Help Me Understand Yale

Yale is a great school, and you can do very well with a degree from there. If you allow yourself to descend into the myopic world of ultra-elite or bust, you can easily lose sight of this reality.

Believe it or not there are people in this word that actually get angry when their alma mater loses a rank or two in Joe Magazine's super famous annual Best School publication and get ecstatic if it increases. I suggest their energies are misplaced.

I've got a degree from an "ultra elite" law school. I've had a fairly successful legal career, but I have still never figured out how to gracefully tell a judge or jury where I got my law degree. My success or lack thereof has depended on other things.

Sure, a degree from a super duper elite school may open some doors right out of school, but it is absolutely no guarantee of long term career success and probably not even a great predictor thereof.

And, hey, if you have a normal career with a Stanford MBA does that make you a super duper humongous failure ... given your perceived starting "advantage".

I've met a lot of ranking whores. They tend to fall into two categories: (1) total bores and (2) surprisingly insecure tough guys.

You aren't going to change them. I recommend just ignoring them.

I think Yale suffered a bit from a misguided direction to their curriculum a few years ago. They tried to establish themselves as a school for non-profit types; which of course puts it as the butt of jokes for big money IB types. They have recently restructured their curriculum again.

Yale is obviously a huge name, but substantial changes in prestige/rankings take time; not years but decades I think.

I think Yale is the only b school that is ready to move up in the "reputation" rankings. I put my money on them to be regarded with the folk of Chicago, Kellogg, MIT, Columbia. It's gonna take 10-20 years (like Pelihu said) but they will be there.

Every top 10 b school also has a strong parent university and some other strong departments. Yale has that strong undergrad name and that strong law school, so when we all become older, Yale will have moved up.

Thanks for the input.

Just had the impression that people treat Yale like Peyton Manning was treated before he won a Super Bowl, and wasn't sure if I was missing something.

I wonder if Princeton or Brown will ever have a business school.

Peyton Manning? sorry, international here, so I don't speak the lingo...btw, no need for responses directing me to Wiki or ESPN, I don't care...

Johnny, be cool, Yale is an Elite school. It is no GSB nor MIT, but still very good.

Manning was really talented, but had a reputation for "choking" during big games, and never winning important games, although statistically he was one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. (He just won the super bowl so that's all over now).

One quick question: GSB - does that always mean Chicago, or is it Stanford too?

Well, around here, GSB = Chicago. But Stanford calls its school that way, too.

"The GSB" reminds me of "The U." It kinda cracks me up.

I don't know about Brown, but Princeton will never (barring some drastic fundamental change to their philosophy). I don't believe Princeton has any professional graduate school. Closest thing is their M.Fin and that was met with contention by the Princeton community.