

Does It Matter Where You Go to College?  - edw519
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/29/does-it-matter-where-you-go-to-college

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ajude
It matters if you want a career in a 'professional service' i.e. politics,
banking, law etc and to some extent the business world purely b/c these
institutions not only offer you a brand name education but the opportunities
(work experience, public speakers from a range of industries, extra-
curriculats etc) on offer are far far superior to lower ranked colleges.

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kenjackson
On average it matters. But for "you" it doesn't.

My problem with college is that there aren't good metrics to judge how good a
college is. The only data we really have is how good are the incoming
students. If you moved the student body at Harvard to Kansas State and vice-
versa (allowing for differences in population), but kept the relative
reputations (so the students at KState were still considered the brightest,
although now the faculty was different), what would be the result? Nothing?
Severly undereducated students from KState and failing students from Harvard?
Who knows?

Today people use college attended as a proxy for how smart you were at age 17.
Which is unfortunate, because I think I tend to see the biggest intellectual
growth from people between 21 to 30 (which is largely after grad school
admissions).

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Retric
_Researchers found that students who applied to several elite schools but
didn't attend them -- either because of rejection or by their own choice --
are more likely to earn high incomes later than students who actually attended
elite schools._

Any thoughts on why this might be true?

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Prisen
If they just took an average, it could be that those choosing not to attend
had other, much more lucrative, alternatives.

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jchonphoenix
It appears for an article making such a bold claim, there's very little
content or support. I was quite disappointed.

