Ivy League Failures: Anybody know of people who got fancy education but ended up as nobody?

Almost every person ends up as a "nobody" in that only diminishing small percentage of people end up as top level executives. celebrity level actors/musicians/etc., prominent politicians, professional/Olympic level athletes, or similar. This is just as true of Harvard grads as it is for the general population. While I'm sure that Harvard (and other elite university) grads are overrepresented amongst the extremely "successful", you're probably talking .00005% of the Harvard/elite university population vs. .00001% of all college grads (5X representation, but still an inconsequentially small percentage).

A couple of more interesting questions are:

1) Are graduates of elite universities over or under represented amongst the ranks of the merely "successful" (meaning you garden variety physicians, attorneys, mid/upper management business people, etc.)?

2) Are graduates of elite universities under or over represented amongst those with substance abuse issues or other mental illnesses?

I'm pretty sure the answer to #1 is that elite university grads are very much overrepresented amongst the "successful". Realize its only anecdotal, but I was recently hanging out with six former teammates from my top university and amongst the seven of us we two physicians, two VPs at 5000+ employee companies, an architect who owns his own firm, an attorney at a large firm in SF, and a working actor. Now it can be argued pretty strongly that this success is due to the inherent personality characteristics that get students into top universities, rather than to the educations the university provides, but that's for another day.

Regarding #2, I wouldn't be surprised if elite university grads were also overrepresented amongst the mentally ill. Amongst the same group of friends I know at least a couple of us have dealt with episodes of clinical depression. I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a positive correlation between IQ and prevalence of mental illness.

Regardless of the above, OP, why do you feel differently about your family member based on their education?

Really Bro wrote:

Lil' PUMP wrote:

I dropped out of Harvard to save the rap game, but I'm not a nobody.

High school is not Harvard. I'm embarrassed I fact checked this fake news.

The real educated rapper is 2chainz. Kanye West dropped out. Childish Gambino has one of those fancy degrees but he ain't a real rapper.

You can't actually be stupid enough to believe that was serious. You're also being sarcastic, right?

They're still better than you! Stop trying to cope and just accept it.

lifeiscomplicated wrote:

I surely qualify. Performed well at a top college and competitive Ph.D. program. Had interviews with Ivy departments for assistant professor jobs. Qualified for Olympic trials and Social Security Disability thanks to a brutal start in life that makes it

very hard to work effectively with people in general and especially those who have power over me. A strong intellect cannot override baked-in reactions that are miserable to endure.

I look like any other over educated stay at home parent. You have no idea what is in someone's background or head.

How did you make it through before stalling?

I worked hard. I went to lectures and did problem sets. I started all my assignments early in case I fell apart for a couple days.

School has well defined tasks. If one learns easily and is interested in the material, top schools can be very engaging.

I could probably hold down certain types of jobs now that aren't available where I am.

Thinkster wrote:

Taught for a decade at a somewhat selective liberal arts college in the midwest. Our department was looking to fill a one-year visiting assistant position and one of the applicants was AB Harvard, DPhil Oxford--on a Rhodes Scholarship. Nice guy who'd bounced around since Oxford, in increasingly short stints at various positions. Nobody could quite figure out what the issue was and we decided not to hire him for fear of what baggage he might be carrying.

You only offered a short stint yourself, think typical academic insecurity/contract lengths might have been part of the problem here?!

lifeiscomplicated wrote:

I worked hard. I went to lectures and did problem sets. I started all my assignments early in case I fell apart for a couple days.

School has well defined tasks. If one learns easily and is interested in the material, top schools can be very engaging.

I could probably hold down certain types of jobs now that aren't available where I am.

Move then and stop malingering.

I went to Wharton, a *very* prestigious school. Believe me. I was the smartest person in my class. Smarter than the professor!

My casinos went bankrupt. My condo buildings in Mexico never got finished. I started a tremendous university, but it got shut down.

Now I have a government job watching Fox & Friends and playing golf. I meet very boring, serious people. SAD!

Last year i bought a phone at a local Verizon store. I was wearing a tennis shirt and the guy selling me the phone at the counter told me he played tennis at Brown. I was surprised to see a Brown degree selling phones

runjoeyrun wrote:

Last year i bought a phone at a local Verizon store. I was wearing a tennis shirt and the guy selling me the phone at the counter told me he played tennis at Brown. I was surprised to see a Brown degree selling phones

What? You think that a Brown graduate is not smart enough to sell phones? I know that Brown is not a top Ivey, but selling phones is not super hard.

runjoeyrun wrote:

Last year i bought a phone at a local Verizon store. I was wearing a tennis shirt and the guy selling me the phone at the counter told me he played tennis at Brown. I was surprised to see a Brown degree selling phones

This comment is disgusting. It's not 1950 anymore. They can work any job they please.

Notice the Ivy Leaguers who amounted to nothing got worthless liberal arts or humanities degrees.

Probably many D1 college boys are struggling now. Receiving handouts. They have city hands. They've been counting money all their lives.

Believe me little man, you are by comparison a tick on a horse. Hillary Clinton would dominate you in every respect.

John Utah wrote:

Hillary Clinton

John Utah wrote:

Hillary Clinton

10/10

She would rule you wrote:

Believe me little man, you are by comparison a tick on a horse. Hillary Clinton would dominate you in every respect.

John Utah wrote:

Hillary Clinton

Wrong. She was and continues to be an imbecilic nobody without the support of others.

100m wrote:

She would rule you wrote:

Believe me little man, you are by comparison a tick on a horse. Hillary Clinton would dominate you in every respect.

Wrong. She was and continues to be an imbecilic nobody without the support of others.

Word

Rojo & Wejo?

I was at an Ivy League school decades ago. Whenever possible, the schools tried to have a class with students from all 50 states. If the way to do that was to have your West Virginia representative be a linebacker on the football team, it should have come as no surprise if the guy washes out and just goes back to work in a steel mill at home.