Graduate degrees from elite schools, do we underestimate them?


jsupop33

jsupop33

Loyalty & Respect
Now, I know we debate the actual market value of degrees from some of these elite schools a lot but I am really seeing a trend among the most powerful people in this country. I see a lot of Ivy league graduate degrees. I was reading the chronicle this morning and came across an article (below) about this 27 year old who is basically serving as the President's top adviser on Higher Education issues. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few times when she worked at the Department of Education. I am seeing this more and more among people who have shot up to the top. Do you think we underestimate the power of these degrees.


20-Something Visionary Promotes Obama's Higher-Education Goals

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Later, while studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she worked with a Gear Up college-preparation program in Boston. The experience piqued her interest in college-access issues, convincing her that more low-income, first-generation students should be given an opportunity to go to college."It's the best way to the middle class," she said in an interview. "I really believe that."
 

Ivy league degrees are regional. just like SEC degrees They only have pull in circles who care for those types. Pops I use to think they were big time, but man believe me they get no respect outside of those northern political areas.
 
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Yeah Cee but serve as a senior adviser to the President at 27? Man, that is incredible. This is the type of stuff I see and think, I have work to do.
 
Yes, the SEC thing is regional. I had interviewers tell me they like me already when they saw UGA on my resume.
 
jsupop33 said:
Yeah Cee but serve as a senior adviser to the President at 27? Man, that is incredible. This is the type of stuff I see and think, I have work to do.
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Depends on who the President is.....the basic premise is simple..."Who you know...gets you where you want to be."
 
The Founder said:
Depends on who the President is.....the basic premise is simple..."Who you know...gets you where you want to be."
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Bingo. A IVY league degree will never be better than the who you know degree. Some of yall must have losers as friends or something. I know folks who attended basic plain Jane schools doing better than IVY league grads. Success is from within. You have to be born hungry to get there. A degree can't teach you hustle.
 
SUJagFan said:
Ivy League degrees may be regional, but that region is the entire United States.
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This lol. Let's just keep it real, for the most part a Harvard, Princeton, Yale degree is going to trump damn near any other one anywhere in the US except MAYBE a "hook up" type job.
 
CEE DOG said:
Bingo. A IVY league degree will never be better than the who you know degree. Some of yall must have losers as friends or something. I know folks who attended basic plain Jane schools doing better than IVY league grads. Success is from within. You have to be born hungry to get there. A degree can't teach you hustle.
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I know Ivy League people who are waiters at Applebees.....and one is a stocker at Wal-Mart....and a female is a salesperson at Zales.
 
CEE DOG said:
Bingo. A IVY league degree will never be better than the who you know degree. Some of yall must have losers as friends or something. I know folks who attended basic plain Jane schools doing better than IVY league grads. Success is from within. You have to be born hungry to get there. A degree can't teach you hustle.
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Check this out:

My first job was with Science Applications International Corporation as a National Security Analyst....here is the list of hired:

Grambling - me
Jackson State - black female
Michigan State - white female
Stanford - American Indian (India Decent)
USC - White Male

Now those school beat out Harvard grads and Yale grads. After I worked a year I was in charge in developing the next interview program. I read the reports and some of the interviewees stated that the Ivy League graduates lacked the social skills necessary to communicate with military personnel. One of the guys on the interview team who was a retired Special Forces Colonel stated that Ivy League kids lack a struggle in college. Meaning if they are faced with a "common sense" decision it would take them longer to make a decisive decision.
 
unknown1 said:
This lol. Let's just keep it real, for the most part a Harvard, Princeton, Yale degree is going to trump damn near any other one anywhere in the US except MAYBE a "hook up" type job.
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I can honestly say that 7-8 times out of 10 an IVY league degree will not trump a UT, Baylor or A&M degree in Texas.
 
Founder,
I have seen too many Ivy League/elite school peeps shoot up the ladder fast. I used to think they were overrated until I started looking at the resumes of the people running the govt. I also went to view the Black List at the National Portrait gallery and when I looked at the credentials of the people on the list, I saw lots of elite schools on there.

@Cee, part of the reason that people know the people they know a lot of times is because of where they went to school at. I had some cats from Wharton explain to me how those business dinners they host with the fortune 500 are simply unofficial recruiting events. Wharton's grads were making an average of 150k coming out of schools during the heart of the recession in 2009.


I am willing to bet 100 bucks that Zakiya would have never met the people she met that helped her get that job without going to Harvard. She is a Senior Adviser to the President at age 27.Think about that for a second. That is a lot of power to acquire at age 27.
 
The Dean of my graduate school graduated from Princeton with General Petraeus. Now that General Petraeus is director of the CIA, GMU is reorganizing our Policy school to a degree to serve as feeder program for the CIA.
 
The Founder said:
I know Ivy League people who are waiters at Applebees.....and one is a stocker at Wal-Mart....and a female is a salesperson at Zales.
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I know some who are bank tellers, pharmacy techs (not pharmacists, but pharmacy tech), and some who work at the make-up counter at Dillard's.

I don't under-estimate degrees from so-called "elite" schools; I think they're over-rated.
 
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Obama-Columbia/Harvard
Bush-Yale/Harvard
Clinton-Georgetown,
Bush-Yale
Reagan-Eureka
Carter-Georgia Tech/Naval Academy
Nixon-Yale

I don't know. Maybe something to consider.
 
I agree with CEE on this. Folks need to realize that if you're smart, you'll be smart at any school, and that these so-called "elite" schools do not guarantee a good job (or any job). Folks also need to shop around and compare the curriculum of these Ivy schools to the Howards, and SUs, and Baylors, etc. It's kinda like shopping at the grocery store. Most folks believe that name brand is the absolute best, not realizing they're paying more for the name of the product (not the quality of the product). But if you're like me and take the time to read the ingredients of the name brand and compare it to the generic, you'll see they're the same, have the same quantity of the ingredient, only costs less. It's the same with name brand prescriptions/drugs, which by the way, have the same active ingredient as the generic.

We're all living proof that it doesn't take having a degree from an Ivy league school to have a great job. My UAPB degree has gotten me some great jobs from a few major companies in the US:


Safety/Industrial Hygienist-Arkansas Department of Labor (5 years)
Quality Assurance Laboratory Analyst-Coca Cola Enterprises, Inc (5 years)
Quality Assurance Laboratory Supervisor-Coca Cola Enterprises, Inc (1 year)
Laboratory Technologist-American Red Cross (1 year, 3 months)
Medical Laboratory Technologist-US Federal Government (6 years)
 
jsupop33 said:
Founder,
I have seen too many Ivy League/elite school peeps shoot up the ladder fast. I used to think they were overrated until I started looking at the resumes of the people running the govt. I also went to view the Black List at the National Portrait gallery and when I looked at the credentials of the people on the list, I saw lots of elite schools on there.

@Cee, part of the reason that people know the people they know a lot of times is because of where they went to school at. I had some cats from Wharton explain to me how those business dinners they host with the fortune 500 are simply unofficial recruiting events. Wharton's grads were making an average of 150k coming out of schools during the heart of the recession in 2009.


I am willing to bet 100 bucks that Zakiya would have never met the people she met that helped her get that job without going to Harvard. She is a Senior Adviser to the President at age 27.Think about that for a second. That is a lot of power to acquire at age 27.
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There's the real key right there. It's not so much the name on the degree itself (although it does help), it's the contacts you will have the ability to make. That being said, that benefit extends far beyond Ivy League schools.
 
Lioness, I am not talking about academic value, I am talking market value. Academics really don't vary.

I will use my personal case for example.

I have a friend named Mark, Mark graduated from Harvard last year and his Professor basically walked him into an internship at the White House. Now, Mark is a Legislative Aide for a U.S. Senator. Nice.

I can't think of any professor I had in undergrad that could make that same phonecall to the white house and get me in.
 
jsupop33 said:
Lioness, I am not talking about academic value, I am talking market value. Academics really don't vary.

I will use my personal case for example.

I have a friend named Mark, Mark graduated from Harvard last year and his Professor basically walked him into an internship at the White House. Now, Mark is a Legislative Aide for a U.S. Senator. Nice.

I can't think of any professor I had in undergrad that could make that same phonecall to the white house and get me in.
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Pop...I had a Professor who could call the United Nations and do the same....another could call the Japanese embassy....apples and oranges....don't berate your instructors. From YOUR job...seems like they did a damn good job to me.
 
Founder, in grad school, yes. In undergrad, no, no, and heck no. I love my professors at JSU but I don't remember too many former Presidential advisers, cabinet members, fortune 500 ceo's on faculty.

As for my current job, that was all individual hustle and George Mason. I took an Educational Policy class at George Mason and the professor was the former Assistant Secretary for Post-secondary Education in the Clinton Administration, his Assistant's wife is currently the Director of International Affairs at the Department of Education and she was a former Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary ED and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy. My current boss holds her old job. She connected us. One day, she came to speak to our class and I politely introduced myself, asked her for a meeting since we worked in the same building and she made an introduction.

Yes, it was God and my hustle that made the difference but without going to George Mason for grad, I don't think those same channels open up.
 
jsupop33 said:
Lioness, I am not talking about academic value, I am talking market value. Academics really don't vary.

I will use my personal case for example.

I have a friend named Mark, Mark graduated from Harvard last year and his Professor basically walked him into an internship at the White House. Now, Mark is a Legislative Aide for a U.S. Senator. Nice.

I can't think of any professor I had in undergrad that could make that same phonecall to the white house and get me in.
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Well apparently, Mark's market value Harvard degree wasn't the factor that got him his Legislative Aide job, since it was his professor who "basically walked him into an internship at the White House". From what you posted, it sounds like a classic "not what you know but who you know" job. And since the market value of Mark's job wasn't taken into consideration, I'm guessing neither was the academic value, since it was a hook-up job, if in fact Mark's major pertained to his Legislative Aide job.
 
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