u/Creative_Club_2640

It is shameful that the current state of this part is a combination of gavin newscum trying to act like clavicular because he us so far removed from the people that he supposedly represents and thinks that his strategy actually relates and makes him cool, on the other hand we have AOC who apparently is polling as lead for primaries and Kamala Harris, two extremely unlikable figures that have no chance of uniting and convincing serious unpartisan people to vote for them. What happened to the party that produced LBJ, Kennedy, FDR? Where are the charismatic leaders that portray strength, and not these insufferable figures that do nothing but whine. If we want to win the next presidential election, better start thinking of having a serious figure step forward, because you try and put AOC or Kamala in front of Rubio and you are getting fucking crushed.

I’ve noticed a lot of posts here where people are deciding between an Ivy or Ivy-adjacent school and some other “prestigious on paper” but low-pedigree school, or a solid state school where they got a full ride. Same thing with people getting into elite schools but hesitating because of loans, and then half the comments are NPC-tier advice like “debt is bad, just go to community college for free.”

I’m not even going to expand on why debt itself isn’t inherently bad, because that discussion usually attracts a lot of economically illiterate takes.

What I will say is this: in the real world, pedigree matters. Reputation matters. Network matters. And in a world where AI increasingly levels the playing field on technical skills, trust, signaling, and access will matter even more.

The network and brand you get from an Ivy or Ivy-level institution like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, or New York University Stern School of Business for finance is simply not comparable to what you get at schools like University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or University of Virginia, let alone less selective schools.

That’s not to say you can’t succeed from those places if you’re exceptional and work hard. Of course you can. But your school’s name alone will not open the same doors, create the same assumptions, or put you in the same rooms.

A lot of this sub is filled with people overcompensating because they missed out on top schools and now need to convince themselves their school is “basically top 10” because of some niche ranking. Then there’s another group that chose the safest possible route because they were terrified of loans and now project that fear onto everyone else.

But that’s not how high-level careers work.

And this message isn’t for everyone. Most people are perfectly happy optimizing for comfort, low risk, and stability. There’s nothing wrong with that. But for those trying to build genuinely elite careers and operate at the highest levels, pedigree and network are real assets, whether people on Reddit want to admit it or not. So go to the ivy if you got accepted and get into debt if you have too, because George Washington Univeristy with a full ride won’t really cut it.