
Does it matter where you go to college? - docker_up
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/does-it-matter-where-you-go-college/577816/
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cozzyd
This is not what these studies measure, but people in Academia are much more
likely to have gone to elite grad schools (in their respective fields, which
is not the same as undergrad rankings of course). And, in my experience
(Stanford undergrad, MIT PhD, currently UChicago postdoc), elite grad schools
predominantly select people from elite undergrad institutions. It's possible
to get into a great grad program from a non-elite school, but it's much
harder, while someone like me in the middle of my class at Stanford was able
to get into good grad schools without too much trouble.

This is probably not just due to snobbery; it's much more likely for the
admissions committee to have heard of your recommenders and such. If you do
research with a famous professor at a non-elite school you'd probably have
similar results, but the barrier is a bit higher.

~~~
geebee
That's almost certainly true, but interestingly, the list of elite schools
does get shuffled up a bit at the grad level. Few undergrads would consider
UCSD more of a prize than any Ivy, but as a graduate research program, it
would be considered very elite. Berkeley arguably has more top 5 PhD programs
than any other university, but again, when two high school students bump into
each other in the hallway, whip out a ruler, and measure admissions packages,
Harvard is definitely a longer and thicker acceptance letter than Berkeley.

I do remember an interesting flurry or articles from a study a couple of years
ago suggesting it doesn't matter much where you go to college _provided you
major in STEM_. From my limited observations and experience, I'd say that's
true - I doubt a strong CS major from UCSD experiences any real disadvantage
vis-a-vis more selective ivies, but an international relations major from Yale
definitely has a leg up on securing those prestigious early career internships
and positions.

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40acres
My anectodal experience tells me no. I went to a CUNY (NYC system college)
school with a 99% acceptance rate and sub 20% graduation rate. It was more
important that I lived in New York than that I went to this specific school. I
was able to find internships which got me into the industry, network with
folks from different industries, and generally have a lot of opportunities
available to me. Also, I graduated in 4 years with no student debt and low
overall expenses, I was able to pay my way with a part time job and government
subsidies. I've given way more in taxes than what it cost the city and federal
government to send me to school.

It may not be an elite Yale or Stanford education, but most folks don't have
that anyway.

~~~
projectramo
But is your experience typical or exceptional?

~~~
40acres
It's atypical but I think it provides a completely different model about how
to think about college. A lot of parents are stressing out about how to pay
for college and for good reason, but I think you can derive 80% of the value
of going to college for 20% of the cost.

For one: I don't think most families can pay the extra fees associated w/
going to an out of state school. Second: most states have at least one solid
state school that has a relatively high acceptance rate for residents, third:
students and parents really need to have frank discussions about the economic
potential of a degree. Fourth: Students and parents should strongly consider a
"half and half" between community college and a state school to complete their
degree.

At the end of the day, a lot of parents are paying for prestige, but if you
can get the right degree and internship experience I don't think where you
went to school is weighted as heavily.

I'm fortunate to be in software (although I did do market research before
declaring), I doubt anyone who's read my resume has heard of the school I went
to, but a critical internship really opened up the doors for me and I've had
opportunities to interview at some of the biggest companies in the world. You
gotta think outside the box.

~~~
mcguire
How do you get the right internship experience if the right companies don't
recruit from your school?

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
>Third, to admissions officers of elite colleges: Do better. America’s most
selective colleges can, it seems, change the lives of minorities and low-
income students. But they’re still bastions of privilege. They enroll more
students from the top 1 percent of the income scale than the entire bottom 60
percent. In this way, elite institutions are like factories of social mobility
being used as storage facilities for privilege; they have the potential to use
their space to manufacture opportunity at scale, but mostly they clear out
real estate for the already rich, who are going to be fine, anyway.

I wonder if this this advice would actually be harmful. The real cachet of the
elite colleges is not so much their elite teaching, but that the elite go to
them. Going to these colleges as a non-elite kind of "adopts" you into the
elite and has great benefits for these non-elites. However, if these elite
colleges basically become a reflection of the United States where the vast
majority of people are non-elite, these elite colleges will lose their aura
over time. The elite won't really be affected by this as they have other
social networks to connect with fellow elite. However, the non-elite will lose
this important way of networking with the elite.

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projectramo
They should run a location effect study to accompany this.

Is it better to have a high SAT score and go to San Jose State vs low SAT
score and go to (say) UVa (University of Virginia which is a good school far
away from Silicon Valley) to get a job in Silicon Valley.

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devilmoon
It matters especially if you're not from the US. You could've gone to the best
university in your country, but if it's not a top institution in the US or a
handful of others (ETH and a few more in top positions according to Qs
Rankings) I feel like most big names in tech won't even look at your resume.

Anedoctal example, but I graduated with a decent mark from the top CS
department in my country (106/110) as an UG, I couldn't even apply for a
masters in top universities in the UK (let alone US) since their requirements
are skewed towards not accepting people from my country (if you came from the
UK you needed a 2:1, which if I remember correctly is around 70%, if you came
from my country you needed 109/110, which is over 99%. Scores for other EU
countries like Spain and France were converted to their 70%). This led me to
going into a masters in my country, which will most likely hinder me from
getting a PhD in any top institution in the EU just because of the country I
was born in, even though some of the professors in my current masters degree
course are top researchers in their fields. So yes, I feel like where you go
to school earlier in life _greatly_ influences where you will end up in the
future; and even more so, where you were born influences your chances of
making it anywhere in life. This is not to say that I am some unrecognised
genius, I feel like I am a "median" CS student with a poor math background to
booth; but at the same time I absolutely feel like a lot of talent will go
unrecognised and won't have the same chances in life others have just because
they happened to be born in a country rather than another (even more so after
having studied in the UK for a year and having met people who went on to work
for top companies when they clearly were subpar compared to people studying in
my own country)

~~~
raptorfactor
I'm an Australian with no degree who got poor marks in high school, and I got
a job at Microsoft (software engineer doing C++ dev and some light reverse-
engineering) after about 5 years of freelance work, with zero qualifications.

IIRC my education history came up once in the interview process (I was
interviewed by 6 different people that day and only one brought it up), and
that part of the conversation basically consisted of:

Interviewer: "You don't have a degree?"

Me: "No, I'm self-taught."

Interviewer: "Oh okay, that's cool."

Literally nobody that I work with talks or cares about where you went to
school or what your grades were. YMMV I guess.

~~~
devilmoon
I feel like the problem lies in getting your feet through the front door,
after that how you got your education really doesn't matter anymore. You were
lucky enough to get an interview with Microsoft thanks to your past work
experience, but other people (especially the ones who try academia before
going into the private sector) don't have that chance and most of the time
won't even be invited to an interview, that's the problem.

I am confident that if big companies actually interviewed people coming from
different universities they would find that most top-uni grads are worse that
people coming from different institutions who always feel like they have to
perform 110% just to level the playing field.

~~~
raptorfactor
Actually my work experience had almost nothing to do with it, as pretty much
all of it was done under NDA. What really helped me was having a set of public
personal projects which demonstrated competency in relevant areas (I know
because I had a discussion about it with my hiring manager after I'd been
working there for a couple of months - I was curious about how much the lack
of a degree mattered when they were filtering candidates).

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commandlinefan
I think that we idealize that it doesn't matter, but at a certain level, it
does matter - even decades later. I went to no-name university and graduated
with a high GPA in CS in '95\. My work experience since has been solid, and I
have some respectable accomplishments, but places like Google and Facebook
don't even notice me. The only "black mark" on my resume that I can imagine
would be holding me back is "graduated from no-name university".

~~~
fetus8
I don't think this is always the case. I graduated in 2014, from a small state
university with a CS degree and a decent GPA. Last year after only have a
couple years in the field with a big US based Tech company, and I landed
interviews with Amazon and Google while searching for jobs after being laid
off. I think it really just depends on location, and probably a million other
things.

~~~
avgDev
I think it depends on companies you worked for prior. I can develop complete
applications. However, I don't have much experience with large teams and I
don't want to work for a tech company because I prefer a laid back environment
and less hours.

I doubt google would hire me due to lack of experience working on a large team
with many departments,even though my GPA was 3.9 from a average Chicago Uni.

~~~
small_island
Ditto. I've been in IT since 1998 and attended a smallish college in VA. Done
fine all these years. I don't need the feather in my cap from working for
large companies like some feel the need to pursue. I worked for Microsoft for
a short time and wondered why I even took the job. It was among the worst of
my tech jobs. The people were stuck up, they were on the verge of losing out
on the mobile race (while still pushing Windows Mobile). Never again. I work
for a non-profit and am quite happy to, as you say, have more control, less
hours, but far more sanity.

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thrwthrw93223
There is a lot of talk about elite universities offering full-tuition to those
that make under a certain income, but what this ignores is usually you have to
be in a certain income bracket to obtain certain SAT, AP scores along with the
right ECs and upper division college prep courses. This usually means
attending the best private, public, or STEM magnent school in your state,
which sadly most families in those income brackets cannot afford. The people
getting into these elite schools come from elite secondary schools and the
poor people that can't attend these schools are usually excluded from
admissions to elite colleges. So the "free tuition" advertisement is nice, but
in practice their admissions standards do a good job of keeping such poor
folks out.

~~~
csa
This is at best a half truth. Going to these schools helps, but it is not
necessary.

There are an abundance of people who are qualified to get into elite
universities at less-than-best schools in a given state.

There are three main issues that I see:

1\. They self-select out of applying. They know lots of smart people, but they
don’t know anyone else who applied, so those elite schools must be impossible
to get into.

2\. Their teachers/administrators have no idea how to write a strong
recommendation for a stellar student. The applicants don’t know how to choose
people who can write good recommendations.

3\. The applicants don’t know about the small tweaks in their extracurriculars
that will make them standout (e.g., demonstrating leadership, vision, etc.),
and/or they don’t know how to write about their considerable achievements in a
compelling way (e.g., I’ve heard an incredible and incredibly modest person
saying that their considerable achievements were not worth discussing on an
appication because “Well, what else would you do? Isn’t this just normal?”
Answer, no, it was not normal.).

Note also that plenty of the “poor” students have been recruited in one way or
another, with athletes probably being the biggest recruiting pool.

~~~
thrwthrw93223
What you wrote only adds to, not negates my overall message. These are the
products of being poor.

~~~
csa
I think the admissions practices are largely fine, and they dont, by design,
aim to keep poor people out (as you suggested).

I think that these schools could do a better job at educating potential
applicants and the circle of people around said potential applicants _much_
better. In my opinion, the internet has democratized this process considerably
over the past 20 years or so, but I think there is still considerable room for
improvement, especially by the universities themselves.

~~~
kaitai
I guess I'd disagree, in that admissions practices at many schools are
designed to admit children of rich people. Sure, poor people aren't penalized
for being poor per se, but they're not going to contribute to the endowment,
you know?

So you get a boost for being a legacy, for having parents who are rich, for
being from a rich feeder school that indicates you have parents who are rich,
etc. It's not that you get a -1 on your point total for being poor. It's that
you get a lot of +1s for being well-off, because ultimately well-off people
give more money back to the school & produce well-off alumni who are
attractive to well-off applicants. At private colleges and universities in
particular there is a careful attention paid to long-term revenue, as colleges
are feeling the economic squeeze in the amenities arms race. Colleges are
separating into 'winners' and 'losers' and that sorting is along the lines of
revenue and endowment.

The article is right on that connecting unconnected kids with connected peers
is the biggest benefit of an 'elite' education. 'Winner' colleges today are
trying to surf the wave of existing power structures rather than
create/educate a new wave of potential elites.

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peterburkimsher
I think "where" you study matters, but for a different reason. It's not the
prestige of the school, it's the geographic proximity to potential jobs.

I'm (still) trying to find a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Despite
an MEng and 4 years work experience to satisfy immigration, companies aren't
interested in interviewing people who aren't already physically there and have
the right to work.

The only solution seems to be to get a student visa by joining a course in
underwater basket weaving, and continue looking for a job locally when
physically present. It's a terrible misuse of the visa system, but there seems
to be no other way.

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cosmosai
I believe if you want knowledge, then the answer is no. College can teach you
a lot and show a ton. That said, ultimately, you will have to become your own
teacher anyway and you can do it in your own room at your own house. But if
your goal is getting a job, you absolutely want the biggest names (the bigger,
the better chance at getting a job) to vouch for you. According to the
article, this may not be true for rich white men (presumably, American), but
if you are from Kazakhstan or Nigeria, I believe you'll definitely get a bang
for your buck waving that Harvard paper in front of a potential employer.

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evilturnip
>In other words, if Mike and Drew have the same SAT scores and apply to the
same colleges, but Mike gets into Harvard and Drew doesn’t, they can still
expect to earn the same income throughout their careers.

I've read that SATs are heavily g-loaded.

In such a case, your success being correlated with the SAT is obvious, as IQ
being positively correlated with income is well-accepted in psychometrics.

So yes, you can be successful without going to a good school, but mostly
because you're relatively intelligent.

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basseq
So it's a tautology. Prestigious schools attract top talent because top talent
goes to prestigious schools. The best way to be successful is to be top
talent—regardless of where you go to school for the majority—but top talent
are likely to be those people who push and stress and play to win the
"collegiate sweepstakes".

~~~
matty_makes
I think you missed the point of the article. It only matters for certain
demographics. The byline says it all: "they can have a big effect if you’re
not rich, not white, or not a guy"

I'm not sure what 'rich' means in the article, but if it means 'not poor' then
for middle class white males it doesn't matter what school is on your resume.

~~~
lucozade
> for middle class white males it doesn't matter what school is on your resume

That's not what the studies show. What the studies show is that, if you're a
well-off white male _who is in the top 1% academically_ then it doesn't
matter, long-term financially, where you go to university.

I mean, I found the article interesting but that's a pretty niche bunch of
chaps right there.

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groth
tldr;

"The simplest answer to the question “Do elite colleges matter?” is: It
depends on who you are. In the big picture, elite colleges don’t seem to do
much extra for rich white guys. But if you’re not rich, not white, or not a
guy, the elite-college effect is huge. It increases earnings for minorities
and low-income students, and it encourages women to delay marriage and work
more, even though it doesn’t raise their per-hour wages."

~~~
war1025
To be honest, that sounds like going to an elite school gives women the short
end of the stick. You get paid the same, but put off vital life events.

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sumnole
It not only matters where you go to college but which professors you study
under. Got one that doesn't care? Sorry, their research is more important than
effectively teaching you. Got one that carries out favoritism and/or
discrimination? Sorry, your grade and chance of getting a good first job out
of college just got lower if they don't like you, and you still get to pay
thousands for that. I see MOOCs as a step in the right direction to solving
many problems within education.

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randyrand
So many correlation and causation errors all over the place.

~~~
dang
Maybe so, but please don't post shallow dismissals to HN. A good critical
comment teaches us something.

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C1sc0cat
Yes sadly

