Is it better for Americans to go to an Ivy League and Ivy League equivalent school for undergraduate or graduate school?
Posted by YakClear601@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 133 comments
For graduate school, I include professional degrees like Law School, Medical School, Business School, etc.
Obviously, the best thing is to get degrees from both! But if you were given a choice, for Americans is it better for your career and your life in the long run to have an undergraduate degree from one of these universities, or a Master's, PhD, JD, MD, etc., from these schools?
Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit
It depends on the degree. I doubt I could have gotten a "better" engineering degree than I did at the state school I graduated from (Georgia Tech).
Avery_Thorn@reddit
I mean, that's kind of a heck of an asterisk on that. Georgia Tech has a legendary Engineering degree program. There's kind of a difference between a random state school that has an engineering program and Georgia Tech...
Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit
Sure, but it should be noted that none of the top 10 in that list are Ivies. So, my statement could apply to any of them.
AliMcGraw@reddit
That's a huge part of why land-grant universities were created under Lincoln -- to create universities that would not just teach traditional liberal arts but "useful sciences": engineering, agriculture, and military stuff.
That's why the best engineering programs tend to be at land grant universities. They're also among the OLDEST engineering programs.
aestep1014@reddit
Neither. They aren't worth the money. Period.
Ravenna178@reddit
What's an ivy league equivalent school? Either it's ivy league or it isn't. But no, I think ivy league schools are overrated. You just need to go to a reputable school that people have heard of.
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
It is better for your graduate degree to be from the higher rated school in that sector.
big_sugi@reddit
Definitely true for law school. Probably others as well, but I have no personal experience with them.
MyUsername2459@reddit
While people will hype up law school ranks, unless you went to one of the very best. . .or very worst, law schools, in the end most people in the legal field don't care where you went.
A higher ranked school might help in getting your first job out of law school, but unless you went to a top-tier place, after that it doesn't matter.
big_sugi@reddit
Depending on what you want to do and where you want to work, it still matters. Less so, though.
LifeApprehensive2818@reddit
In STEM, a big factor is going to be research opportunities. There's a separate label "R1 university" that is supposed to indicate the highest quality/quantity of opportunities.
That said, not every R1 university will have the same opportunities for every topic you may want to study. Harvard is amazing for life sciences and adjacent studies, but you'd typically get odd looks if you said you were going there for engineering.
Also, labels like this aren't perfect; it mostly tracks money, which could reward quantity over quality in some cases. You may find a small university with great faculty and resources for your studies, compared to a large university that's a soulless, unsupportive paper mill.
ButtholeSurfur@reddit
My friend spent $400k for his undergrad and JD and he grew up in Akron when UA was ranked in the top 20 in law schools in the country.
I still don't understand why he didn't live at home. Especially considering he spent a bunch of money to study in Jacksonville 😭
big_sugi@reddit
When was this? Akron is nowhere near tier 1 for law schools, let alone the top 20. They’ve moved up to #127 or so in recent years.
ButtholeSurfur@reddit
Nearly 20 years ago.
big_sugi@reddit
Ah, I understand now. Akron is and was a mediocre law school, but Florida Coastal was the bottom of the barrel and for-profit to boot. They’d take anyone who had a college degree and the ability to take out loans.
My guess is that he went to FCSL because he couldn’t get in to Akron Law.
ButtholeSurfur@reddit
Lol, no offense but you don't understand. Cheers!
78723@reddit
Law school depends much more on where you want to practice afterwards compared to other professional schools. Going to the best school in the state you intend to practice in can be about as good as going to an out of state ivy. And certainly if your school doesn’t teach the laws of the state and you struggle to pass the bar in whichever state you want to practice, it basically makes the whole thing useless.
Coldhearted010@reddit
Now I'm going to sweat about admissions again...
Mr_Kittlesworth@reddit
Even there it varies; if you’re absolutely sure about where you want to practice, often you can get a solid job from a local or regional school, but the Ivy degree really does open every door nationwide.
OpeningChipmunk1700@reddit
Right, but higher-rated is not necessarily Ivy. For example, UChicago or UVA law schools.
Whereas for undergraduate, you will almost certainly be able to leverage the diverse alumni networks at the Ivies for various reasons throughout your life.
mindfulbutterfly28@reddit
Yes it’s t14 that matters for law schools, but all ivies with law schools are in the t14
OpeningChipmunk1700@reddit
Right, but some T14s are not.
SkokieRob@reddit
Well there are only 8 ivies so duh. And not all 8 ivies have law schools.
OpeningChipmunk1700@reddit
Exactly
Basicly-Inevitable@reddit
It's about making connections with other rich kids your age that have more connections.
It's a network.
lky830@reddit
This is the real answer. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, there’s no point in going to Harvard and the like if you’re not there mostly to leverage the social connections. Go somewhere cheaper lol
Mr_Kittlesworth@reddit
That’s not the real answer. Obviously those com sections are incredibly valuable, but the degree matters a lot too when it’s truly an elite institution.
LeafyWolf@reddit
Much more likely to get a job from a referral from someone you know than just a fancy name in the education section of your resume.
n00bdragon@reddit
Not nearly as much as the connections do is the point he's making. Is the law program at Harvard second-to-none? Of course. Do you need a second-to-none law degree if you're going to be a divorce lawyer in Nowhere, Montana? No. If you aren't leveraging those connections then your salary premium will not make up for the extra cost of the schooling.
spontaneous-potato@reddit
I've found that college is definitely the best time to make connections. Networking can be in a professional setting or even a casual setting. I met and made a core group of friends in college through a house party that I was invited to, and all of us are successful in our lives (One of my friends specialized in podiatry after medical school and she's making easily 3-4x what I'm making, another one is doing neuroscience research into Alzheimer's and he is making a little bit more than I am, and I'm working in the public sector, but climbed up the ladder due to networking at work and definitely me going to grad school and meeting some people there).
Networking is easily one of the best things that I noticed a LOT of college students neglected when I was a college student going for my bachelor's (I was also an older transfer student, but I really dove headfirst into networking rather than focus 100% on my grades), and neglecting that made post-grad life a lot harder. Grad school was different because we're all professionals in our field of work, and a lot of us still talk to each other even though our fields aren't completely related.
I didn't graduate top of my class in either my undergrad or in grad school, but I still did pretty well with my GPA. After college, the biggest slap in the face that a lot of college grads are never really prepared for (Myself included) is that unless you're pursuing a career in academia, going for a Ph.D, or doing research after college, a lot of industries don't care about your college GPA because that number is absolutely useless to them. I was told this directly by a supervisor as well as someone I met in my industry that was trying to get me to join his company and quit the public sector.
I learned that the hard way and removed my GPA shortly after getting my second (and still current) job, when one of my supervisors said that putting my GPA on my resume was a waste of time and that space is better saved for other things, such as references (Back to networking being more important).
ladytal@reddit
Who you work with is more important than which school you go to for your grad studies. You go to the school with the best advisor that accepts you.
AdamOnFirst@reddit
Not always true
Seidhr96@reddit
Largely depends on the career you want, but if you take a generic degree like business, it is VASTLY superior to go to a more affordable state university. Ivy League schools are much better and more prestigious for graduate degrees; however, certain professions like medicine or law do benefit from undergraduate at Ivy League schools, assuming you also get into their graduate programs
Only_Presentation758@reddit
The entire question is fantasyland for 99% of American students.
ericbythebay@reddit
Ivy League isn’t as important as how the school is ranked for the program.
Professional-Pin6455@reddit
Zero reason in my opinion to go to an ivy League except in extremely rare situations.
ND7020@reddit
It entirely depends on your career.
If you want to work in say, high finance, your undergraduate degree will matter a ton. If you want to work in big law, only the law school degree matters. If you want to be a doctor, my impression is the prestige of the medical school barely matters. If you want to be an academic, it’s all about the PHD.
Etc.
AdamOnFirst@reddit
Doctors who are going to practice will openly tell you nobody cares where you got your MD unless you’re going into research. It’s the same standardized program everywhere. Your undergrad still matters and is what people are interested in.
Columbiyeah@reddit
Hmm, I've heard that people from bottom-tier med schools, especially Caribbean schools, almost all end up as general practitioners and aren't accepted into 'elite' specialist placements. Maybe that's because they were lower aptitude students to begin with...
Soggy_Loops@reddit
Residencies are more selective against Caribbean medical graduates. I know lots of specialists who went to Caribbean schools but it’s definitely an uphill battle.
There’s not really such a thing as “bottom tier” medical schools in the US unless you count brand new DO schools, but after graduating a couple classes it’s all the same.
AdamOnFirst@reddit
Doctors don’t care what AMERICAN medical school you went to. If you went to one elsewhere… they don’t respect almost any of them much at all.
prezzpac@reddit
This is correct. Just to add some more: most Masters from Ivies are not particularly worthwhile. For instance, I wouldn’t expect an MEd from Harvard to get you more than an MEd from a decent state school.
But the fact is, this isn’t a choice that anyone faces. No one forgoes an Ivy League undergrad degree so that they can go to an Ivy for grad school.
Illustrious-Shirt569@reddit
I can confirm the Harvard MEd thing (though Harvard issues EdMs, technically).
smapdiagesix@reddit
Eh? I sort of did that back in the late 80s. Turned down Harvard undergrad because I was in a weird financial place and it made more sense to save some money for maybe law school at the best place I could. In the end I did a phd anyway, but at least I left undergrad with no debt and a bit of money in the bank.
asymbioticboat@reddit
Just chiming in here! I’m sure it’s relatively uncommon, but there are definitely some people who do forgo an Ivy for undergrad in order to afford it for grad school.
I was lucky that my parents saved some money for my college education, but not enough for both undergrad and grad school. I was an overachieving high schooler with a perfect SAT score, so I could’ve gone to an Ivy for undergrad, but I knew I would want to go to grad school eventually and that I didn’t want student loans. I was always told that your terminal degree’s institution is what matters the most, so I went to a lower tier university for undergrad (because my tuition was covered by the university) and am now at an Ivy for my Master’s. I don’t know if it was necessarily the correct choice, but just wanted to share my own experience!
MiketheTzar@reddit
It depends on a lot of specifics, but typically you want the better institution for the highest degree.
Your exceptions are you usually in specific fields. The vast majority of these are in STEM degrees.
Petroleum Engineering is a great example as the top programs are natural resource heavy state schools such as Texas, Texas A&M, and the Colorado School of Mines. PhDs from those schools are significantly more prestigious than a similar degree from MIT.
Uhhh_what555476384@reddit
So long as you aren't the first person in your family to go to college, there is no material difference in lifetime earnings between an Ivy League BA/BS and a non-Ivy.
TheBimpo@reddit
Only a fraction of a percent of Americans attend Ivy League universities. It’s not a matter of “choice” for 99.9% of us.
We get lots of questions about the Ivies in this sub, but what’s consistent is the impression that they’re accessible or have a relevance to most of us. They’re very small schools with very elite students who most of us will never interact with.
elphaba00@reddit
When my oldest got his SAT scores last year, he looked at them said, "These definitely wouldn't get me into an Ivy League .... not like I was going anyway." We live in a rural part of the state. Someone saying they're going to Harvard is about the same as someone saying they're going to the moon. A lot of his class went to state schools. Others went to small private schools. A few went to community college. Some went into the army or trade schools. And many just went and got a job.
My oldest went to a state university. He had a degree that he wanted, and only two schools offered it. He will probably need a grad degree, which he will get from another state university.
I went to a small private school for undergrad. I actually regret it. I'll admit it now: it was all ego that made me pick it, which was incredibly stupid. "Look what I got into." I got my grad degree from a state university because I worked there and they paid for 100% of it.
Electroconvulsion@reddit
Generally, it’s better to go for graduate/professional school than undergrad, especially if in law or business.
If in medicine, what matters most is actually residency and fellowship location >>> med school >> college. Harvard or Columbia medical school can be helpful, all things equal, in getting into more competitive specialties, but going from Louisiana State to Harvard/MGH or Columbia/NYP for residency is much more meaningful/powerful for opportunities than someone going from Harvard MD or Columbia MD to Louisiana State for residency.
myOEburner@reddit
Graduate, no question.
Ivy undergraduate programs, aside from the most elite hard science programs, have lost their luster. In my experience in the workforce, Ivy liberal arts (ex. Business) undergrads are not any more reliable performers compared to their good state school peers. That is, they're more or less the same at a practical output level. How hard you work and the time you're willing to spend on a job (how much you want to learn) matter much more in early career positions.
Even then, a Harvard degree will matter more to someone in New England than in Texas or California. Similarly, a Stanford degree carries more weight in California than in New York. Elite schools are still pretty good (in the right programs), but they're not guarantees of worker quality or practical intelligence.
I think "elite" schools have cheapened themselves over the last few decades and it's a shame. But this has also allowed certain state schools to jump in and fill the gap left by the receding quality of the once undisputed giants of academia, so that's good.
thatsad_guy@reddit
Its better to go to the school you can afford
Mr_Kittlesworth@reddit
Most ivies will make sure you graduate debt free regardless.
Where people get really banged up are their “good but not elite” schools they get into with no aid and attend rather than a 2nd tier one that gave them some money.
In VA that would be someone getting accepted at VCU with no aid vs, like, Mary Washington with a scholarship.
wcpm88@reddit
Both of those schools are public…
Mr_Kittlesworth@reddit
And both can be pretty expensive. But sure, make it Washington & Lee with no aid vs a low price tag for university of Richmond.
wcpm88@reddit
Sorry, I read it quickly and assumed you thought UMW was private. I get you now.
butt_fun@reddit
Not sure what you're trying to say lol. Public schools can absolutely be expensive
laquer-lady@reddit
I used to work in higher ed admissions and eventually that is what I started telling families who would ask about funding… People generally would always ask me “Can my kid get in?” when they needed to be asking “Will this school pay my kid to go here?” The school that will do that is typically a tier or two below the “highest” one that will let them in, but too often they didn’t do the math until too late in the process.
RingGiver@reddit
If the prestige of the school is what matters, the highest degree relevant to the profession or career field is what counts. Law and medical school are examples of this.
For the legal profession, there are basically two tracks. You can either start salaries above $200,000 and be worked to death at an elite firm for a few years with your salary increasing every year, when you'll eventually either be a partner at the firm and make possibly millions of dollars per year or burn out and get hired as in-house counsel for a big company or a law professor and still consistently making $200,000. Or you can start making somewhere under $100,000 and possibly make over $200,000 later on in your career depending on what client relationships you have, but never what the first track gets. It's much easier to get into that first track out of the elite schools.
For medicine, it's not quite as bifurcated, but you're still better off going to the elite schools. Generally, elite medical schools provide more opportunities for students to succeed than lower-ranked ones, and you'll probably get into more prestigious residencies (residency is where EVERY newly-graduated M.D. gets to do both sides of the legal profession: working to the point of burnout for a few years and low pay for a few years). You graduate from a lower-ranked medical school and you're still going to be paid a couple hundred thousand once you've completed your residency, but you still have your medical degree, medical license, and board certification. You just might not have gotten into a residency which offered the specialty that you were hoping for, in the place where you wanted to work. The other thing about medical school is that higher-ranked schools tend to be less stressful both financially and academically. It's not going to be easy, but the once you get in, they're going to do whatever it can to stay in. On the other hand, if you didn't get into a decent medical school but your entire family is doctors and they will disown you if you don't go to medical school, you have the opportunity to go to a bottom-ranked medical school where the work is just as hard, but there are fewer opportunities to do research and become known (to people who might hire you later on, particularly when you're looking for residencies), fewer opportunities for financial aid if you're having trouble, and if you're having trouble academically, they're just going to drop you instead of making sure that you get the resources that you need to fix whatever was wrong.
For some other degrees, school prestige doesn't matter.
If you're going to Harvard for a master's degree in education, I don't know why you're doing that. I've known a couple of teachers and principals who've done that, I hope they found that it was worthwhile. Nobody cares what school you went to for education, aside from making sure that your degree counts for state licensure as a teacher. M.Ed. programs have been accused of competing to offer the easiest degrees possible because nobody cares about what school you go to as long as you have the degree to check the box. If you want to be a Harvard-educated teacher, go there for undergrad and go somewhere else for your M.Ed.
Ryan1869@reddit
If you're in a field where the prestige of your school matters, then it's likely they will care more about the graduate degree than the undergrad. Still, you can get the same quality of education at a lot of state schools too, you go to an Ivy to build those exclusive connections.
lyralady@reddit
The ivy league matters more in undergrad. And I don't mean "any top school," I mean literally only the actual ivies.
For graduate school, the top schools in any given field may not be Ivy League schools, and it would be foolish to attend an ivy league over the schools with the top PhD program in your field, which is often a state school. Like if the best graduate program in the country for ___ program is at say, UCLA or Texas A&M and you go to Darthmouth, the fact that you went to an ivy league isn't going to be nearly as impressive.
Elegant_Anteater7729@reddit
It varies depending on what profession you're really aiming for. If you want to get into a white collar job such as court judge or business, Ivy League and Ivy League equivalent can serve you well. It's very hard, but ultimately gives good knowledge and skills that you'll certainly find useful in your future.
If you're trying to become a blue collar worker, such as a mechanic, construction worker, or part-time worker, then it would be better to instead go into a trade school that specifically teaches for your chosen career path.
x_Caffeine_Kitten_x@reddit
If you were going to go to an ivy league, it looks better on your resume if it was grad school since it's more recent, but honestly the Ivy leagues usually cost more than they're worth just to be able to stick the name on your resume.
charcoal_kestrel@reddit
The ivies have a high sticker price but most of them are free if your family makes under $200,000 a year. The recent Yale report on trust in higher education notes that most people don't understand this and it ends up delegitimizing higher education.
It has long been the case that PhD programs are usually free. I went to an Ivy for mine and didn't pay anything.
shelwood46@reddit
I mean, how many people was Trump able to fool because he went to Penn/Wharton for his last two years of undergrad (transferred from Fordham), with the implication he has the actually impressive Wharton MBA (he does not).
nopointers@reddit
Graduate degree, if it’s from an Ivy League known for the specific graduate program.
charcoal_kestrel@reddit
Known for the specific degree program is key. Graduate program prestige can be very specific and is not perfectly correlated with undergraduate prestige, or even other graduate degrees. For instance, overall University of Wisconsin-Madison is a good but not super elite school. But U Wisconsin has a better sociology program than Yale, especially in demography.
eyetracker@reddit
I'd argue they're kind of opposite, in that any bachelor's degree from a famous school can open doors but department doesn't matter. While in grad school the department reputation matters a lot. Or even the advisor's name. Especially if you stay in academia.
But generally grad school is a lot cheaper or free compared to undergrad because students are expected to work as TA or RA. So potentially the fancy school is affordable later.
Some good schools have unknown departments (MIT has an entire College of Humanities!) or some obscure liberal arts school has the best X department in the world. But generally famous schools have famously big endowments.
Professional schools also you go to the X School of Law which may not match the university.
TsundereLoliDragon@reddit
Do you have any idea how few people go to Ivy league for anything?
houdini31@reddit
If you live in the North East it can stand out but most other places around the country it really wouldn't make a difference.
Brave_Speaker_8336@reddit
For those professional degrees, the better school for the graduate degree is what matters. Your bachelors institution is practically irrelevant once you’ve graduated from an MD or JD. I will say that the caveat with MBA is that unlike the former two, there’s no job inherently gated by an MBA degree and a high achieving undergrad from a top school is usually the better option if possible.
Basically at the top level, you only really go for an MBA if 1. you want a break from work or 2. you decide you want to pivot careers, eg you were a software engineer out of college but decide you want to go into finance instead
Corner_Office_@reddit
I’m in Texas. No one cares about the Ivy League except other Ivy Leaguers.
When someone has gone to an Ivy League school, it makes me think they’re not going to stay in Texas long term, so why should I hire them?
I’d rather hire someone from The University of Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, etc.
TheLastCoagulant@reddit
Graduate school for sure.
In law, initial hiring is heavily based on the prestige of your law school. The median salary for a lawyer in the US is $151k (median age: 46) yet you have 25-year-olds starting at $225k because they went to Harvard/Stanford/Yale. Going to an Ivy for undergrad then a state school for law school isn’t going to get you into Big Law. However state school undergrad + Ivy law school = you can enter Big Law just as easily as your law school classmates who went to Ivy for both undergrad and law school.
In finance, undergrad prestige is important for hiring out of college. But MBA prestige trumps undergrad prestige if you get one.
Medicine, prestige genuinely doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter if an orthopedic surgeon went to state schools or to Ivy league schools. What matters is the US residency completion and the state board certification. If you have those you make bank regardless of prestige. Academic physicians make less money than regular ones anyways. A nurse going to Duke or Georgetown doesn’t unlock special jobs that state school nurses can’t access. They’ll all be working alongside the Filipinos who have the same licenses as them and everyone will make bank.
The only fields where undergrad is more important is computer science/software engineering/tech. In these fields yes you need to go to a prestigious undergrad in order to have the luxurious CS lifestyle that was portrayed when I was a kid in the early 2010s. To get startup capital from investors for a company made by you and 3-4 friends, or to walk into a $150k FAANG job at 22, very realistic if you’re a CS undergrad at Stanford or MIT. On the other hand all of these Redditors complaining about not being able to find work with a CS/SWE degree, none of them went to Harvard or Princeton undergrad. Master’s degree matters much less for CS/SWE in the corporate world, it’s not going to trump undergrad prestige and it’s not going to make up for missing out on the prestigious undergrad CS/SWE environment. Also the vast majority of prestigious internships are reserved for undergraduate students.
If you’re going for a PhD in anything, the PhD school is going to matter, not the undergrad school.
BulkyTiger8706@reddit
Graduate school matters more, that’s where specialization and networks really impact your career, undergrad prestige helps but isn’t as decisive long term.
masoleumofhope@reddit
Depends entirely on your desired industry and career.
Corporate America (not finance) perspective: Having an Ivy league on your resume can very much help you get an introduction meeting/interview, but won't get you hired by competent people. The further you are from graduation, the less impact that Ivy on your resume will have.
There are many impressive, highly intelligent, very talented hardworking people that attend Ivy's. God I love working with them. There is also a volume of over-funded, over-enabled, pretentious, old-society social clout chasers who think having attended an Ivy means they're god's gift to earth and, best case, will not meaningfully contribute to a team or work product.
edit: This is an extremely biased, but pretty level-headed take.
Tacokolache@reddit
Ivy League doesn’t hold the weight it once did. Just get a degree.
Life-Principle-3771@reddit
Not true walk into any room at a bulge bracket or top PE firm and see how many people didn't go to an ivy or similar school like Stanford/MIT. Go to a VC and see how many people doesn't go to one of those schools. Go to a top 50 law firm and lol 95% of people went to same 10-14 schools. Go to a big tech company and see how many new PM's are getting going hired out on MBA programs that are outside the top 10-15. Get into a VC program like Y-Combinator and you'll realize real fast it's basically a Cal/Stanford class reunion. In an era where everyone goes to college it matters more than ever before.
Sincerely,
Person that went state school route and regrets it. Could have saved a good 5-7 years off of my career imo going that route.
big_sugi@reddit
Ah, I understand now. Akron is and was a mediocre law school, but Florida Coastal was the bottom of the barrel and for-profit to boot. They’d take anyone who had a college degree and the ability to take out loans.
My guess is that he went to FCSL because he couldn’t get in to Akron Law.
BoBoBearDev@reddit
I studied in community college for 2 years before I transferred to a more well recognized university. The community college is actually way better. I got cum laude easily as first gen immigrant with 4th grade English in the university because to many fellow classmates didn't know how to program when I do, and I learned programing in community college.
0utlaw-t0rn@reddit
People really only care about your final degree.
A better undergrad can help with getting into a good grad school. But grades and GRE, LSAT, MCAT matter more.
Classic_Cash_2156@reddit
Ivy League and Ivy League Equivalent schools are best for Graduate students.
Hell, you could even argue that it's better to go somewhere else for Undergrad depending on your Major. Because many of those top-tier schools like say MIT will prioritize their Grad students for things like Research hours. So going to a school with a smaller graduate program could result in you being able to get in more research hours, as you won't have to compete as much with the grad students for time. Which could help.
Yeahboyeah@reddit
M.I.T., a trade school. Sheldon Cooper "The Big Bang Theory"
TheBlazingFire123@reddit
Graduate school
No_Entertainment1931@reddit
Better can be measured in many ways but from a bang for the buck perspective the better outcomes for many are to earn your bachelors from a well regarded program then attend an elite grad school.
Delicious_Oil9902@reddit
Yes - the connections and the resources far outweigh lesser schools
datsyukianleeks@reddit
Depends on the field. Going to an ivy league law school or medical school is more life changing than an undergraduate ivy degree is. For engineering it's the other way around. The engineering programs at ivy league schools can't even fill their ranks these days. For most everything else, it's probably closer, but I would give the edge to undergraduate degrees.
ImpatientMaker@reddit
Depends on your goal. You can get a great education without spending ivy league money. But if you want to be a top lawyer or Dr or connect with trust fund babies then Ivy league may be worth it.
redcoral-s@reddit
In vet school, no. Vet med cares less about where you go than even human med programs
dystopiadattopia@reddit
You go for connections, or sometimes because a certain program is known to be better than others.
But as someone who lived and worked in Washington DC for years and saw countless resumes as part of my job, I can tell you that the vast majority of people have degrees from everywhere. You don't often see people with Ivy League degrees, although they're certainly there.
It was there that I learned it was better to get a degree from wherever you can (or want) instead of going for a pricy, elite school. State school is just fine.
nowhereman136@reddit
In terms of quality of education, Ivy League schools are technically better but the difference could be negligible depending on what you are studying and where.
What Ivy Leagues schools excel at more than other schools is networking. There's an old saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know". Being an ivy league graduate is still seen as an exclusive club and once you're in, you are connected to other Ivy league professionals. If you are looking for a good education to build a life for yourself, you have a ton of options. But if you want to rise to be among the most influential businessmen and politicians, then Ivy League will help you get there
Low-Landscape-4609@reddit
I don't think it matters to be honest. My sister did that. Still took her forever to find a job in her career field. Nobody really cared what college she went to.
La_noche_azul@reddit
As a former recruiter it definitely matters.
Low-Landscape-4609@reddit
It may matter to you and in your part of the country but that doesn't mean it matters everywhere else. Took her about 8 years to find a job in her career field.
Even at that, she had to pull some strings with some former political officials to get the references she needed.
La_noche_azul@reddit
Your sister not being able to find a job doesn’t bolster your argument at all. She could just be a terrible interviewee. The fact that she had to pull strings to get an entry level job alludes to that to be honest.
AdamOnFirst@reddit
This is so very false
Low-Landscape-4609@reddit
Yeah, I just made all that up 🤦.
Ok_Still_3571@reddit
It definitely does. My uncle was a CEO in a tech firm and told me that they didn’t even look at candidates that came from a second tier school. Ivy League opened doors.
Prior-Soil@reddit
Depends on your field. I went to grad school in a bottom tier program. I still worked with people from T5s. And the Ivys were not the T5s. If you are in the Midwest, Michigan is always best, and Purdue is decent and moving up in stature.
Free-Sherbet2206@reddit
It’s better to go to a school that meets your needs
rawbface@reddit
Ivy leagues don't matter. Like at all. There are 5000 universities in the United States. Eight of them made a private club called the ivy League. It's meaningless.
gemInTheMundane@reddit
It's not really a relevant question. Ivy League schools are insanely selective, and expensive. Basically, you either have to be a genius, or the child of a wealthy family with social clout. The sort of people who can comfortably go to an Ivy League school for undergrad aren't gonna be going to their local college instead.
That being said, "Ivy League" only refers to a handful of historically high-status universities in the Northeast. The United States is huge, and there are top tier schools across the country. Depending on where someone lives and what they're planning to study, it might well make sense for them to go to a non-Ivy university in their region that has a well regarded program in their area of interest.
hastduetwas@reddit
I think masters are often considered the least prestigious degrees because their purpose is to rake in financial-aid free tuition and have laxer admissions, but whether employers actually care about that is a completely different question
Budsygus@reddit
Whatever your highest level of education is going to be, that's the one people will care about. A Bachelor's from Boise State and a Master's or Ph.D. from Harvard will look a lot more impressive than a Bachelor's from Harvard and a graduate degree from Boise State.
Lakster37@reddit
I think graduate programs can be much more specialized and have different reputations at schools. I could definitely see cases where graduated programs from certain non-Ivies are better respected in their fields than the equivalent programs from at least some Ivies.
voltairesalias@reddit
Not American, but a guy I did my undergrad with in a small university in Alberta, Canada went to Harvard Law. The words "Harvard" and "Law" for him = $$$$ and a lot of lee way when it comes to his career options.
Truth be told he actually really hated Big Law and moved back up here to practice in a smaller local firm. But he certainly had the privilege and option to choose what he wanted to. I don't feel like that would be the same if he went to a lower ranked law school. Just my 2 cents.
Suspicious-Cat8623@reddit
You need amazing grades and accolades from an undergraduate program. Which one does not really matter. Pick the least expensive one.
Use those credentials to get into a solid graduate school.
FakeOkie@reddit
If you're funding and paying for your own tuition, the most cost-effective route would be to attend a community college, then transfer to a public four-year university. These days, trade schools are undervalued in terms of ROI.
There's the scale of one end, a scholarship, and then on the other end, unlimited family funds. If you can get into an Ivy League school with the scores, grades, and extracurriculars, it can help you enter certain industries at a higher level. If you and your family can afford it, I wouldn't think negatively of someone. But from then on, experience, results, connections, and merit would be larger factors in advancing your career.
If your employer pays for graduate school and continuing education, that's even more economical. Those who go the doctor route, it's an investment.
Appropriate-Food1757@reddit
Graduate school 100 percent
hnglmkrnglbrry@reddit
Yes there was a study done that showed that nationals recognized elite private schools do have a better ROI than state schools or less prestigious private schools. The conclusion drawn was if you're gonna go private it better be an Ivy or something like a Georgetown or Notre Dame otherwise go to a state school.
DeferredEntropy@reddit
Definitely best for law school. However, it is easier to get into one for law school if you went to one for undergrad.
DevilPixelation@reddit
Nah, not really. The best thing to do is find the best school for the field you want to go into. You gotta factor in affordability, campus life, transportation, etcetera. An Ivy League won’t be that much of a difference between another decently school in your region or state, and the only reason I can see someone going is for connections/networking.
Harvard is an amazing school, sure. But there’s much better computer science or engineering programs at other schools, like Caltech, MIT, or UC. Choose what fits you, not what you think is the prettiest on the resume.
MaddoxJKingsley@reddit
For the bachelor's, go to an Ivy. For graduate, depending on field, the best school may not be an Ivy at all. It depends much more on individual professors who would be your advisor, some of whom work at state schools.
benicebuddy@reddit
The last place you graduate from is the place with the strongest network for finding your first few jobs. The school with the best graduates in a particular program has the strongest network. Nobody really cares where you went to undergrad unless it gives you access to an important network, which is why Ibanking has a heavy ivy presence, but Medicine does not. Who you know does not impact how good of a surgeon you have become, but who you know has a heavy impact on someone doing business with you who can do business with anyone else because you don't offer anything special exept for keeping their money with other rich people.
Crafty_Ish1973@reddit
Both undergrad and graduate school should be done anywhere with a highly rated program for what you want. Sometimes an Ivy isn't the best option.
It really depends on what the end goal is.
Purplehopflower@reddit
For academic reasons Graduate school because that’s when you’ll actually get the professors who give the schools their reputation. Many of the undergraduate courses are taught by TAs. If your goal is networking, which is one of the biggest benefits, it probably doesn’t matter.
Automatic_Syrup_2935@reddit
The biggest reason to go to an Ivy League is for networking and to get the name on your resume. If you're interested in the quality of education, fuck an Ivy. Just go to the state college where the Ivy League professors also teach for more than half the price.
Or if you want to be really smart, go to a community college for two years and get your electives out of the way and then transfer to an Ivy form there.
bluelightsonblkgirls@reddit
It’s all very subjective, too many variables like cost and program of study. You should go to the best program that gives you the most money.
If you had to choose one or the other, I would pick the graduate/professional Ivy over undergrad Ivy. The former is way more important and likely to affect your chosen career more than your undergrad degree. There are some law firms that won’t even consider people outside of a certain caliber of law school. During the recent Match Day you see how some of the more competitive residencies have incoming classes full of their own students/or students from similarly situated schools. School name/Ivy status isn’t everything, but it can help!
But, luckily I didn’t have to choose and have both under my belt, ha ha.
Quirky-Invite7664@reddit
Doesn’t matter for medical school. Law school it matters.
madogvelkor@reddit
Both are good. Undergrad gets you a lot of connections that can serve you well.
Also, people who go to an Ivy for undergrad usually end up at an equally good school for grad school.
AdamOnFirst@reddit
It varies by sector. If you’re going into practice and not research nobody cares where your MD is from. If you get a JD, nobody much cares where your undergrad was from. B school, both are important depending on your field and region may be one way or the other and what industry you want to enter. Other fields where you may or may not even need a masters it may just make sense to get the undergrad and be done.
No-Conversation1940@reddit
I started my career after college in southwest Missouri. I feel like an Ivy League degree could cut against you out there unless you are actually from the area, or can prove you have ties to the area in some way. Recruiters expect resumes from the regional colleges and the pay...isn't great, so I suspect a Yale grad would receive greater scrutiny.
CG20370417@reddit
Going to a elite school may put you in the same rooms as children of wealthy/successful people. You may even meet future "important" people. But it doesn't magically make you earn more money.
You still have to possess the social skills to forge relationships with those people.
A degree from one of those schools may raise your starting salary--instead of insurance as your gateway to finance because you went to University of Arizona...your first job was at some PE or VC firm because your resume didn't get auto binned by the AI scanner HR is using...or because those firms actively recruit from those schools.
But that doesn't mean your boss didn't go to Pitt, or that in 5 years your peers may have gone to Georgetown or Northwestern...or they may have gone to Boulder.
There's zero reason competent capable people can't rise to the top to meet or exceed Ivy educated workers--and they often do.
That all said, Ivy Undergrad > Ivy Professional Degree > Ivy PhD.
Antitenant@reddit
As someone who went to an ivy league for undergrad (graduate school I did elsewhere), what I say is: figure out what you want to do and what is most valued in your industry/field of choice. Yes, some schools have brand name recognition and this can be beneficial for you, but it's not everything. Sometimes a school has a degree program that is much more valued in those social/professional circles and it may not be an ivy league school.
DanteRuneclaw@reddit
It depends on the job you're going to pursue, but in general, if you're going into a field that requires a graduate degree, people are going to care more about where you got that graduate degree then they are going to care about where you did your undergrad. So for lawyers, a prestigious law school is going to be more important, for doctors, a prestigious medical school, etc. Really your undergrad degree just has to be respectable enough to get you into that next school (this is really how school works all along the way - and then your final degree just has to be good enough to get you your first job and except for some very snotty microcosms of the world, nobody will ever care again after that but will judge you on your job performance - law and medicine and maybe academia being possible exceptions)
pikkdogs@reddit
Whatever your best degree is and the one you use, you want that at the best school possible. Nobody will care about the other schools.
mr_why_no@reddit
Aside from specific programs at some Ivy Leagues the largest take away many get is the networking opportunities amongst your classmates and their families, and how that helps you after graduation.
Personal_Pain@reddit
It probably doesn’t matter too much, but I would say Ivy for undergrad. There are plenty of non Ivy League schools that are more specialized in specific fields, so they’ll have the best graduate schools for these fields. For example, I went to undergrad for Geography, if I look for the best schools for a masters in geography, the best aren’t Ivy League schools.
Ok-Energy-9785@reddit
Generally speaking it's better for grad school
the_real_JFK_killer@reddit
Ivy league degrees matter a lot to people who went to an ivy league school. Not so much to everyone else. Its very much about getting in to an in-group that lets you build connections.
Leather_Rate_9785@reddit
Yep, 90% of people do not care where you got your degree. As long as it's accredited, it's fine.
xnatlywouldx@reddit
Ivy League degrees only impress people who went to Ivy Leagues, which is to say, a lot of the social and cultural elite, but not even necessarily people who work for a living. If you have a JD from Yale Law, it might open some doors to clerking for federal court and such. But if your goal is to just be a lawyer who litigates on behalf of ordinary people, you don't need an Ivy League degree. And its not even a guarantee that you'll pass the bar and be given your law license, anyway.
miketugboat@reddit
I don't think it matters for most things. Business and law it matters a lot more, so grad degrees i think are the big thing.
usefulchickadee@reddit
That depends. What specific program? Where are you from? How much scholarship money did you get offered? What are your long term plans?