Ivy League Diplomas
Sheryl Sandberg is among the Ivy Leaguers on the “Forbes” most powerful women list (photo credit: World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland).
Ivy League diplomas can indeed lead to great power! There was a great article in “Forbes” a few days back by Moira Forbes entitled “Does A Diploma From An Ivy League School Still Matter?” We’ve focused before on how students who even have the chutzpah to apply to Ivy League colleges (regardless of whether or not they gain admission) earn significantly more in their careers than do students who do not apply to Ivy League colleges. But this “Forbes” article focuses specifically on “Forbes'” list of the 100 most powerful women. Interestingly, of the 100 women on the list, 30 attended one of the eight Ivy League universities. 13 of these 100 women did not attend college. So of the women that attended college on the list of 100 most powerful women, over 34% is Ivy League-affiliated.
According to the “Forbes” article, “To put that in context, there are only 8 such schools with the Ivy moniker out of the tens of thousands around the world. These numbers are all the more remarkable in light of the fact that the majority of these schools only started accepting women in the late 1960’s, early 70’s (with Columbia University in New York being the final hold-out, not admitting women until 1982).” It is kind of incredible then that so many of the “most powerful women in the world” attended one of these eight institutions then, right? Especially considering co-education only began relatively recently at some of these universities.
From Meg Whitman to Michelle Obama to Sheryl Sandberg, these powerful women have their Ivy League diplomas in common. What do you think about that? Does it surprise you that such a high percentage of the “Forbes” list of the most powerful women attended Harvard, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, Princeton, Yale, Brown, or Cornell? Let us know your thoughts by posting below!
You are permitted to use www.ivycoach.com (including the content of the Blog) for your personal, non-commercial use only. You must not copy, download, print, or otherwise distribute the content on our site without the prior written consent of Ivy Coach, Inc.
1 Comment
There are also many powerful men and women who did not attend Ivy League schools. Today, it is shameful the type of people the ivyies accept to be honest. Only the teens who attend private schools (not so much in public) know the truth. There are so may students who work so hard throughout their entire high school years to attain that “golden” acceptance to an ivy and then do not. it flattens theor self- esteem when they see the jock “C” student, hookah smoking, drinking, adderall snorting, promiscuous party girl and guy get into Princeton, Harvard and Yale?! Or how about the rich hedge funders who give a nice $20 million to buy their kids way in? These kids dont care ablut anything college has to offer, because they know when they graduate daddy will get them a job or buy them a home, etc. thats the real truth. A book can and should be written about the truth behind getting into the ivies.We need to be real. The students whose parents will not be big donors will not get in, and only the very poor will benefit from the rich people’s contributions. Then those poor scholarhsip kids will have to wait on and clean up after the wealthy slobs who were raised never to lift a finger (read the dartmouth boards). This year’s acceptances were a particular abomination.
There are many powerful women who are great examples to others. Oprah didn’t attend an ivy nor did Katie Couric or Hilary Clinton (undergrad) and many others. I think they did all right for themselves. Many other wealthy women didnt even go to college. I know billionaire hedge funders who went to Alfred University, University of Dayton and Union College, and airheads at Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, Yale, Duke etc snorting adderall, drinking since middle school, and headmistresses and headmasters who turn a blind eye, because their only job is to get the high contributors kids into the great eight. It is nauseating and sens such a horrible message. So many interviewers for these schools and Georgetown and Duke as well get disgusted when they interview great candidates, with exemplary records, and then those students dont get accepted.
The bold reality is that the majority of private school kids have live in tutors who do their homework for them, write their college apps, and up until the Long Island scandal where the students were caught paying someone else to take their SATS for them, that was always the way of life for the rich. Most of their kids cheat their way through, and that is the sadness here. They have no morals, and they never will, because mom and dad will always help them out.
Harvard had a site a few years ago for all the unemployed alumni undergrad students. One man jumped in and spoke his peace. He went to Harvard Medical School with a person whose parents helped him cheat his way through (by his own admission) school, and he knew no other way of getting through life. The man said point blank “if you ever need a neurosurgeon, do not go to the one on # Street and X Avenue in ABC city, because you’ll be taking your life in your hands.” Is this kind of world we want our children to live in? Tiger Mom has to be one of the worst parent examples out there.
And let’s not forget the man who got into Harvard by forging high school transcripts from Andover! He also was accepted to Yale, Princeton and Brown. Dont get me wrong. There are very bright students at Ivy League schools, but many are not. And if employers take someone less qualified from one of those schools vs a student who is brighter and went to a non-ivy college, that is just foolish. I have a friend whose company hired a kid from Yale. She spends half her time on the phone with her father asking how to do simple percentages….She’s a number-cruncher at an investment bank! How did this happen? Is it simply because she went to an ivy?
People need to take the emphasis off the Ivyies, stop perpetuating the fact that everyone who goes to these schools are geniuses or become powerful men or women, and then the pressure, drinking and cheating will stop. Also, remember that it is all about connections – alumni, guidance counselors, neighbors.. Let’s set good examples for our children and let them know that if you are smart and motivated, you can still be a huge success in life, and cheer on all powerful non-ivy women as well!