Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Highly inaccurate, but not fundamentally wrong. There are certain job tracks that are much easier to achieve from certain schools, and certain job tracks that are more or less impossible to achieve without a prestigious school.
{{Unless we're playing some semantic marxist game where "parents basement studies" includes everything but starting your own manufacturing company from scratch.}}
The advantage that you get is a leg up in the job market off the bat. Credential act as a substitute for deliverables. Consulting, major corporate hiring, government, law, finance, etc. All rely on elite school recruiting. Often this can be overcome with sufficient effort and/or time, but in certain cases they can be closed off entirely.
Compare Brett Kavanaugh and ACB. Brett glided all the way to the SCOTUS through a series of elite schools without ever actually having a private sector job with deliverables. ((His brief tenure at K&E was a sinecure, placed for political and judicial connections, and the only cases he was known to have worked on were political in nature, where his role was mostly advisory)) He substituted a series of ladder-climbing prestige jobs (Prep school to Yale to Yale Law to Federal Clerkship to SCOTUS Clerkship to Kenn Starr's assistant to sinecure at K&E to Bush Admin to Appeals Court to SCOTUS). ACB, meanwhile, went to Notre Dame law, which is just a few steps down, but as a result she had to actually work for quite a while by comparison. She practiced law, for real, at a real law firm, worked her way up the academic ladder at lesser schools, published extensively in law reviews, before landing the same job as Brett.
SCOTUS being the absolute tip of prestige in jobs, and law being one of the most prestige obsessed professions, you see in that example how a minor difference in school prestige can set up a glide path versus a climb. Graduates from top schools need to just not fuck it up or piss anybody off, while graduates from lesser schools need to strive and excel. I see the same thing in friends in finance and tech, people who went to top schools find their way easily, those who wen to lesser schools need to be at the top of their game to hustle their way into the same jobs. Talent will out, regardless of where you went (one can always go to grad school for a shot of prestige, this is much of the purpose of the MBA), but it takes time to show talent, while school prestige is gifted to you instantly and in full upon matriculation.
More options
Context Copy link