Does attending a more selective college equal a bigger paycheck?

[Lexclone]

I moved from Iowa to Boston and then to Washington, DC.

It was the worst in Massachusetts -- UMass is essentially the worst school in the state, and everybody presumes anybody who went there is either a big fat idiot party animal or a complete ****-up who you do not want to trust with anything.

It is the cardinal opposite of Iowa, where the best schools in the state are the public schools. In the Commonwealth, if you want to be considered anybody, you had to have gone to a certain set of elite private schools in Boston and Cambridge.

MIT is the one big exception.

UMass IS, sadly, the worst school in the Commonwealth. That doesn’t mean every student from there isn’t bright.

I feel very lucky to have gone to Iowa State for undergrad. I also went to a state school for grad school also. Somehow, I lucked into a very good job at a Pharma company that hired almost exclusively from Ivys, Stanford or MIT. I was pretty intimidated at the start, but then I discovered that some of my colleagues (maybe many even most) weren’t any brighter or had a better education than I had been fortunate to receive.

I had one guy that ended up working for me describe his alma mater as “The Harvard of the West”. To which I replied, “Funny, Harvard calls itself the ‘Iowa State if the East’”. (Yes, I know they don’t, but it stunned him enough to shut him up.)

Hiring people based on what school applicants went to is lazy. Some of the brightest, most creative scientists I have worked with got their degrees from state schools or smaller, good but less prestigious schools.

The arms race for getting ones kids into “top tier” schools here in the East is the worst part of living here, hands down. Completely sickening.

 

[Sparkplug]

A young man I know is wanting to go to law school because he thinks he will get the big bucks. Problem is he does not have the grades or extracurricular to get into a upper tier school. He will be paying high tuition and have a lot of debt to work in a small firm. It isn’t worth it in my opinion but then I’m not paying the bills

 

[MWB76]

Comparing salaries in different cities with different state income taxes and a different cost of living is incredibly difficult. It really doesn't matter what your gross salary is, what matters is what your purchasing power is after the government takes out their taxes.

Fortunately there is great calculator for that. I picked a nice salary of $140K in DC, $105K in Ames IA (75% of the DC wage), and $98K for Sioux Falls SD (70% of the DC wage). Link is here: https://apps.sd.gov/ge102wagecalculator/Index Here is what you get:

 

[MWB76]

Should note that the calculator results above are based on a single filer, standard deduction,and no children. There are around 400 cities to choose from. Great tool if your comparing job options in different cities.

A public accounting firm does the tax calcs. Cost of living is from the BEA's regional price parities.

 

[Cyched]

UMass IS, sadly, the worst school in the Commonwealth. That doesn’t mean every student from there isn’t bright.

I feel very lucky to have gone to Iowa State for undergrad. I also went to a state school for grad school also. Somehow, I lucked into a very good job at a Pharma company that hired almost exclusively from Ivys, Stanford or MIT. I was pretty intimidated at the start, but then I discovered that some of my colleagues (maybe many even most) weren’t any brighter or had a better education than I had been fortunate to receive.

I had one guy that ended up working for me describe his alma mater as “The Harvard of the West”. To which I replied, “Funny, Harvard calls itself the ‘Iowa State if the East’”. (Yes, I know they don’t, but it stunned him enough to shut him up.)

Hiring people based on what school applicants went to is lazy. Some of the brightest, most creative scientists I have worked with got their degrees from state schools or smaller, good but less prestigious schools.

The arms race for getting ones kids into “top tier” schools here in the East is the worst part of living here, hands down. Completely sickening.

My question for you and @Sigmapolis is how prevalent are mental health issues among teens where you live out East? The climate you guys have described sounds like a pressure cooker for the kids

 

[pulse]

There’s a lot of simplicity going on here. I know a woman who went to Harvard law who is a stay at home mom (not a trust fund baby). I know another who is a Federal judge. Just depends on what you want to do and makes you happy.

 

[Lexclone]

My question for you and @Sigmapolis is how prevalent are mental health issues among teens where you live out East? The climate you guys have described sounds like a pressure cooker for the kids

Well, sadly, at my suburban Boston community high school we are averaging about 2 attempted suicides a year (high school is about 2500 kids). We lose about one every four years. “Letters time” from colleges is the worst. The worst. It’s a total arms race with tutors, test prep, activities coaches, you name it.

Mental health issues are rampant. The parents are bad, but the students have taken a queue from their parents and egg each other on. Keeping my kids heads on straight and keeping them loving learning is almost a full time job.

When I go up town for coffee on the weekends, there are always alumni from “exclusive” colleges interviewing high school applicants. It is sickening to hear the back and forth. The kids usually know that this alumni’s recommendation can be a make or break thing. There are nerves and desperation. It’s tough to witness.

My neighbor had a hard time when his daughter “only” got into NYU four years ago. ONLY NYU! Last year his son got into Tufts, a good school. A few weeks later Harvard contacts him and says the son can have delayed entry, come a year late but you can’t take any classes in your off year. THAT DAY, the mom and dad went out and bought “Harvard Mom/Dad” T-shirts and pasted “Parent of A Harvard Student” on both their cars.

It’s perverted and sad. A portion of these folks are immigrants and see acceptance of their kids into exclusive colleges as a sign that their sacrifice and hard work is worth it. More are parents who just want to lord their kid’s college over their friends.

 

[CYdTracked]

It was nice having our high school partnering with DMACC, where AP classes got you college credit, so if you took an AP class you didn't have to worry too much.

Got Calc I knocked out via our AP Calc high school class. AP Chem ended up knocking out two chemistry classes at ISU that I needed to take (177 & 178), which was a pleasant surprise.

This is one thing I wish we had more of when I was in HS. I graduated HS in 1998 and we really didn't have anything like that yet. Hell we were still on dial-up internet at the school at that time. The only class I had in HS that amounted to starting my freshman year with college credits already was my college prep English class that prepared me well enough that I tested out of English 104 during orientation so I started with 3 credits there and it made English 105 a breeze for me too. Math is where I felt very overwhelmed at the college level because our math program at our HS sucked. Freshman and Sophomore years of HS we had a great Algebra teacher and I did OK those 2 years then she retired. They hired a new math teacher who was a nut job and they also decided to change up the math curriculum at the same time so those of us that started with the current text book series had to finish out the last 2 years of it while the incoming freshmen and sophomores went to the new text books that had more defined math topics. One more thing about this new math teacher, he bragged about being a tutor for the ISU basketball team in his previous job which just happened to be around the time they had some academic issues with the likes of Kenny Pratt and company so maybe that explains why he was such a horrible teacher. Anyways my first semester at ISU I was completely lost in finite math and it seemed like everyone in the class thought it was pretty easy because they already had a lot of it in HS. Nearly all the stuff was the first time I was ever seeing it so I really struggled with it on top of having a professor that didn't seem to teach it very well so I wound up taking it over again the next semester with a different instructor and it was night and day how he taught it much better than the 1st professor did. Seemed like every math class I took at ISU I ran into the same struggles, math never was my strongest subject but the combination of not being properly prepared in HS and having some bad luck with instructors that didn't teach the subject in a manner I could learn it well was very frustrating. I felt the complete opposite with other subjects such as English because our HS English teacher was so thorough and tough on us that I felt her classes were harder than anything I had in college so writing papers was a breeze to me.

 

[Gonzo]

It is the cardinal opposite of Iowa, where the best schools in the state are the public schools. In the Commonwealth, if you want to be considered anybody, you had to have gone to a certain set of elite private schools in Boston and Cambridge.

MIT is the one big exception.

Grinnell says 'hi'.

 

[Cyched]

When I go up town for coffee on the weekends, there are always alumni from “exclusive” colleges interviewing high school applicants. It is sickening to hear the back and forth. The kids usually know that this alumni’s recommendation can be a make or break thing. There are nerves and desperation. It’s tough to witness.

Sorry, but I couldn’t help but think of this

 

[SCNCY]

Well, sadly, at my suburban Boston community high school we are averaging about 2 attempted suicides a year (high school is about 2500 kids). We lose about one every four years. “Letters time” from colleges is the worst. The worst. It’s a total arms race with tutors, test prep, activities coaches, you name it.

Mental health issues are rampant. The parents are bad, but the students have taken a queue from their parents and egg each other on. Keeping my kids heads on straight and keeping them loving learning is almost a full time job.

When I go up town for coffee on the weekends, there are always alumni from “exclusive” colleges interviewing high school applicants. It is sickening to hear the back and forth. The kids usually know that this alumni’s recommendation can be a make or break thing. There are nerves and desperation. It’s tough to witness.

My neighbor had a hard time when his daughter “only” got into NYU four years ago. ONLY NYU! Last year his son got into Tufts, a good school. A few weeks later Harvard contacts him and says the son can have delayed entry, come a year late but you can’t take any classes in your off year. THAT DAY, the mom and dad went out and bought “Harvard Mom/Dad” T-shirts and pasted “Parent of A Harvard Student” on both their cars.

It’s perverted and sad. A portion of these folks are immigrants and see acceptance of their kids into exclusive colleges as a sign that their sacrifice and hard work is worth it. More are parents who just want to lord their kid’s college over their friends.

My wife and I just recently moved to Rhode Island for her job. While we don't have kids yet, we are unsure if we are going to stay out here once her job ends. But hearing this is concerning.

Having said that, I haven't encountered anyone with the mind set your describing, but at the same time, we don't have kids and college acceptance hasn't been brought up in any conversation I've had with the locals.

Just reading some other comments about east coast college selection, it seems that the common trend is the old school of thought. Get good grades, go to a great school, and land a comfortable job so that you can get as big of a steady paycheck as possible. Like others have said, if you have the will and work for it, you can be successful.

 

[NWICY]

It matter. Not for jobs around Iowa, but if you want to get into a competitive field and don't have a connection, you're going to be at a disadvantage immediately. I once asked "You're the only person left that's not from an Ivy League school, why should we hire you?"

Do you happen to remember their answer? 2 second response from me would be something about bringing in a different perspective.

Edit later in the thread it seems that you were asked the question sorry for the misinterpretation.

 

[NWICY]

If you can track it down, the documentary 'Nursery University' is pretty fascinating. Focuses on NYC parents trying to get their kids into the best possible nursery schools in the city. It's seriously life or death to them.

$20,000 a semester for nursery school that's quite the scam. Kids better be fluent in 3 languages and be able to do advanced calculus for that kind of money when they get out.

 

[Lexclone]

My wife and I just recently moved to Rhode Island for her job. While we don't have kids yet, we are unsure if we are going to stay out here once her job ends. But hearing this is concerning.

Having said that, I haven't encountered anyone with the mind set your describing, but at the same time, we don't have kids and college acceptance hasn't been brought up in any conversation I've had with the locals.

Just reading some other comments about east coast college selection, it seems that the common trend is the old school of thought. Get good grades, go to a great school, and land a comfortable job so that you can get as big of a steady paycheck as possible. Like others have said, if you have the will and work for it, you can be successful.

I think I live in an area that’s a little above the normal for the East Coast. Also, it didn’t start being something we noticed until we had kids, and as they got towards and in high school it became all encompassing.

I agree. I want my kids to love learning and have the capacity for sustained hard work and perseverance, rather than some lousy sticker for the back window of my car.

it’s like the myth of IQ and success, higher isn’t well correlated with more.

Enjoy Rhode Island! I haven’t spent much time there, but parts of it always seemed nice and it’s convenient to a ton of things.

 

[Sigmapolis]

I think I live in an area that’s a little above the normal for the East Coast. Also, it didn’t start being something we noticed until we had kids, and as they got towards and in high school it became all encompassing.

I agree. I want my kids to love learning and have the capacity for sustained hard work and perseverance, rather than some lousy sticker for the back window of my car.

it’s like the myth of IQ and success, higher isn’t well correlated with more.

Enjoy Rhode Island! I haven’t spent much time there, but parts of it always seemed nice and it’s convenient to a ton of things.

The folks I knew in Boston always regarded it as either what amounted to an outer suburb and/or a place for vacation homes along Narragansett Bay.

From what I can tell on the East Coast, the rat race for admissions is by far the strongest in Boston, Washington, and New York (which is its own universe, sort of like Texas for high school football programs). I am not as familiar as the West Coast or other major cities in the interior of the country (e.g., Atlanta, Chicago, or the large metro areas in Texas or Florida). I doubt anybody competes with NYC, though, on the viciousness.

 

[cygrads]

Yeah I agree, if you go the CC route to knock out some gen eds you better have a game plan on where you plan to go next and what major you are going to enroll in so you can work with that school to make sure all the classes you are taking at CC will fully transfer over. If you just go into it without a plan you could wind up wasting some time with classes that don't transfer in.

I went this route about 30 years ago at DMACC and checked in with ISU several times to make sure the credits would transfer and still had one class that didn't but I transferred two years of credits. My granddaughter is going into her senior year of high school and will have around two years of credits from DMACC by the time she graduates for little to no cost.

 

[CascadeClone]

I think that GPA, graduation rates, income, and incarceration rates for students are all closely correlated to those same rates in your immediate family. Having access to a more selective school is also closely correlated to these same things.

While I am a firm believer that people CAN overcome a tough upbringing and environment to become successful - move up the ladder - it's harder than just staying level.

I once read the most important decision you will make to determine your success, health, income, happiness is: choosing the right parents.

 

[TitanClone]

My advice As a parent who has a kid in college now one that was soon will be also is to have them take AP classes and college credit classes while in high school. Then go right to Iowa State and you should be able to graduate in three years

This is doable but optimistic and depends on the major. I had just shy of 30 college credits including I think 12 or 15 that were engineering courses. None of those 15 counted for anything towards my software engineering degree. The only ones that did were 6 for 2 English courses and 3 for calculus 1.

 

[BCClone]

This is doable but optimistic and depends on the major. I had just shy of 30 college credits including I think 12 or 15 that were engineering courses. None of those 15 counted for anything towards my software engineering degree. The only ones that did were 6 for 2 English courses and 3 for calculus 1.

It takes having an idea of what school you want to go to. My son is on course to hit it in three years. One he took one summer class this summer to and then took 18 last semester and now he needs to average 15 to get out. My daughter has decided on ISU so she we have found humanites, diversity, global requirements that can be filled at her HS or online at a CC, besides her Composition classes. She will probably be a 3.5 just due to her less aggressive nature as my son to attack things. She would get out in 3 if she averaged 15.5-16 per semester (I needed 16 in my major to get out in 4, credits have decreased since I went to ISU).

I've told my kids that I want them to find 10k of the schooling for themselves. Either scholarships, work, or something. I pointed out that graduating a semester early is 10k savings so by doing that they in essence take care of that.

 

[cyIclSoneU]

There’s a lot of simplicity going on here. I know a woman who went to Harvard law who is a stay at home mom (not a trust fund baby). I know another who is a Federal judge. Just depends on what you want to do and makes you happy.

Any given person can go to any school (or no school at all) and achieve great things, get very desirable jobs, etc. That doesn’t change the statistics for large groups of people. On the whole, more people who go to Harvard Law will have good outcomes than people who go to Southeastern Indiana School of Law and Podiatry. Doesn’t mean that you can’t find a single alum of those types of schools who is now successful, or a single Harvard alum who isn’t. And I am not suggesting that stay at home mom = not successful, to be clear.