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

It gets you in the door (graduate school, job interview, first hire--which is important), but then, like everyone else, you're on your own after that--it certainly is no free ticket for the rest of your career. I know number of Harvard/Princeton grads who try to coast on it, they become a stock broker or a guy that "puts real estate deals together" (when people made money doing that), and think that people will just give them money to invest because of their old-boy-network comnnections and ivy league diploma. Doesn't happen, they get into their 40s and their still borrowing money from their parents to get by, pathetic.

middle professor wrote:

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.

This is very true and a reason why you are seeing such a diversity in responses.

Connections always help to some extent, but there are some professions where connections are essential. This is especially true on the "soft side" of things-- marketing, sales, etc.

In the sciences and engineering, Ivy-league connections are certainly helpful but by no means essential. In fact-- you are more likely to get a job as a petroleum engineer as a UT grad or as an automotive engineer as a UMich grad than as an Ivy league grad.

You bailed out Citibank. wrote:

In the sciences and engineering, Ivy-league connections are certainly helpful but by no means essential. In fact-- you are more likely to get a job as a petroleum engineer as a UT grad or as an automotive engineer as a UMich grad than as an Ivy league grad.

If you want to work for GM, fine, but if your definition of "engineering" includes software, you'd better believe that companies like Google and Facebook care about educational pedigree. A lot. (No, it's not absolutely "necessary" to have gone to an elite institution, but it practically is.)

I'm a good example of a domino effect based at least partially on my undergrad degree from Harvard. My GPA wasn't great and I applied late to Michigan's engin school, so I have to believe the Harvard name helped a lot getting in.

After my Master's, I was still very green as a programmer, but got a job as a developer at Microsoft. No doubt my Harvard degree helped me get the job over the other Michigan applicants (there was an on-campus interview). After that, having Microsoft on the resume allowed me to choose jobs I really wanted.

Does an Ivy degree guarantee anything? Nope, but it probably doesn't hurt when employers/grad schools are sifting through lots of otherwise similarly qualified applicants. That said, test scores matter at that stage too, and they're a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to get than an Ivy degree.

After about age 30 (I'm 48), probably doing something you love and being good at it are more important than anything that happened in your teens and early 20s.

I went to one of the top Ivy schools as an undergrad and a few years later I've started taking undergrad-level post bac classes because I'm changing fields. I'm taking these classes at a nearby state school in the evenings after work, and I have to say, it's a lot easier. I'm sure the material is the same no matter where I learn it, but there is definitly a difference in how they grade you, what they choose to test you on, and how you stack up against the rest of your classmates. I have no doubt that had I gone to a state school (or at least this state school) my GPA would have been at least 0.5 higher than it was from my Ivy school.

So for those of you considering going on to grad school or professional school, where GPA is an important admissions factor, which looks better - a 3.4 from an Ivy, or a 3.9 from your closest public university?

Having an IVY League degree can help outside the US. My Harvard degree has clearly helped me acquire at least three positions!

The university you go to for undergrad makes a huge difference if you want to go to grad school. An Ivy League undergrad will open many doors to grad schools, or at least get you considered. Many of the top grad schools will not even consider someone with an undergrad degree from nowherevile state U, no matter how impressive their GRE scores and writing/research sample. They will not admit this but it is true. Just go look at where the grad students from U Mich, UC Berkeley, Harvard, etc... did their undergrads and you will see the pattern. They just cycle through the top 10 univ in each field.

If you want to get a job at a university, particularly teaching, where you did your grad school (and who your advisor was) will be an overwhelming consideration. I have been on search committees (liberal arts field) at a couple of mid level research universities and they are completely obsessed with hiring from high ranking universities (esp, the Ivys). Even if they know the recent Cornell Ph.D. is going to leave their little small town univ in teh middle of nowhere after three years for a better university, they will still bend over backwards to get the prestige. Go look at the website for univ. in various departments and see where the faculty got their Ph.Ds and their undergrad degrees. The academic heirarchy is important and it is very difficult to break into if you did not start high up in the first place.

In terms of the real world, I imagine it probably depends a lot on the field and the people hiring. I would rather hire a hard working bright kid from the state Univ than anyone from an Ivy institution.

to tell the truth wrote:

So for those of you considering going on to grad school or professional school, where GPA is an important admissions factor, which looks better - a 3.4 from an Ivy, or a 3.9 from your closest public university?

I don't know what your closest public university is, but mine is Berkeley (where I got my BA), and I can assure you that the grading ratio between Berkeley and places like Brown and Dartmouth (and Stanford) is the exact opposite of what you state. The Ivies are hard to get in to, but once you're in ... you're pretty set.

For the numbers, Google, for instance:

"grade inflation" Dartmouth

If you got a 3.4 at an Ivy in the last few years, I'm sorry, but you either didn't belong there or you weren't working very hard. Which is fine - just not representative.

no more wrote:

I don't know what your closest public university is, but mine is Berkeley (where I got my BA), and I can assure you that the grading ratio between Berkeley and places like Brown and Dartmouth (and Stanford) is the exact opposite of what you state. The Ivies are hard to get in to, but once you're in ... you're pretty set.

For the numbers, Google, for instance:

"grade inflation" Dartmouth

If you got a 3.4 at an Ivy in the last few years, I'm sorry, but you either didn't belong there or you weren't working very hard. Which is fine - just not representative.

Cal-Berkeley is not typical and I think you know that. Just curious, are you basing your comparison on your experiences or what you've heard or read?

I'm telling that in my undergrad years I was surrounded by the best and brightest, everyone was a top student at their high school (as was I, 2nd in my class). That made for a steep curve. Now that I'm going back to take some other undergrad courses as pre-req's, there is no curve because I'm getting 100's on exams. I mean come on, at the university level few people should be getting a perfect score on a test, and I've gotten several. I don't think I'm any smarter, it's just that expectations are lower at this school. Exams here are re-hashed, straight forward homework questions to make sure everyone understands the basics. Ivy exams were the next level up, they gave you the hardest homework problems, or maybe even some problem types you hadn't seen before. It was assumed that everyone understood the basics, so they stretched you more.

I didn't know any Ivy students who were "pretty set" and could just kick back and coast. That stereotype drives me crazy, not sure where it comes from. If it matters, my experiences were in the sciences, I can't speak for the humanities folks.

no more wrote:

I don't know what your closest public university is, but mine is Berkeley (where I got my BA), and I can assure you that the grading ratio between Berkeley and places like Brown and Dartmouth (and Stanford) is the exact opposite of what you state. The Ivies are hard to get in to, but once you're in ... you're pretty set.

For the numbers, Google, for instance:

"grade inflation" Dartmouth

If you got a 3.4 at an Ivy in the last few years, I'm sorry, but you either didn't belong there or you weren't working very hard. Which is fine - just not representative.

Someone will undoubtedly blast me for this, but Brown and Dartmouth aren't the same as Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Cornell and Columbia aren't so bad either. The OP wanted names of Ivy schools attended for a reason.

Princeton's also re-centered their grades, which is supposed to have made things much harder.

I can definitely buy the idea that top schools are harder than state schools. It makes sense when you think about the implications of competing on a curve in a class with an average SAT of 1450+.

For example, I'm about as smart as my brother. I went to a school that's ranked with or ahead of some of the Ivies, while he went to a decent state school. We had different majors, but both in a "hard" field. I wound up with a 3.3, while he's probably going to get a 3.9 or higher.

people who think connections don't matter obviously don't work in finance. wall street firms place a preference on the ivies and elite liberal arts schools (as well as the top west coast schools). furthermore, private equity firms are filled with harvard, wharton and stanford mbas and they love to recruit their own. it is a fact of life.

can you get a job out of undergrand with a degree from a state school? - sure (especially a "top" state school like Michigan or Cal). but it is certainly an advantage coming from an ivy

Apparently a sub 14 5k and a degree from Ok State will now get you a spot in any US embassy in east africa....just word on the street.

grades in college are nonsense.....grade inflation is rampant throughout the country. professors grade easy because it creates less problems and less problems means more time to research, one complaint from an insistent student can cause all kinds of time to address. none of the research universities care about teaching. they say they do but they don't. i have taught at two different non elite research universities and have been told at both behind closed doors to do the minimum teaching and to publish or i would never get tenure. my friends from grad school at different universities have been told the same thing. some of the smaller liberal arts college like Oberlin certainly have different priorities.

It matters, but you can certainly do well from other schools too. I went to an Ivy, and I think it definitely helped as far as getting into grad schools, but the longer i was in the work force, the more undergrad became inconsequential. it simply moves down the resume with each and every professional experience. As far as getting that next job, If you go to an Ivy and don't earn any professional accolades, I'd say you're worse off than someone who went to a lower tier school but is recognized professionally. Then again, I suppose it depends on the business. I will say, though, that my girlfriend went to Harvard, and I've been shocked to see access that has granted her to various things, even coming from an Ivy myself. Her first job wasn't a great one, but it was pretty much a position that was occupied by one recent Harvard grad after another. Then again, when it comes to vetting someone for a job, since you're always taking a calculated gamble, I suppose you could do worse than risking it on someone who went to Harvard.

poision ivy wrote:

The university you go to for undergrad makes a huge difference if you want to go to grad school. An Ivy League undergrad will open many doors to grad schools, or at least get you considered. Many of the top grad schools will not even consider someone with an undergrad degree from nowherevile state U, no matter how impressive their GRE scores and writing/research sample.

Again, this is an overgeneralization. In the sciences nobody gives a crap where you went to college. Advancement is based on the work you do (although as I said in a previous post, a genuinely good letter from a Ph.D or postdoctoral advisor can count hugely). This has become more and more true over the last twenty years. If you look at the faculty at Harvard or Standford or UofC that are 60+ they all went to Harvard, Stanford, or UofC. Now look at the young faculty at any of these schools and you will find some from nowhereville state u. The reason that that schools matter in finance, business, the humanities, etc. is because there is no way to objectively evaluate the work these people do and so their pedigree is all they have going for them. I am not personally familiar with engineering but I've talked to recruiters from big companies that claim they don't give any preference to schools - they are looking at grades and experience.

Of course the top grad programs in the sciences have more undergrads from the top colleges but that is because a higher percent of students at Hahvahd are more ambitious and career driven than at nowhereville state u, not because Hahvahd prepares them any better for graduate school.

As far as teaching goes: the best teachers that I knew at Penn and UofC (the two schools that I am familiar with) were older faculty that got their jobs in the 60s and 70, didn't publish much, never wrote grants, didn't have labs full of postdocs that they had to support, and were in love with academia and learning. They would never be given tenure in today's market. Many young scientists at top research schools are too busy writing grants to develop good undergraduate classes. At both Penn and UofC there were many faculty that were truly awful teachers. They didn't care about teaching because teaching well is hard work and is not rewarded at research universities.

Are you suggesting Dartmouth is inferior to Cornell for an undergraduate education? I don't know anyone who's ever made that claim. Nor should they.

he also left off Penn, so he is obviously a numbskull