
Advantages of a name-brand school - brendano
http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/advantages-of-name-brand-school.htm
======
jquery
I guess the only disadvantage is the apparently unbearable pressure of keeping
it to oneself for more than 5 minutes?

>Take-home message number two is the importance of humility. I get seriously
annoyed when I hear stories of people from name-brand schools being arrogant
towards or looking down on people who weren't fortunate enough to go to name-
brand schools.

Thanks Philip "MIT" Guo, but I don't want your sympathy or your company.

~~~
mattiss
The author seems like a tool. That's the thing about name-brand graduates
(particularly Harvard), within 5 minutes of meeting someone you will hear
about where they went to college, even 10+ years after they graduated. Clearly
this is an exaggeration, but definitely has some truth to it.

However I must agree with the OP sentiments, it is way easier for name-
brandies to get job interviews/offers. Nevertheless, I am doubtful that the
price differential is worth it strictly to help you land a job. I guess I will
never know what I missed out on, but faced with ~40k per year in loans I am
very glad I chose to go to a state school.

~~~
kurtosis
A friend's boss went to harvard and stanford - We meet up with him a lot, and
he can be relied on to name drop his alma mater s once every 2-5 minutes. At
first I thought this was a little pretentious and phony but I've actually come
to like the guy - he tells pretty interesting stories, he's very outgoing etc.
I guess we all have things that we are proud of. I'm definitely not a name-
brand school person but there are somethings that I'm proud of that I probably
talk about too much and I think most people are the same way. I try not to
judge. I've found that you can actually learn some stuff from "arrogant"
people if you just let them say the things that make them feel special.

~~~
mattiss
Not me. Ever since I got back from Everest I keep my mouth shut.

~~~
kurtosis
See this is a great example - If I met you I would love to hear your story,
but your modesty would make it unlikely that I would.

~~~
mattiss
I was joking about Everest. Some day maybe :)

------
jdlegg
Is this a Zen thing?

By gratuitously recapping the top 1% of humanity's absurd privilege through a
litany of self-congratulating narcissism disguised as advice are we supposed
to reach some sort of nirvana?

~~~
known
aka <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy>

------
InclinedPlane
Given that 4 years of tuition at one of those name-brand schools might run
$150k (vs, say, $25k at your local state University), the given advantages
don't seem to be worth it. Starting off your career 1/6th of a million dollars
in debt in order to cut short your job search by a few months and earn perhaps
a few percent higher salary (a lot of which will get swallowed up if you're
unlucky enough to jump into the higher tax bracket in that range) seems a
dubious decision to me.

If I had gone to one of those "name-brand" schools I suppose I might have been
better off in some ways, but right now I'm 100% debt free and that gives me a
hell of a lot more options than a diploma from a name-brand University would,
in my opinion.

~~~
pgbovine
(this is the tool/author here)

Right on for being debt-free out of college :) The financial argument you make
is convincing, but please note that I am not trying to pit private schools
against public schools! There are _plenty_ of people who are $150k in debt out
of college who went to private universities that are not known as so-called
'name-brand' schools.

~~~
pgbovine
ADDENDUM: and, depending on the need-based financial aid they receive, there
are plenty of people who attended name-brand universities who graduate with
much less debt than $150k

------
rfreytag
If you don't start with the advantage of a name-brand school and work resume
then you have less to risk or distract you from your world-beating startup.

An astonishing number of billionaires never finished college
(<http://www.pennylicious.com/2006/10/09/billionaire-dropouts/>)

~~~
pgbovine
(this is the tool/author here)

yes i totally agree --- actually i've observed that people who graduated from
name-brand schools are often more risk-averse and less likely to start their
own companies, since they've been trained at a young age to take the safe and
steady route through school and life.

regarding your billionaires comment --- please note that nowhere in my article
did i say that going to a name-brand school would make you more likely to
strike it rich :) the advantages are most prominent when you want to stay
within "the system" rather than venturing off into new territory

~~~
rfreytag
Good comment - you would do well to balance your article with this unexpected
risk-aversion result of having a name-brand academic and work pedigree.

------
jgrant27
Maybe those points(which glaringly describe benefits) are no substitute for
competency & experience. This sounds more like entitled mediocrity from the
author 'privileged' enough to have attended one of these schools.

I've known enough ivy league grads(even post-grads) who would argue against
the claims in that blog post. Of course they are proud of the schools that
they graduated from but their joy rests primarily in what they learned while
they were there.

The author writes as if education ends after graduation.

Why not also write about the 6 figure debt that many graduates walk into their
first job with ?

~~~
pgbovine
(this is the author/tool here)

> Maybe those points(which glaringly describe benefits) are no substitute for
> competency & experience.

Agreed, but the title of my article was the _ADVANTAGES_ of attending a name-
brand school, so of course it glaringly describes benefits :) i should
probably write a follow-up article talking about disadvantages

> Why not also write about the 6 figure debt that many graduates walk into
> their first job with ?

sure, that's also a good topic to write about, but please note that many
graduates of non-name-brand private schools also walk into their first job
with the same 6-figure debt. i'm not trying to contrast private/public schools
here.

~~~
pgbovine
> Why not also write about the 6 figure debt that many graduates walk into
> their first job with ?

ADDENDUM: there's been no discussion of financial aid packages at private
universities (doesn't matter if they're 'name-brand' or whatever, many private
schools offer need-based financial aid). depending on your family's financial
status, you could end up paying tuition comparable to what you'd pay at a
public school.

------
chrischen
Good thing when you start a startup you answer to reality, and reality doesn't
make estimations of your abilities based on a degree

Of course I agree, if you want to get a job, a name brand degree is going to
help. Heck if I was recruiting for a company I'd certainly pay more attention
to someone with a better degree (just more attention though). But doesn't take
a rocket scientist to see that.

~~~
known
Exactly. A successful ENTREPRENEUR is worth 10 MBAs and 10 PHDs.

------
unalone
In other words: Connections and reputation. It lets you market yourself better
and meet people you wouldn't meet otherwise.

~~~
novum
Not just that, but many companies focus the large majority of their recruiting
efforts on a select few universities. My company, for example, focuses almost
entirely on CMU, Berkeley, and Caltech for technical hires.

If our recruiters' actions are any indication, a name-brand school can save
your resume from being trashed right off the bat. But it won't land you a job;
it just makes the competition more intense.

~~~
unalone
Articles like this make me glad to be working with the stuff I am. I could
never handle a field that looks at anything other than portfolio. Reading this
gave me the heebie-jeebies.

------
strlen
The author speaks like not going to a "name brand" school will doom somebody
or make things exponentially harder. This is simply, empirically not true.

If landing a first job out of college is what worries you, factors which
matter a great deal more (for dynamic, high growth, technology companies of
any size) are competence, curiosity and credibility.

Speaking from _my own_ experience, somebody from an relatively uknown school
but who spent his college and high school years working in the industry (even
in small companies people have rarely heard of) and writing code _outside_ of
work/school in his spare time, _will_ get noticed, interviewed and hired by
top tier employers _no worse_ than somebody coming from a brand-name school.

~~~
pgbovine
(this is the tool/author here again)

> Speaking from my own experience, somebody from an relatively uknown school
> but who spent his college and high school years working in the industry
> (even in small companies people have rarely heard of) and writing code
> outside of work/school in his spare time, will get noticed, interviewed and
> hired by top tier employers no worse than somebody coming from a brand-name
> school.

I totally agree with you, but one of my points in the article is that (rightly
or wrongly, i'm not in a position to judge), somebody from a name-brand school
would have a decent chance of getting that same job offer _even without
putting in nearly as much self-driven dedicated real-world hacking work
experience_ as somebody who didn't have such privileges.

------
ekpyrotic
Question: which UK schools are known in the US?

~~~
unalone
Oxford and Cambridge are the only two that come to mind, and I know nothing
about them but their names.

~~~
chris11
London School of Economics also comes to mind. But Oxford and Cambridge are
probably the ones with the best reputation.

~~~
falsestprophet
In fact, there are very few international universities that are well known
among the general public in the United States.

The only other international schools that I suspect are well known are McGill
and the Sorbonne.

~~~
wglb
Waterloo? U of Toronto?

~~~
unalone
Legitimate American here! Waterloo is that battle Napoleon was in, right? And
U of X doesn't ever strike me as reputable unless it's Tokyo University, and I
don't think many Americans know Tokyo University either. Outside of England
the only schools I know of are Trinity in Ireland and IIT.

~~~
jrockway
I don't have anything against "U of X"es. The University of Chicago,
University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), University of Wisconsin (Madison),
and University of California (Berkeley) are all good schools. I think that in
the right fields any of those schools will get you anything having gone to MIT
or Stanford would (except with alumni of MIT and Stanford).

Incidentally, nobody interviewing me has ever asked where I went to school.
Seems like something that matters only if you have no proof of competence.

~~~
unalone
You forgot UPenn, which is the only U of X that is in the Ivies. But that was
kind of my point. The names all run together, and while I do recognize some
(and not all positively), I don't recognize any outside the United States
beyond TU.

~~~
jrockway
I guess this means that the best way for Universities to advertise is by
having an iconic clock tower that is in every animated television show with
high-school or college-age protagonists. I think Keio and Waseda are
objectively better schools (in Tokyo), but they clearly do not advertise as
well as Todai. ;)

------
known
Source: <http://tr.im/CuGq>

    
    
        * Open new career opportunities
        * Personal development & education experience
        * Increase salary
        * Potential to network

------
sheldonwt
This guy's writing is poor. His tone is pretentious, and his use of words is
offensive. In no uncertain terms, don't read this guys narcissistic bs.

------
zackattack
This is not a study. It's also especially susceptible to confirmation bias.

Also, my friend went to a name-brand school and he did not experience any of
the listed so-called advantages for which he was applicable. Clearly the
article is only a celebration of the author's ego since he fails to cite the
number one professional advantage from attending a name-brand school:
receiving a world-class education, and becoming more intelligent than
coworkers.

~~~
unalone
That's some confirmation bias too: You assume name-brand schools have better
education than non-name-brand schools.

~~~
pgbovine
(this is the maniacally egotistical author here)

> Clearly the article is only a celebration of the author's ego since he fails
> to cite the number one professional advantage from attending a name-brand
> school: receiving a world-class education, and becoming more intelligent
> than coworkers.

yep i agree with the OP ... please note that nowhere in my article did i claim
that you receive a higher-quality education or become more intelligent than
your co-workers by attending a name-brand school. on the contrary, many people
i know (from all sorts of colleges) would disagree with those claims. the
course syllabuses from most US universities are now online, so you can make
the comparisons for yourself; you can see what people in different schools
learn, and it's pretty similar ;)

