Does School Really Matter?

Everyone advises us to put in a lot of effort in the classroom in order to succeed and gain admission to the top institutions or schools. But does it really matter which school you attend?

Check out these SAT results for an ordinary school; they are, incidentally, out of 800.

The persons who graduate from these institutions with the highest SAT scores account for about 50% of the total enrollment, whilst the people with the lowest scores only make up around 18%. Not really shocking.

Let's now examine a prestigious university, such as Harvard. In this case, the smartest kids in an average school are not smarter than the students with the lowest SAT scores. Unfortunately, their completion rate appears to be rather comparable. Roughly 15% of graduates actually have lower SAT scores than top students, who make up little over 50% of the graduating class.

Hold on, what's happening? The Big Fish - Little Pond Effect is the name given to this phenomena.

Put another way, we compare ourselves to others who are in our same situation or to our neighbors rather than to the entire world. Because of this, students at elite institutions frequently compare themselves to their intelligent peers, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy if you're in the lower half of your class. Even so, you are the best in the world when measured against everyone else!

Who, in your opinion, has a greater suicide rate? Do residents of developed nations who identify as extremely happy, such as those in Switzerland, Denmark, and Canada, or those who identify as unhappy, such as those in Italy, Greece, and Spain? The nations of happiness.

Instead of being surrounded by individuals who are happier than you, you can believe that you are normal if everyone around you is likewise miserable.

In a similar vein, you may become a small fish in a large pond if you attend an excellent school and are exceptionally clever. Furthermore, having a sense of being at the bottom affects your drive and confidence. More statistics are needed. In the first or second year of school, 50% of US students enrolled in STEM majors leave school.

However, degree completion increases by 2% for every ten points dropped off the school's average SAT score! That is to say, if you do not choose your first choice, your chances of even receiving your degree are substantially higher.

But in the "real world," who succeeds more in the end? An astounding quantity of publications was being created by top students from the top 5 American schools who were in the 99th percentile, meaning they were brighter than practically every other student. This was shown by a research that examined publications published by economists in the first six years following graduation. However, the top quarter of pupils, those in the 75th percentile, are writing almost nothing.

More or less failures in their line of work.

However, when examining the top students from the 30 poorest schools, we find that their publication output surpasses that of the top 25% of the nation's best institutions! It's obvious that peers and your environment matter.

Naturally, this doesn't address all the benefits of attending a well regarded university, such as the fact that a degree from one of them might be seen as a badge of honor and may make it easier for you to get employment. That is, assuming you ever graduate at all.

Hence, whether you attend the greatest school or the poorest, there are mixed results regardless of where you go to school or even at your new institution. Recall the value of having faith in your skills and the fact that, on occasion, being a big fish in a small pond might matter more than your academic institution.