chiz

sadly, and yet idiots are chosen over someone who knows what they are doing simply because of the school :|

Well, if an idiot is hired he is very quickly weeded out.

 

[KevinH]

Originally posted by: Dr Smooth

Originally posted by: Adul

Originally posted by: chizow
Simple answer: Many top-tier firms ONLY recruit out of the "prestigious colleges".

Chiz

sadly, and yet idiots are chosen over someone who knows what they are doing simply because of the school :|

Well, if an idiot is hired he is very quickly weeded out.

Lol, I have been in several industries and the fact of the matter is the idiots DON'T get weeded out.

 

[getbush]

What do they call a person who graduates from the University of Michigan's pharmacy college with all As? Doctor.
What do they call a person who graduates from Ferris State University's college of pharmacy with all Cs? Doctor.