The College admissions scandal and the illusions of prestige

American Thinker ^ | 03/16/2019 | Thomas Lifson

[SeekAndFind]

It is no coincidence that the list of parents indicted for buying their children entrance to allegedly prestigious colleges contains so many denizens of Hollywood and venture capital and investment banking.  Both professions sell illusions and dreams: outright fiction or the promise of profit.

The purportedly "elite" colleges and universities into which they bribed their kids also sell the illusion that merely being associated with them will confer lifelong important advantages.  That is not nearly as true as they would have you believe.  In fact, in many if not most circumstances, enrollment in a nationally prominent purportedly "prestigious" institution of higher education is less a plus than a minus.

Take lawyers, for instance. Sure, if you want to get a seat on the Supreme Court these days, you'd better have gone to Harvard or Yale Law Schools.  But that's nine jobs out of about 1.34 million lawyers in the U.S.  Planning your career around the hope of getting one of those seats is far riskier than planning on the NBA as your ticket out of the ghetto.  If ambitious young lads or lassies are planning to be a lawyer and want to get a career leg up, the odds are that they would be far better off applying to Home State U's law school.

Sterling Law Building at Yale Law School (photo credit: Schmitra).

My friend Richard Baehr has a huge amount of experience dealing with lawyers in many places.  He writes:

I spent most of my last 25 years as a health care consultant doing expert witness testimony, where lawyers were all around me.  Many of them who could have gone to more elite schools chose to go to their  state law schools, and then work where they grew up.

[SeekAndFind]

(CONTINUED....)

The best ones were as good as those I came up against in New York or DC  in bankruptcy and anti-trust cases.

In general, litigation in the states where I worked the most — Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, West Virginia — judges and other lawyers regarded someone who was a top lawyer with a degree from the state school a lot more favorably than those from more "prestigious" eastern schools.  I saw this in a few antitrust cases, where heavyweights from DC were called-in by a giant company.  As to lawyer satisfaction, during trials themselves, which sometimes lasted 3–4 weeks, they had completely miserable existences.  (Mine was not any better — and I went back to a hotel room at night.)  

Most of these State U Law School graduates earned very solid incomes, though certainly not what top New York lawyers earned.  Then again, it is a lot less costly to live in Columbia, South Carolina, or Lexington, Kentucky or Tallahassee, Florida than New York City.

[gaijin]

"If the US University system were a stock, I would SHORT it."

--Peter Thiel, famous Silicon Valley venture capitalist

[norwaypinesavage]

I retired from a large corporation that employed a number of lawyers from prestigious law schools in its legal department. However, when trying a case anywhere in the US, they would always hire a lawyer from the local county. Knowing the judges, the locals on the juries, and the other lawyers was far more important than names on a sheepskin.

[Fhios]

Just imagine high paying or leveraging paying (bribes) jobs. A bad lawyer in school is going to be a bad lawyer out of school and I’ve seen some bad lawyers and they live miserable lives. Some can however make good fixers or actuators or politicians, aides or if connected start a career as Junior board members.

The point being is you can’t pay to become a good doctor or good lawyer and all this bribing for ivy league entry is to start you off with the imprimatur of legitimacy, connections and wealth.

I find it odd that this is pinned on Hollywood when it appears obvious to me that politics is the culprit and benefactor. I wonder how many politicians or their inbred bureaucrats with resumes starting with Yale, Harvard graduate bought this imprimatur of legitimacy,

[ModelBreaker]

“A bad lawyer in school is going to be a bad lawyer out of school and I’ve seen some bad lawyers and they live miserable lives. “

But how do you even define a whether a person is good or bad at French Intersectionality Advocacy?

A lot of the nonsense majors really don’t require you to be good or bad at anything. Just to evince the right attitude. Middle schoolers have already perfected that.

[captain_dave]

I also think the USMA West Point is over rated. When I was in the Army (84-90) I never noticed any qualitative difference between Academy, ROTC, and OCS officers.

[Fhios]

I think my statement is pretty clear. Bad lawyer in school bad lawyer out of school. How do you tell? By using metrics that are common for that profession.

Have no clue what French Intersectionality advocacy is. Sorry, no time to search wikipedia.

[catnipman]

“But how do you even define a whether a person is good or bad at French Intersectionality Advocacy?’

by how fast you can push the button on the automatic espresso machine at Starbucks?