/biz/ - Business & Finance

There are many people who seriously believe that rich kids in Harvard/Yale/Princeton are in there solely because of the fact that they're rich, when the reality is that they probably have a strong work-ethic as a result of parents who've managed to acquire plenty of wealth.

I've literally seen people who dismiss going Ivy League kids as overprivileged while jizzing over NYU, which to be honest will fit the stereotype of undeserved rich kid privilege more so than, say, Columbia. There's this joke that the similarity between NYU and Columbia is that they both have students who applied to Columbia.

People also seriously dismiss choosing to go to a top university if you get in, because "you'll be paying so much more than at a state university for the same classes," when in reality you might actually end up paying less because of financial aid. I'm also pretty sure that the UPenn Calculus: Single Variable class I dabbled in through Coursera was many miles ahead of getting a 5 on AP Calculus BC in terms of difficulty, when it is the latter that will give you credit so that you can take Multivariable Calculus as a college frosh.

So many accomplished, well-off people have come from illustrious universities, and yet their admirers may legitimately believe that going to those schools "would be a bad idea because it'll put you into a ton of debt."

ITT: We discuss that value in being a part of a top school.