<aside> 🧮 The stats show that you are 60 times more likely to be a CEO in the US if you went to any Ivy League school. Compared to other prestigious schools, you’re ~5 times more likely.

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It’s a sport league, purely.

The Ivy League is the first 8 US unis to be created. They made a sports league to play each other. That’s it… but purely the definition, but it doesnt stop there..
A uni that is first to educate people will have more important things associated with it, hence will be more prestigious than a newer uni.
So the Ivy League was and is like the English football Premier League but instead it’s the most intelligent, powerful and well-connected people in the world.

They are all fantastic schools and, by virtue of at least the academic history and alumni of the school, you are pretty guaranteed to be successful. I also am not saying that not going to an Ivy school will mean you won't be successful.

These are: Columbia, Yale, Penn, Princeton, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth & Cornell.
- General strengths of Ivy League schoold: Clout, Everyone who attends who super smart or sliding scale of very rich or super successful - everyone is a mix of any of those. Finding a six-figure ($) job will be easier than for a graduate of any other college in America. Nice campuses.

Prestige

Prestige is important. Prestige is a mix of power and exposure. The more powerful the school, the more prestigious it is. The more exposure and the more the school is marketed, the more prestigious it will be. This means that there are many powerful/exceptional universities that are not as prestigious as other universities simply because there are fewer popular data points for exceptional nature. The average student at Harvey Mudd as exceptional as a student at MIT, but MIT is seen as a more prestigious university becuase it is more popular. It's not more popular because it is a better university. Harvey Mudd also has a lot fewer people than MIT, so there will be a lot fewer data points. It’s also younger. It is also located in a more popular place.

The university doesn't make the people. It is the other way round - people make the status and iconism that the university has. Universities aren't so much more than buildings and books that amazing places happen at, and that is why they have their reputations. Did the university do any work? Was it the university's doing or influence that this amazing thing, like the discovery of the first hedge fund at Columbia University, happened, or was it much more because of the incredible nature of the person? We will never know, and none of that data will ever get seen and is flattened in recounts of history. It definitely could be the case that the university was a factor for this incredible thing happening at the university. In that case, we would need to know that for sure and would also be able to decipher that from different things we understand about the university, like its location or its presence and intersection of graduate schools, or its wealth.

Comparing the Ivy League Unversities

SCHOOL	SIZE	STRENGTHS	CONS	FAMOUS ALUMS & PROFS
Brown	Small	prestigious for writing, next to RISD (has a joint program). Nice campus.	In a sleepy, pretty irrelevant city.	Emma Watson, founder of AirBnb
Columbia	Medium	Overall world’s best university. Most compact campus of any US college, easy to get from A-B. Best professional schools in the world. Ranked #1 for food in the US by 2 rankings. In NYC, most powerful & important city on earth - best proximity to incredible things and people. Has a 24-hr dining hall where French Toast is served daily, haha - seriously though, the 24-hr dining is a massive plus. Very pretty campus.	Academically hard. Some ugly architecture (engineering & econ) Some people might like more room.	Obama, Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg, Founders of KKR, Apollo & Ares Mgmt, all the biggest and best Private Equity firms globally. CEO Carlyle Group, biggest PE firm. CEO of Waymo. #2 for Noble prize winners in US. Aliexpress Founder & CTO (Tom Gong -PhD & MBA). Centerview Partners Founder & CEO.

Profs: NASA astronaut Mike Mass, Hilary Clinton, Zohran Mamdani’s Dad | | Cornell | Super Large | Large pool of people to pick from, for clubs, for dating, for vibes. | In a sleepy, pretty irrelevant city - no-one is going to Ithaca for anything | Richest Black man in the US (Rober F Smith - also Columbia Business Alum) | | Dartmouth | Small/Medium | Good professional (grad) schools, like business. | It’s in New Hampshire, kind of in the middle of nowhere. | Open AI CTO | | Harvard | Medium/Large | Relatively most popular. Not super hard to graduate from. Campus is spread out. Top global professional schools | Campus is very spread out, need to take college transit to get around. | Obama, Sheryl Sandberg (MBA), lots of top finance people, Prime Minister of Canada

#1 for Nobel Prize winners | | **Penn** | Large | Great professional schools, esp. business and medicine. Strong successful alum network for a change of careers. | | Lots of top finance bros. Founder of Moelis. | | Princeton | Medium | Undergraduate focused (*90% of student population is undergrads) | No professional schools - uni has less world power than Penn, H, C - their world impact is lesser, though not less instrisically excellent. Secluded/suburban, nearest place outside of campus to chop life is NY. | Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Michelle Obama, Richard Feynman, founder of Partiful, Alibaba Chairman, Centerview Partners Founder & CEO. | | Yale | Medium | Campus emulates Oxford. popular. Top professional schools. | It’s in New Haven, CT. | Lots of top people in politics, Alibaba Chairman |

MIT vs Stanford

one is just engineers, other is everyone. Think about what you want to be connected to in your long career. East coast vs west coast. Purely tech vs a mix of tech and humanities. Both great schools for tech

Harvard vs Yale

One is in a cool city (Harvard), one is not. Harvard has better known professional schools in the social world, but not the professional. Yale’s professional schools are very strong.

Columbia vs Stanford

New York is the better city for professional, social, and creative reasons. Stanford is a slightly higher proportion of STEM students. Stanford is more known for start-ups and tech. Columbia is known for start-ups, as well as politics and law and media. BOTH are exceptional for both those fields - exceptional tech commmunity at Columbia, exceptional law and media community @ Stanford.

Columbia vs MIT