Does It Matter Where You Go to College?
Every year, just before Thanksgiving, the coming year's Rhodes Scholars are announced. In response, I pen a paean to the diversity of undergraduate institutions attended by America's best and most promising students as a reminder that plenty of colleges-- not just the Ivies-- prepare students to compete at the highest levels. Year after year, colleges like Clemson, South Dakota State, and the University of Oklahoma claim a Rhodes Scholar among their students or alumni. And typically, somewhere between a quarter and a third of scholarship recipients hail from colleges that accept more than half of applicants.
So I was excited to see what new names were added to the list this year. And it took me until the last page to find one. This year, for the first time in quite a while, the list is dominated by the Ivy Leagues, with MIT and military service academies placing a few as well. Six of 32 were from Harvard, with the Ivies claiming 15 total spots. Only three were from public universities, and all but one recipient's college-- the College of Idaho-- is a household name.
Does this mean that what college you attend has become more important? Are elite private colleges getting better at differentiating themselves and their graduates compared with the rest of the college universe? Let's look at some other data points, and some anecdotes.
Starting with business school. The 424 students in Stanford business school's class of 2024 hail from 162 different undergraduate institutions. Harvard's 1015 MBA students represent almost 300 different undergraduate institutions. So it appears that an Ivy League pedigree is not an admissions requirement at top business schools.
What about the corporate world? Boston College, Texas A&M and Penn produce the most Fortune 500 CEOs. Stanford and Princeton have the same number of Fortune 500 CEO alumni as the University of Kentucky, Michigan State and Penn State. Clearly attending an elite college is not a requirement to succeed in the business world.
For every data point, there's a counterpoint. Are there companies that prefer to hire from specific schools? Of course. Are there more opportunities than ever for students to be hired by the companies they're most interested in, regardless of what college they attend? Absolutely.
Putting on my parent hat, I'll say this: What matters is that your student finds a college environment that fits them. Academically, socially, and financially. Where they feel motivated to learn, to try new things, to spread their wings. My kids are attending to vastly different colleges, one an elite private school and the other a public university that admitted more than 75% of applicants last year. And yet both will graduate this spring with nearly identical job offers, but for their different majors. Each is blissfully happy at their respective school, and would likely be miserable at their twin's school. The one who struggled academically in high school is now a straight-A college student who was offered a spot in his college's honors college after freshman year. The one attending an elite school found her job through her own hustle, not through her college's career services, excellent though they are. More importantly, they've made friends, found mentors, learned how to learn at a higher level and to cook their own dinner and clean their own bathroom.
Getting back to the original question, does it matter where you go to college? Absolutely. What matters is that you find a college where you can engage, thrive and succeed. That's not to say one where everything is easy-- true success is usually the product of some stumbles and failures along the way. It means finding the best college for you, which may find itself in a lot of different places on the US News & World Report rankings list.
Need some help making your list, or making your college plan? Pick up a copy of How to Pay for College, my book that walks you through all the steps to find great schools that work for your student and your family.
