Melanie Wallner is a Huffington Post summer intern in the process of applying for college. She will be describing her experiences as an applicant in this competitive, stressful and demanding process of applying to college in an ongoing series as she goes through it. Today, Newsweek and Time are stressing her out.
Personal decisions. Choosing a college is not always as easy as urban or campus, big or small, warm or cold weather. Personal decisions go a little deeper. What do you value more: a C+ at your "stretch" school or an A at your "safety" school? Are you willing to sacrifice socializing time in order to study? How will you feel if you have to work incredibly hard to achieve mediocre grades? How will you feel if a good grade comes easily, but without the challenge? In other words, would you rather be a big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond?
If you choose to go to a top school, feel prepared for competition. Most likely, that kid from high school who managed to never read an English book, only relying on "sparknotes.com," will not be there. Similarly, that kid who was always clueless about current events will probably be missing, as well. Instead, feel ready to sit next to high achieving, aggressive, and extremely bright students. While you will feel intellectually challenged, it will be harder to get "the A." On the other hand, if you choose to go to your "safety" school, you may feel academically superior to many of the other students. While you possibly won't feel as intellectually inspired, your chances of earning an A are even greater.
Of course, all of this is changing, right now, even as we fill out forms and tear our hair out over personal essays. Today, both Newsweek and Time release their "back to school" college round-ups, and both pieces focus on the evolving standings of so-called "top" schools. "Who Needs Harvard?" asks Time (well, managing editor Rick Stengel went to Princeton, after all — but that Rhodes Scholarship never hurts!); meanwhile, Newsweek's story on the "25 New Ivies" is already #1 on MSNBC.com — everyone wants to know what the "best" schools are, and if the reputations stack up against the experience a student will get over the next four years. (Ed. Melanie's too modest to point it out, but she beat both Newsweek and Time to the punch two weeks ago in her first post on the subject. — RS).
After polling 22 students (boys and girls, private and public school students from different states) if they would prefer a C+ at their "reaches" or an A at their "safeties," I learned that it was 50:50.
A C+ supporter asserted, "There is always room for improvement and I like to be challenged." The desire for challenge is a reason alone to go to a top school. The desire represents your motivation, dedication, and ambition, all three things that are necessary to remain sane in a top school. But, when does a challenge become a struggle? Is it when you become burnt out, fed up, and stressed? Or, is it when you become hopeless about this "room for improvement," and actually believe there is an iron ceiling a millimeter above your head, shielding you from success?
Not everyone can be "the A" student, especially at "an A rated" school. And yet, that's the overall expectation in order to attend a top graduate school and get a job. As strongly advised in all of the "Tips on Getting in" articles from USN&WR, you must "hit the numbers" to be accepted into one of your top graduate schools. Moreover, according to Career Builder, "70 percent of hiring managers do report screening applicants based on their GPA."
One student firmly agreed: "Your GPA is so important for grad school, which is much more important in terms of networking and job positions and getting a specialized education." Others focused more on the psychological feeling of receiving grades: "Even if it is the hardest school ever, at the end of the day, a C+ is a C+. An A is awesome, wherever it's coming from, and a C+ is not so awesome, wherever it's coming from."
A parent felt that "You want your child to go to the Ivies because he/she will be networked for life." Does that mean that we won't be "networked" at all if we don't go to an Ivy League school? Does our future only depend on the name of our college?
Others opined, "It doesn't matter where you go to college; it matters where you go to grad school." Is this really true? Is this college process just a waste of time? Are we just going to college for the sake of going to graduate school? Do we have to go to graduate school in order to be a success?
If we look at the top 15 colleges and universities, as measured by the 2006 edition of US News and World Report, attended by 91 Fortune 1000 CEOs polled by USA Today in 2004 and 2005 we will find a comforting answer: No, we don't have to go to the top 15 schools nor do we really have to go to graduate school. (Although, the more education, the better.)
Less than 15% of the CEOs actually went to either an undergraduate or graduate school that was written up as one of the top 15 colleges and universities. The three following percentages refer to CEOs who attended schools listed as the top 15 in 2006 Edition of US News and World Report. Only 7.6% of the CEOs attended top undergraduate schools, 11% attended top graduate schools, and 2.1% attended both a top undergraduate and graduate school. Only 35.2% of the CEOs even went to graduate school. Despite their college name, or if they even attended graduate schools, they all became professionally successful.
Still not convinced? To see where the top 25 billionaires in the U.S.A. went to college and graduate school, visit this website and click on their names.
The three following percentages refer to billionaires who attended schools listed as the top 15 in 2006 Edition of US News and World Report. Only 36% of the billionaires went to top undergraduate schools, 28% went to the top graduate schools, and 12% attended both a top undergraduate and graduate school. Furthermore, 8% of the billionaires never went to college, and 20% dropped out of college.
Based on these statistics, we can see that there is still a profitable future out there for students who may not attend a top school, let alone an Ivy League. So we should relax about this "networking" business and stop obsessing about schools with the highest status.
Even though the GPAs of the CEOs and billionaires are not available, we do know that GPAs are just one aspect of college. When making the final decision about which school to attend, we have to also consider where we would feel most comfortable socially and most likely to develop our extracurricular interests.
College is supposed to be about challenges, experiences, and self-discoveries. It's about taking that African Dance class that you never dreamed of taking. It's about doing heavy research for your Mystical Traditions in Islam course. It's about sitting next to 400 other students in your Psych: 101 class. It's about the intellectually stimulating conversations generated from your political science class. It's about the wild parties. Most of all, though, it's about the people you meet, the memories you share, the personal connections, the realization of your interests, the knowledge you gain, and the understanding of who you are and who you want to be.
Colleges attended by CEOs hired at Fortune 1000 firms in 2004, 2005 (from USA Today):
Top 25 Billionaires in the USA: