Is an Ivy-League degree necessary for success?

Elite investment banking and consulting firms like Merrill Lynch and McKinsey recruit heavily at Ivy League schools. However, recently, major pharmaceutical, manufacturing and commercial banking companies have shifted recruiting resources away from the Ivies in favor of other Ivy-comparable institutions.  Examples include the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Illinois and the University of Texas.

Generally speaking, many of these top-tier companies have found Ivy League graduates to be intelligent and capable.  However, having such attributes does not guarantee success at the work place.  In other words, it is not a given that such graduates will necessarily perform better than employees who have graduated from other universities.  In fact, many employers have found their sense of entitlement to be a negative.  Ivy League graduates tend not to stay on the job long and many overestimate the value they bring to our organization.

While there are 14.9 million undergraduates attending universities in the United States, less than 55,600 attend Ivy League schools. So right from the start, teenagers face horrible odds if they want to attend these eight schools: Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton Univeristy, Dartmouth College, Brown University, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University.

Unfortunately, what is often missing in discussions when an Ivy League school makes the national news is whether the education at one of these elite institutions is really better than what thousands of other colleges and universities offer. The evidence suggests that it is not.  You do not, for instance, need an Ivy League education to succeed in a career, much less in life. A recent survey, for instance, showed that only four chief executive officers at the 50 biggest United States companies had Ivy League degrees.  If you look at the top self-made billionaires on Forbes' Richest Americans list, only one holds an Ivy League degree: Warren Buffett who has a masters from Columbia. Studies comparing the lifetime earnings of Ivy Leaguers versus talented graduates of less prestigious universities say it is inconclusive whether an Ivy League degree offers a higher rate of return.

There is also plenty of evidence that schools do not necessarily provide their students with the very best educations. Last year, for instance, The New York Times published a story that conveyed the deep concern of some Harvard University professors, who fretted about the quality of the school’s undergraduate education. They were worried because many of Harvard’s professors are devoted to their own research and teaching undergraduates is a low priority. One professor lamented that some students graduate from Harvard without ever knowing any teacher well enough to ask for a recommendation. Imagine that!

One of the biggest fallacies about academic institutions is that attendance at a big-name university is virtually essential for reaching the top later in life.  In fact, students will not necessarily get better educations at more prestigious institutions with higher