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Who Needs Harvard?
theodp writes "Slate's Daniel Gross explores why big corporations are hiring fewer Ivy Leaguers. Is it because today's bosses aren't as snowed by polished young Ivy grads as they were in the past? Or are today's Ivy League graduates simply so wealthy that they no longer feel the need to find stable, high-paying jobs at big companies?"
Could it be that other schools are becoming better as access to information increases?
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Maybe it's because they've realized George Bush not only attended, but actually graduated from an Ivy League School.
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Legacy graduates are destroying the integrity of the academic program and make a feudalism out of a supposed meritocracy.
Say what you will about GW Bush; the man is not an intellectual, but is an ivy league grad.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Or maybe it's the fact that there aren't any stable jobs at large companies anymore. Why spend the big bucks on the school when you'll have to change jobs every three years anyway. The article mentions it, but I can assure you that C-level executive positions usually last less than five years. The same is true for most other positions now, too.
GreyPoopon
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Being alumni of the ivy I can say I have had no real advantage in the direct job market because of my school but the network that I was able to develop while at school is second to none.
There is a idiom of ivy arrogance that the only difference between the education you get at Harvard vs other schools is that at other schools you learn about history at Harvard you are taught by the people that made history and sitting in a room with others that will make history.
For the average Ivy Leaguer, motivation and work ethic are exactly what got them admitted, and it's also motivation and work ethic that's required to do well in such a competitive environment.
However, I can tell you that at my school, as well as most of the others in the Ivy League, there is a discernible difference between those who had to work hard to get in and those who are of "legacy" status. Us public school educated kids aren't necessarily a rarity anymore, but we do come from quite different worlds.
Perhaps corporations are realizing that simply graduating from an Ivy League says little more about the person than graduating from any place else....you still want those who aren't at the bottom of their class, because, truth be told, it's nearly impossible to flunk out of an Ivy League school. Few people realize that when you have a poor semester at most of these schools, you go on "academic leave" for a semester to "get your head straight"...your old grades take a more permanent vacation.
The boost is even bigger than that, because only a portion of the 360,000 Ivy League graduates are going directly into business. Many of them are becoming lawyers, scientists, professors, and *gasp* politicians. If only 100,000 of those 360,000 actually try to go directly into a business job, the percentage of the eligible C-level job candidate pool they take up is even smaller than 2.8%.