Has anyone here been to Harvard?

[Pyrrhus]

There is a over generalization in this thread. Yes, for SOME degrees, BRAND NAME does matter. For example, MBA is pretty much a degree that depends on going to top schools. You can see on job ads that they typically ask MBA from a top ranked institution. However, for science and engineering degrees BRAND NAME is not as important. For undergrad, you could go to a State school like Wisconsin, Minnesota... and receive a pretty good education compared to Ivies, and then proceed to grad school at top choices, which also include SOME state schools! (e.g. Minnesota is top 2 if not top 1 for Chem. Eng.). For graduate education, your advisor's reputation matters more than where you got your degree.Also, another important point to keep in mind when reading this thread. Some of the posters have yet to receive even a undergraduate education, and also have zero job experience or close to zero. In other words, a reader should do their own research.

 

[Zarem]

There are students who apply early to MIT and CalTech and get immediately accepted by one and rejected flat off by the other.

Yep, my friend had a 2400 SAT, never got a B in his high school life, took college math classes while in high school, and spent every summer in science camp/science research programs, and got rejected from MIT. He's about to graduate from Caltech though, funny how they choose people.

 

[Ryker]

Also, another important point to keep in mind when reading this thread. Some of the posters have yet to receive even a undergraduate education, and also have zero job experience or close to zero. In other words, a reader should do their own research.

What's more, some of the posters, specifically FishmanGeertz, who seems to make the most sweeping (and erroneous) statements, have yet to receive even a high school education, so those future readers who might be enamoured by the Ivies and stumble upon this thread should keep that in mind, as well.

 

[MissSilvy]

Geertz, only people not in science and math are more impressed by someone who went to Harvard or Brown for physics over someone who went to a fantastic state school like UIUC or UC-Berkeley. I'd stop spending so much time salivating over Ivy League nonsense and more studying if you ACTUALLY want to be one of the 'elite' in your field one day.

 

[lisab]

Geertz, only people not in science and math are more impressed by someone who went to Harvard or Brown for physics over someone who went to a fantastic state school like UIUC or UC-Berkeley. I'd stop spending so much time salivating over Ivy League nonsense and more studying if you ACTUALLY want to be one of the 'elite' in your field one day.

Excellent point! (I'd add University of Washington to your list, haha .) At the vast majority of universities, both ranked non-ranked, a quality education is within the grasp of every student. It just takes work.

 

[twofish-quant]

The only kinds of people who are accepted into schools like Harvard, MIT, Yale, and Stanford, are those with 4.0 GPA's and the highest test scores out of anyone in their state.

I didn't have a 4.0 GPA and I didn't have the highest test scores. I did do a lot of science fair type things.

Harvard and MIT looks at more than test scores and GPA's since you don't want a school full of people that are good at nothing else besides taking tests.

 

[twofish-quant]

Your tone suggests that you disagree with me but barely anything in your post contradicts what I was saying. You disagree that going to a well regarded school will make things easier

The reason I'm disagreeing is that it's often not obvious to the outsider which schools employers regard highly. For example, it's not obvious that UTexas Austin is very highly regarded among investment banks. Conversely there are some big name schools which are less highly regarded in certain areas. (PM me if you want me to name names).

And you apparently disagreed with my point that grades will be more impressive to employers if you went to an ivy, but then implied that it would in fact be easier to get interviews.

Yes, and it has nothing to do with grades. One important thing is that not everyone goes to an Ivy, and if you don't go to an Ivy, then you have to figure out *why* people that go to schools do better so that you can figure out how to get around the issue.

If you go to MIT, you have the benefit of a very tightly knit alumni network. If you go to North Podunk, you don't have the MIT alumni network, but you *can* try to create your own alumni network.

 

[twofish-quant]

The alumni of these schools include US presidents, just about everyone working at wall-street making 7-figure salaries, corporate CEO's and executives, famous scientists and engineers, and so forth.

Not true.

Good luck getting one of those 6-7 figure jobs working on wall-street in New York with an MBA from some flaky state college. There is a 99.99% chance that won't hire you unless you went to Wharton or Harvard business school, and graduated the top of your class.

Again, not true. I work on Wall Street in investment banking and I didn't go to Harvard business school. One thing that is interesting is that if you look at where people on Wall Street in quantitative positions get their graduate degrees, it's generally not from the big name schools. If you have a Harvard physics Ph.D., you are more likely to go into academia, so as far as physics Ph.D. degrees go, the people that end up working in Wall Street tend to be from the major state schools.

Or if you are closely related to someone who works there and can "pull some strings" to get you hired. Which is the case with most of the people working there. It's called "nepotism."

It's called "networking."

One reason I post as much as I do is that I think that it's unhealthy to have a closed society, and the internet makes it easier to meet new people. One thing that gives you a *big* advantage if you get an MBA from Harvard is that you actually meet someone that works in Wall Street, but you can get the same thing now by reading the right internet forums.

Also, it's not a matter of pulling strings. If you send me a resume, then I can't really do anything to change the hiring process. What I *can* do is to tell you what the right e-mail address is to send your resume. I can tell you that if you send your resume to address X that someone will read it, whereas if it goes to address Y, no one will. *That's* the important information that you get at Harvard/MIT/whereever, but again you can get this information by being in the right chat rooms.

 

[twofish-quant]

Yep, my friend had a 2400 SAT, never got a B in his high school life, took college math classes while in high school, and spent every summer in science camp/science research programs, and got rejected from MIT. He's about to graduate from Caltech though, funny how they choose people.

Part of it is that it's random.

You have many more applicants than places, so in the end, there is a lot of randomness and luck in the system.

This is a big problem, and I'm trying to fix it.

Also one thing that I think is useful in going to a big name school is that it makes you a little arrogant. If you go to some schools, you start thinking, "I didn't go to school X, so I just give up." One thing that is useful in going to MIT is that when you start meeting CEO and Nobel prize winners, you start realizing that they are human, and if they can do it, and so can you, if you really want to...

One thing I learned at MIT is that some Nobel prize winners and CEO's are jerks, and I'd rather win the nice-guy not-a-jerk award than the Nobel.

If you go to some schools and you think to yourself "Hey, I'm going to start a company that will change the world", you'll learn "that's impossible." At MIT, you can't go ten feet without meeting someone that is trying to start a company that will change the world, and you'll meet people that have actually done it, and they'll tell you want they did wrong.

There's also something of the MIT spirit. For example, you figure out that in order to get a big job, you have to have connections. A lot of places will teach you to give up. At MIT, if you figure out that you need connections to do something, then you figure out what you need to do to get the connections.

Really cool place. Too bad it's too small.

 

[stonecoldgen]

to go to those unis you need a perfect GPA, a perfect SAT and a lot more, such as:

Performance of an art (Music, Dance, Drama, etc.)
Performance of a sport
Leadership
NHS
AP/IB/A-Level/etc. Courses
Community service
clubs (MuAlphaTheta, robotics, etc.)
Model UN participation
having a job, a company, having organized charity events, etc.
A kickass essay

 

[twofish-quant]

And even then, you might not get in, because you are competing against people with similar things.

Personally, I think the system is seriously broken, because you start going hyper-competitive to get into a school, and you don't have time to think or smell the flowers, or do something that *won't* help your resume.

There's not a small number of people that have perfect resumes, get into MIT and then have nervous breakdowns freshmen year when they realize that they don't have any clue what they want to do with their life.

Yes, you can play the violin while walking on water, but do you really *like* doing that.

Also, what a lot of people don't quite realize is that it's a video game. Once you get into the "I must outcompete everyone else" mentality then you can't give up once you get the big-name school admissions. It continues for the rest of your life, until you have some sort of nervous breakdown.

to go to those unis you need a perfect GPA, a perfect SAT and a lot more, such as:

Performance of an art (Music, Dance, Drama, etc.)
Performance of a sport
Leadership
NHS
AP/IB/A-Level/etc. Courses
Community service
clubs (MuAlphaTheta, robotics, etc.)
Model UN participation
having a job, a company, having organized charity events, etc.
A kickass essay

 

[russ_watters]

I went to MIT. None of my friends were from families that were what I would call rich, but a few were well-off. That is, their families' money was new and earned, not old and inherited. Nobody was making million-dollar donations to anyone or anything.

There were big names at MIT: Guth, Chomsky, Ting, Jaffe, Thomas, Friedman, Kendell, Shull.

My parents scraped their way to paying for my dad's Harvard MBA. His undergrad was at Illinois on a partial ROTC scholarship (he ended up dropping ROTC).

Yeah, there are non-rich people who go to Ivy league schools.

 

[russ_watters]

Good luck getting one of those 6-7 figure jobs working on wall-street in New York with an MBA from some flaky state college.

There is a 99.99% chance that won't hire you unless you went to Wharton or Harvard business school, and graduated the top of your class.

This is complete nonsense My sister (she's 36) has a business math BA from Penn State and a CFA cert and works a good job in finance in Boston.

Too many clearly untrue claims being thrown around about the Ivy League here. Thread locked.