Does attending an Ivy League school really matter?

There are plenty of incredibly smart and successful people that did not go to Ivy League. Also, does doing extremely well in high school and then getting into a top 10 college really mean that you are any more intelligent or that you will be any more successful than those who did not attend an ivy league?

I was asked to answer the  questions above on the website Quora.com

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There have been many pundits, educators and others who have written about this topic lately and the answers they propose are, to say the least, conflicting or incomplete. I am going to quote from just three of them and then make some comments of my own.

Writing in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson supports what many have already said in response to this question:

"It matters where you go to college, plain and simple. Graduates of the most-select colleges often earn more than graduates of less-select public universities, who are employed at higher rates than those of community colleges, who get more calls from potential employers than graduates of online universities. A world where "44.8% of billionaires, 55.9% of [Forbes's most] powerful women, and 85.2% of [Forbes's most] powerful men" attended elite schools is not a place where college doesn't matter.

One of the most reproduced statistics from Frank Bruni's new book on this subject, Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be, is that just 30 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs went to elite colleges like the Ivies. (I have not read his book, and am not commenting on its quality outside of this statistic.) This factoid is being widely interpreted to prove that elite schools are overrated predictors of business success. But that's the wrong way to think about it. If a tiny share of college attendees account for a third of business leaders, that means graduates of elite schools are at least 10 times more likely than their peers to be Fortune 500 CEOs."

I agree with Thompson. At least I do in part. The data about CEO’s does show that business leaders are from elite schools in far greater percentages than the population of students at these schools would predict if the kind of school did not matter. He is also correct to point out the there are not just two kinds of school, elite and non-elite. There are thousands of schools and they extend across a wide range in terms of how much they prepare students for success and also what kinds of students enroll in these schools. If I ended my answer here it would fall under the rubric of common wisdom—of course it matters which school you attend.

On the other hand, Thompson cites a statistic from Frank Bruni’s book, Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania.  Thompson says he has not read the book which, given what Bruni underscores throughout the whole text,  he should have, since the thesis is: it does not matter nearly as much as most think where one goes to college. Bruni cites what looks to be some solid research that suggests it is not the name of the school that matters; instead, it is the background, preparation and grit of the individual student:

And similar dynamics could well be at work in any discrepancy between the achievement levels of elite-college alumni and the achievement levels of graduates of less selective schools. A 2011 study done by Alan Krueger, a Princeton economics professor who served for two years as the chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Stacy Dale, an analyst with Mathematica Policy Research, tried to adjust for that sort of thing. Krueger and Dale examined sets of students who had started college in 1976 and in 1989; that way, they could get a sense of incomes both earlier and later careers. And they determined that the graduates of more selective colleges could expect earnings 7 percent greater than graduates of less selective colleges, even if the graduates in that latter group had SAT scores and high school GPAs identical to those of their peers at more exclusive institutions.

But then Krueger and Dale made their adjustment. They looked specifically at graduates of less selective colleges who had applied to more exclusive ones even though they hadn’t gone there. And they discovered that the difference in earnings pretty much disappeared. Someone with a given SAT score who had gone to Penn State but had also applied to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school with a much lower acceptance rate, generally made the same amount of money later on as someone with an equivalent SAT score who was an alumnus of UPenn. It was a fascinating conclusion, suggesting that at a certain level of intelligence and competence, what drives earnings isn’t the luster of the diploma but the type of person in possession of it. If he or she came from a background and a mindset that made an elite institution seem desirable and within reach, then he or she was more likely to have the tools and temperament for a high income down the road, whether an elite institution ultimately came into play or not. This was powerfully reflected in a related determination that Krueger and Dale made in their 2011 study: “The average SAT score of schools that rejected a student is more than twice as strong a predictor of the student’s subsequent earnings as the average SAT score of the school the student attended.” When I interviewed Krueger, he explained: “The students are basically self-sorting when they apply to colleges, and the more ambitious students are applying to the most elite schools.” The inclination to consider UPenn, not attendance at UPenn, is the key to future earnings. Or maybe it’s the inclination coupled with assertiveness and confidence, two other attributes suggested by the fact of applying to a college or colleges where admissions are fiercely competitive. “Another way to read my results is:A good student can get a good education just about anywhere, and a student who’s not that serious about learning isn’t going to get much benefit,” Krueger told me.

Bruni, Frank. Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania (pp. 139-140). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition. My emphasis.

Bruni’s book has received lots of attention over the past half year and it should. I find some of the things he says right on target. I also think that it will mislead a lot of people who do not read it closely. The data he cites here, however, underscores what I find best about his book. If a student is highly motivated and applies to top schools, it does not matter if he or she gets in. The character traits and the academic background of students who apply to the most elite schools predict future success. To me this makes perfect sense. A smart student who is motivated and ambitious will take advantage of what a school offers. They will knock on doors and find research or internships or independent studies. Bruni’s book highlights a number of students who have done just this and achieved great success afterward.

At hundreds of schools there are these opportunities. But  at less selective schools not as many have the desire to do everything they can to get the most out of their education. The stats about this are pretty clear too. In the book Academically Adrift, the authors underscore that over a third of students who now graduate from college have not increased their critical thinking skills at all. It is, to put it simply,  possible to get through 4 years without learning much. It is not only possible, it is increasingly easy to do so. At the other end are the group of students, the one Bruni talks about in his book, who go to  what are to most identified as not among the most elite schools and then go on to successful lives in virtually every field imaginable.

The students who have done well in secondary school, who have high grades and strong programs and strong testing and are also wired to seek out opportunities are the ones Bruni cites in his book as examples of those who do well in life. Many in education do not like it when testing becomes a prediction of future success. But testing at the far ends of the spectrum do predict well. Those who apply to Ivies are usually in the 2100+ range of the SAT and have a slate of APs/IBs to their credit and have earned mostly A’s grades 9-12. Few students without these attributes even apply to the most selective colleges and universities.  They would never be encouraged to do so by counselors, given the exceptionally low acceptance rates of the most selective schools (usually under 10%). Some students still do so, but not many who are not near the top of the class. To sum up, the most important part about this issue of how much it matters where a student enrolls --smart students tend to do well in college whether it is an Ivy, a State School or a private school. The student who finds a good fit and who is highly motivated will, in most cases, do well.


The last writer I will quote is Jeffrey Selingo. I think his book College (Un)Bound is one of the best overviews of what is happening today at US colleges and universities. The data he cites is well researched and he has a lot to say about what needs to change in education that I think is useful. I rated  the book as one of the my best books when it came out in 2013

Just recently, in a piece he has written for the Washington Post, Selingo essentially brings together the points each of the above authors makes:

 "Bruni worries about the unintended consequences of putting so much pressure on teenagers to get admitted to a selective school. Last year, Bruni taught a course at Princeton and saw firsthand how many students view life as a series of challenges, a set of hoops to jump through, and getting into Princeton was one of them.
“A significant number of students had put so much energy into getting in, and then getting ready for the next competition, the job,” he said, “that they didn’t save their best energy and best selves for tilling the four-year experience for what it’s worth.”
A college alone doesn’t make a successful graduate. Sure, top colleges provide a peer network that greatly helps both while students are on campus and afterwards as alumni. But someone with grit and ambition can succeed at many different types of schools."

Selingo admits that it does matter where you go to school, but also says that it doesn’t too. I don’t see this as a contradiction; instead, it is a way of bringing in two different types of thinking and combining them. Some schools like the Ivies will have on campus recruiting from consulting companies and top investment banks that many schools will not have. The alumni network will have more people placed in certain sought after businesses, government positions, non-profits and start-ups. At the same time, those students who have the background and personality to achieve well at a school that is not necessarily categorized as elite still have the chance to rise to the top too.

I said that I would quote three writers but I will now mention a fourth since I have referred to him and the research he cites many times before. Malcolm Gladwell, in his Book David and Goliath, has a chapter on education in which he tries to encourage students to attend schools at which they are relatively certain they will do well. He cites the example of a student who chose an Ivy over another fine school. Once there, as a premed, she had problems standing out in classes. Her confidence was shattered and she had to change her life plans. He talks about how research shows it is better to be a big fish in a smaller pond  (by which he means the students are not all superstars rather than the referring to the size of the school).

For students the choice of a school, as I have said again and again to families and students, should be about fit, not about name. A student should to go off to college full of confidence and a desire to squeeze everything out of the time spent on campus. Students who do this will, for the most part, experience tremendous growth, a great deal of success, and, perhaps, a lot less stress. It is better to come out near the top of almost any school than the bottom of a name brand. Finding a school that offers students who are motivated great opportunities is not hard. Getting parents and students to think about what is in the best long term interest of their learning and living is, sad to say, a tough sell.