NRR: How much does an IVY League education help you after college?

curious pupil wrote:

Like the title says, I'm curious as to how much having a degree from an Ivy really helps you in the Job market/grad school search after graduating. Anyone out there graduate from one and want to shed some light on how much it really helps when looking for a job? Could you also specify which ivy you went to?

Thanks.

Well, I hire a lot of people every year (I'm in the federal government at an agency). They come from all over, many from the Ivy League. Honestly, I see no difference in performance from Ivy Leaguers as compared to some folks from colleges I've never heard of. I'd say an Ivy League degree helps in getting the first job. After that, you're on your own to perform well. After a couple years in the workforce, no one gives a crap where you went to college or what your GPA was.

I honestly think college has become a big rip off. People are paying way to much for what they get out of it.

Two words: Alumni. Network.

crazy person wrote:

Two words: Alumni. Network.

I think that's one of the big advantages. You may or may not need or use that network, depending on what work you go into.

Believe it or not, some students go to Ivys because they actually have an intense interest in some particular area, even out of high school. There are a lot of world renowned professors who serve as mentors. Some Ivy League grads will follow in their footsteps and go into academia.

If your career goal is just to get a job or to get into your state med school, you probably don't need the Ivys.

One of my kids is at one right now and is actually kind of miserable. Not a good fit for everyone. Huge work load and intensely competitive.

It does not get you the job, but it can get you an interview and *certainly* a second look.

A sub 13 5K will get you more job offers.

I think many of these are accurate responses. It helps to get that first interview and first job. In addition, the average salary for graduates of Ivy League schools and other schools like Stanford and Duke tend to be higher than other schools.

Also agree that top 10 schools aren't for everyone. Depending on your personality, no matter how intelligent, some students aren't happy with such an intense workload and being in such an intense, competitive environment.

In the old days Stanford & Ivy was a big deal. Since the internet, Cal Tech, Berkeley, UCLA, USC, UCSD, UCSB, are the UCI are the ticket to the fast track.

good responses wrote:

I think many of these are accurate responses. It helps to get that first interview and first job. In addition, the average salary for graduates of Ivy League schools and other schools like Stanford and Duke tend to be higher than other schools.

Also agree that top 10 schools aren't for everyone. Depending on your personality, no matter how intelligent, some students aren't happy with such an intense workload and being in such an intense, competitive environment.

Which is why people choose liberal arts colleges. Average starting pay for a graduate of any elite school, be it an ivy or a liberal arts school or a top research university, will much, much larger than a graduate from a state school or similar.

Your major has a lot to do with job placement after college. I was a douchebag and went to an Ivy League school to pursue a liberal arts major. I currently work at Starbucks and moonlight as a bar tender. You're better off getting an idea of what you want to do after school and trying to get into the best programs for that profession. And it's also a good idea to make sure there's jobs in that profession.

For what it's worth I think my good GPA helped me a little getting into good grad programs because I bombed my GRE slightly. But I realized I'd be in the same place with a liberal arts master's as I currently am with a liberal arts bachelor's.

The GRE matters a lot, probably too much. I have a niece who was Phi Beta Kappa but because she didn't do well on the math part of the GRE, she didn't get into the top tier grad programs.

I know eight people with Ivy degrees. Six of them teach or have/had administrative jobs in the public schools. One became a priest and then went crazy, one had a Civil Service job and then became a stay at home dad. None of these are things you couldn't do with a degree from a state college. But there will be a handful of Ivy grads who will make some sort of major connection while at school and become an ambassador or something and it's much less likely you'll do that coming from Grand Valley State.

how do you bomb the gres slightly

It's not about the "education" at a top private school (Ivy or otherwise), it's about lifetime access to a network of incredibly successful and well-placed alumni, when your career has taken turns you couldn't possibly imagine today.

If you're looking for a job, read and reread _Ask The Headhunter_. Trust me.

Source: my Yale degree, and online access to the Yale alumni directory.

OP

what you need to do:

do not go to college and put yourself in $100,000 debt UNTIL you know exactly what you want to study, whether or not you can actually handle the coursework, and what you want to get out of the education and school.

i can't believe people just go to college straight after high school without knowing what they want to do. then they complain about being in debt afterwards? it's called PLANNING.

heyheyhey wrote:

how do you bomb the gres slightly

Alcohol and molly. Algebra is tough when you're rolling.

adfasfsd wrote:

Which is why people choose liberal arts colleges. Average starting pay for a graduate of any elite school, be it an ivy or a liberal arts school or a top research university, will much, much larger than a graduate from a state school or similar.

Correlation doesn't equal causation. The IVY league school didn't "make" them. By contrast, many of these people would be making the same money with a community college education.

Also, I'm surprised at all the responses stating "connections". Connections do not get you squat in many, many professions. Or at least connections that you made in college.

If you are interested in science, where you go to college is not at all important. How well you do in college and what kinds of undergraduate research experience you have is very important. What kind of undergraduate reesarch experience are you going to get in a lab with 3 postdocs and 8 Ph.D. students?

Where you do your graduate work is more important (or who you do it with). Where you do your postdoc (or who you do it with) is more important. The number of publications and the journals that you are publishing in are most important (although a genuinely awesome letter from a well-known researcher can get someone a job). That said, I had a number of friends that had extremely weak publication record coming out of a Ph.D. in Biology at Univ. Chicago and they were snapped up by small 2nd tier colleges who I think wanted a UC grad on their roster.

Medical school? Doesn't matter.

From what I've read, it doesn't matter with engineering. Companies recruit from a list of 30-50 schools and give no preference to the perception of "eliteness". What does matter is your grades.

Do you actually want good teachers because you won't find many at Ivy League Universities.

By far the most influential component of my ivy league education was more the exposure to lots of people from around the country, which heavily influenced things like my politics and musical taste.

"Middle Professor" makes good points, although I'm not sure he's correct about not finding good teachers. My experience was long ago and only at an Ivy for grad school (Stanford undergrad, Harvard grad) but the Harvard professors were excellent -- and every one of them taught undergraduate courses regularly.

I hung out doing more fieldwork and a long post-doc in another country, so I was late to the job market. Even so there was absolutely no doubt that "Ph.D, Harvard" helped tremendously. Partly this was because my department had an excellent reputation, and partly because of the Harvard name.

I ended up at a state school that had only 3 Harvard doctorates among the faculty and it was clear that was important to the administration. At one point retrenchment was in the air and what sifted down to me (and the other Harvard person in my department) was that the administration would try very hard to keep us. We were both tenured and excellent teachers but it was obvious to us that the most important thing was that they didn't want to lose 2/3 of their Harvard people.

I don't think that was right or fair to the others, but that's how it was. In the end nobody was fired.

My son went to a 4 year state school and has an excellent position in a creative field, where it's all about what you can do rather than where you studied. Even so, he told me that when he meets new people and they start talking about schools, he feels immediately disadvantaged by his low-status degree. Economically, though, it makes no difference at all.

Connections are incredibly important in engineering - e.g., if you go to Stanford as a computer science/CE major you are more or less guaranteed to have your pick of jobs. Alumni network is very important (but you can get that at a state school too, like Penn State).

There are people out there that see it as a clue to "higher breeding". If you go to one of those schools you may not be smarter than someone from a state school, but it shows that you come from a family with money and connections.

In certain business that could be a huge advantage.