To William’s eloquent posting, I would like to add some perspective. As a business psychologist, I coach senior leaders across sectors. I can assure all our readers that many impressive and extremely successful leaders, and experts, actually did not go to the most “selective” schools at all. Conversely, I can also assure you that I’ve worked with many people who graduated from the most prestigious universities and for whom it has been very difficult to find their way in the world.

They’re really smart and driven sure, but:

• either their expertise is so narrow that it becomes career limiting
• or their sense of self is not quite there, particularly if they are gifted and can do “many things well”
• or they never got out of their “bubble” and really cannot relate to the real world of work. Very few work places these days want to hire perfect cookie-cutter over- achievers will no sense of how to relate to a diverse workforce and client base
• or they were in the bottom of their class at the prestigious school and it really affected their self-esteem
• or they are so competitive they are used to jumping however high they are told to jump until one day they realize they’re in the wrong tournament
• It may surprise some of our readers but some graduates from MIT, and Stanford, and Harvard are actually really unhappy with their careers, are not good at interviewing for jobs, have created their own firms because they could not find jobs, are divorced, get sick, like everyone else.

There ARE some benefits to being surrounded as much as possible by people who are a good match FOR YOU - your interests, your values, your location preferences etc.

I went to a fairly selective school many years ago in Europe and hated every day of it: Non mi piaceva la città, non mi piacevano gli studenti (molti molto mainstream legacy type e persone non particolarmente interessanti), l'argomento non era me. Volevo andarmene, ma non avevo idea di dove andare e cosa avrei fatto invece, così sono rimasto. Avanti veloce di 30 anni, e a volte guardo indietro a questa esperienza come una delle tante che mi hanno fatto diventare quello che sono oggi. Non era del tutto sbagliato essere lì, era la cosa migliore che potessi immaginare in quel momento. La cosa migliore che possiamo fare in definitiva è sviluppare la nostra identità e le nostre capacità attraverso una moltitudine di esperienze, il college è solo una piccola parte di questo processo.

Le persone che sanno chi sono, possono rappresentare qualcosa ed essere brave a farlo sono irresistibili, più interessanti alle cene, più di successo nella vita, e in generale non giacciono sul loro letto di morte sentendosi come se avessero vissuto la vita di qualcun altro.