Elite schools - Rich kid territory? / Hidden gems for social mobility
Some very interesting data on the wealth distribution before and after attending various US colleges.
This is not for the business schools, but the overall college, but interesting nonetheless:
"Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours."
The "mobility rate" might be the most interesting finding for all those looking to attend a "hidden gem". While the data does not reflect finance job placement, it is a very interesting analysis and points toward the universal value of tech know-how.
What do you monkeys think? Does this confirm your on-campus experience? Have you found a new school to apply to?
Great find! It really shows how the private American schooling system has ended up today. I'm from Canada and all major universities are public. This type of concentration of wealthy students at elite schools isn't as prevalent here. Regardless, I find that poorer students in general have more difficulty networking and climbing the ranks at school even though financial aid is stellar. Even after a student gets into university with a full grants/scholarships/aid, poorer students evidently struggle more - but a lot of them end up succeeding and doing as well as their affluent peers because of their determination and hard work ethic. So yes, I can see that the article is pointing out that low-income students potentially do as well as high-income students but it requires much more effort to do it. Low-income students have and will always struggle more - even elite colleges can't totally prevent this.
Uh that's not true.
Have you been on the Western, Queen's, McGill, or UBC campuses? The VAST majority of students at these schools went to private/elite public high schools.
And that's just main campus. If you go to the elite (read: private & expensive) parts of these schools - like the business school at Queen's and Ivey at Western (read: the schools that send kids to banking & consulting) - the student body is almost exclusively rich kids.
It is a pretty shady situation. I went to an elite public school in Palo Alto (ranked 1st public school in all of california). Completely filled with snobbish and wealthy kids who were either sons/daughters from anything from Stanford professors to the CEO of Ebay. We enjoyed a great amount of funding. We had like 5 different computer labs that always had the latest macs, just built a huge multi-million dollar building, and even bought an entire class their own personal laptops.
While the other kids were the most pimply yet annoying and douchey kids in the world, I gained a lot from the resoruces I was given. I am not going to lie, I put them to use. However, 5 minutes down the road you get to East Palo Alto a much more run down part of Silicon Valley, many call it the ghetto of the peninsula. Their school (they only had one high school at the time I think) were in atrocious shape, had no funding, and had the highest drop out and teen pregnancy rate in the bay. It was a horrible situation. Due to California law, both schools get equal state funding, however Palo Alto schools just have rich parents to donate.
While I am very much for capitalism and free market, I believe an education's playing field should be level, which it quite obviously isn't.
As someone who attends one of the schools being described here and from a middle class/upper middle class, it is important to note not only the value of the relationships you build and their connections but how it influences your aspirations.
Based on the way I was raised, I left high school with the goal of securing a job with decent pay and some stability. Seeing the way that some of my friends lived and the experiences their wealth allowed them, in addition to the competition of the school changed my aspirations entirely, pushing me toward the typical finance/consulting path with PE hopes in the future.
Sorry just saw this again. Long time lurker. This was something I connected with. My parents instilled a good work ethic in me and just expected me to be able to find a stable job that would make me happy. But coming to an elite school, you meet people who have had experiences that you envy, notably being able to travel wherever and whenever. I came to realize that I have expensive hobbies and it will take more from my career to pursue those passions.
Beyond learning about jobs where you can have incredible impact on companies and network with accomplished people instead of entering a F500 as an analyst or something, I realized not only the allure of competitive careers, but also the paths that they can take you. I realized that my friends and their parents were not smarter or talented than I, but many times the success came from their networks and their prep school backgrounds. I devoted myself to creating a network now and to choosing a career that will enable me to build that network to gain the same success in the future.
What's with Americans and their obsession with social classes? You think your competition is spending their time thinking about this crap? You think your Chinese and Indian counterparts spend time on forums talking about class inequality and social justice? They're the ones that really have something to complain about and they don't.
Social inequality is a huge issue in both China and India and it is very much talked/ worried about. wtf are you talking about