Should I Go Nuke or Go To College and Then Nuke after

[jack123]

Just some background before my question. I am currently in high school with a 3.0 GPA , I scored a 1720 overall on my SATS , Reading 620 , Math 550 . I've just retaken it and i believe my scores will be higher .  I've taken the ASVAB and scored 97% AFQT and my EL score was 252 which  auto qualified me  to enlist as a Nuke . My GPA is pretty poor compared to the rest of my grade , I'm not even in the top 50% of my class. I could definitely get accepted into some schools but i do not like the idea of piling a huge amount of student debt. If i was to go to college i would almost certainly get a an engineering degree to ensure i have good chances of having a job.  I am intelligent but my work ethic in school is lacking . That's why my GPA is poor. I do run varsity cross country on my high school  , my best time is a 17:29 5k and i think that takes a certain amount of self discipline.   I believe that the Navy will give me the right structure and discipline to succeed.  The Navy is invested in my success and colleges just want their paycheck. My family views my interest in the Navy as taking the easy way out. I don't understand this view . My recruiter had a nuke spot open for me in August but my parents refused to let me sign the forms until i was 18. My birthday is in February and i can make my choice then but i intend to apply to colleges in the meantime to see what my options are. Any opinions / advice is welcome on what i need to think about before making this decision.  Thanks in advance

[Marlin]

You sound like a typical enlisted Nuke, very intelligent but not scholastically motivated, at least from my rather dated perspective. I had no study habits and daydreamed in class a lot. Study habits, focus, and work ethics are something the Navy can change if you make it through the program but in retrospect it is something I am glad to have in my background but would never want to go through again. If you can gain these things on your own I would go to college if you cannot the Navy would be the easy way to go to gain them (said tongue in cheek).

It would seem your own soul searching is your primary issue, can you be honest with yourself? It's not unusual for a young person to lack proper respect for their parents opinion, the older you get the smarter they seem.  

[Smart People]

You just described half or more of the navy nukes who have ever been through Nuke School. Slept through high school and had to wake up in Nuke school.

Speaking for me, I found my self in an environment where I had to figure out if I wanted to sink or swim. I had to focus and learn good study habits and quickly.

one good part of the nuke program; there is plenty of structure and missing class in not an option.

Also if you don't make it through school, you are still in the Navy and the G.I. Bill is still available.

[GLW]

............. I believe that the Navy will give me the right structure and discipline to succeed.  The Navy is invested in my success and colleges just want their paycheck. My family views my interest in the Navy as taking the easy way out. I don't understand this view . My recruiter had a nuke spot open for me in August but my parents refused to let me sign the forms until i was 18. My birthday is in February and i can make my choice then but i intend to apply to colleges in the meantime to see what my options are. Any opinions / advice is welcome on what i need to think about before making this decision.  Thanks in advance

..... If you can gain these things on your own I would go to college if you cannot the Navy would be the easy way to go to gain them (said tongue in cheek).

It would seem your own soul searching is your primary issue, can you be honest with yourself? It's not unusual for a young person to lack proper respect for their parents opinion, the older you get the smarter they seem.  

To the OP,...

a fair number of folk's parents are not that big on the military,...

the military is okay for other people's kids,...just not their own,...

easy answer,....

well, it's a brave new world, full of no real hurry to grow up or accomplish anything anymore, so, take your parent's choice, go to college, then if wash out you can live in your parent's basement until you're 26 years old and suck off your old man's health care insurance, after all, your old man pays the premiums, not you,...

or,...

go to college, accrue a ton of debt plus whatever you parents chip in for, get a degree in whatever the hell you like (or what your mom & dad insist you get one in), and then, after you get the degree, go work at a North Dakota oil rig for $85,000 a year, a line of work which actually needs no degree but will completely piss off your parents to the point they may disown you for not only throwing away your future, but spending their money while you were in college just so you could piss it all away on what you wanted to do as opposed to what you were expected to do,...

or,...

do something novel like service to your country (and not just navy nuke, that's a  whole other discussion, and your recruiter is a salesman), go to college while serving and afterwards, earn your degree essentially debt free and know that the degree is your degree, bought and paid for by you, and then do what the hell you want with it without any need of, or expectation for, approval from anybody else, because it is wholly and 100% your degree and only yours to do with or not as you deem best,...

hell, you could even open an outfitter shop in Alaska if you wanted to,...

back in the day, this was one of my most epihanous (sp?) moments,...

laughing epiphanies are the best...  

[spekkio]

If you are going to enlist, doing so before college would generally be the better option. The reason being is that you can use the GI Bill to pay for up to $18,700 in tuition + book stipend + Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) to help pay for room/board/rent. None of these are 'chargeable' as income to your financial aid forms, and as a 24 year old who can't be claimed as someone's dependent, your parents income won't count, either, so you will also qualify for further grants from the university even if you take a part-time job to make an extra $5-10k a year.

If you go to college first, then you can still use the GI bill for a master's. But there are significant challenges to doing an undergrad, tabling it for 6-8 years, then going back to do a master's, especially if you want to do something technical. I'm not saying it can't be done, just be aware that there's a shelf-life to what you learn if you don't use it.

I also think that the Navy lifestyle, particularly nuke, is better suited for someone who is young and without a family. You won't want to necessarily start a family at 22, but you're committing yourself to at least 28. This is the time in your life that you want to be making your way in a chosen career path, not serving time in the Navy if you have no desire to make a career of it.

I could definitely get accepted into some schools...

Be aware that the Navy nuke program is not going to boost your GPA. You will still have that GPA when you get out and, IIRC, you will need to re-take the SATs.

I am intelligent but my work ethic in school is lacking . That's why my GPA is poor. I do run varsity cross country on my high school  , my best time is a 17:29 5k and i think that takes a certain amount of self discipline.   I believe that the Navy will give me the right structure and discipline to succeed.  

Structure, yes. Discipline, not really. Work ethic and discipline come from within. Your time won't really belong to you in the Navy. Stop looking elsewhere to fix your shortfalls; the only person who can make you more disciplined is you.

The Navy is invested in my success and colleges just want their paycheck...

The Navy is invested in its ships and aircraft. It invests in your training because it needs you in order to make them run. But just be aware that you are joining an organization that generally prioritizes the ability for its assets to meet operational commitments over the morale and well-being of its people. That's not saying that the Navy doesn't view people as important, or that your chain of command isn't going to do everything it can to make sure you are taken care of...just that if the two interests conflict then the asset is going to take priority over you.

Universities also are not just about collecting a paycheck. Some are, but the majority employ professors who have a vested interest in doing research and teaching students. However, unlike H.S. you have to act like an adult and do your part. No one is going to twist your arm if you don't do your homework. No one is going to call mommy and daddy. You will earn an C or below (teachers don't 'give' grades, students earn them) and life will move on. If you want to use the resources that universities provide instead of skipping class and just doing the minimum, you will get a good education at any reputable institution.

My family views my interest in the Navy as taking the easy way out. I don't understand this view. My recruiter had a nuke spot open for me in August but my parents refused to let me sign the forms until i was 18. My birthday is in February and i can make my choice then but i intend to apply to colleges in the meantime to see what my options are. Any opinions / advice is welcome on what i need to think about before making this decision.  Thanks in advance.

Your parents probably have a minimal understanding of the Navy and don't realize that it is a heterogenous and micro-centered organization. Your experience in the Navy will differ drastically depending on your rating, whether you are an East or West Coast Sailor, what ship you are assigned to, who your CO/XO/CMC (or COB) is, and probably a slew of other factors that I am missing. They probably know of someone who spent 4 years as a [insert rate] but only talks about port calls in Thailand (probably because the hard days aren't particularly interesting to people who haven't BTDT). I think that you should get as much information as you can about the nuke program and talk to them about the technical training and hands-on experience that you will get as a nuke.

As far as them making you wait until you are 18, they are being smart by making you think about your decision. It's a long commitment. The recruiter will have nuke spots open again after February... and again, and again, and again. So the world turns. Don't let the recruiter pull the car salesmen trick "Act now to take advantage of our super savings..." Yea, except that they'll repeat the same sale 2 months from now. Similarly, spots open up for various rates all the time, all you have to do is be patient and persistent.

[jack123]

Thanks for the replies . I appreciate the honesty especially . Some more factors that i have to consider are that I have  3 other siblings who also need to get through college somehow. Obviously I need to make decisions for myself and in my best interests , but I'd like to think this route would  lessen the burden on my parents. I've read from posts on this site that's it's almost universally agreed that Nuke school is hard and the actual service is tedious , but they also say they would do it again.  I'm single , unattached, and completely okay with being away from my family for long stretches of time.   I don't have aspirations to be an artist or anything. I'm looking to set the rest of my life up and I think becoming a Nuke is a great way to do that , with an obvious positive  of serving the best country in the world.

[Samabby]

I admire the fact that you are sensitive to the economic impact for your folks & the rest of the family.

" I'm single , unattached, and completely okay with being away from my family for long stretches of time"

Welcome to the fleet! Good luck, son.

[Druid]

I am intelligent but my work ethic in school is lacking . That's why my GPA is poor. I do run varsity cross country on my high school  , my best time is a 17:29 5k and i think that takes a certain amount of self discipline.

The ability to overcome the physical pain of a finite distance run is not the same ability that it takes to push through Mando-35 for four months. A couple of bad tests and staying up until the middle of the night for several weeks and then walking out of an Ac Board without throwing in the towel? Then you will have found your discipline. Hopefully you find it before that point!

My family views my interest in the Navy as taking the easy way out. I don't understand this view.

Have you asked them? DW and I were both Navy and would take the time to explain our views of service to our children.

My birthday is in February and i can make my choice then but i intend to apply to colleges in the meantime to see what my options are.

Make sure to consider community colleges in your calculation, especially if engineering is your passion. You will get into your career path faster. I did the CC route after getting off active duty and found the lower costs, more flexible schedule, and better instructor-student ratio to be more to my liking. I then matriculated into a state school to finish my undergrad.

[spekkio]

Make sure to consider community colleges in your calculation, especially if engineering is your passion.

The institution that signs the paper for undergrad matters significantly to a lot of STEM employers.

[cheme09]

The institution that signs the paper for undergrad matters significantly to a lot of STEM employers.

I would say more weight is given to what the paper says, rather than which institute signs it (i.e. engineering technology vs engineering). Community college is actually a good way to get some general education credits (e.g. english or history) out of the way for less money or some of the lower level math/engineering courses (e.g. calc I, calc II, statics, circuits). You can even do it while you're already enrolled in a 4-year institution. In some cases, the teachers are "better" at community college. Sometimes at a university you'll get a professor who is only there because they have research they want to do, and they're not interested in teaching at all, but are required to teach as part of their contract. I had some classmates take english at the local CC because the paper they had to write was 8-pages, whereas the one at the university required a 20-page paper. Same with circuits for my EE friends, apparently the intro to circuits class at our engineering school had a low pass rate, but the CC class had a better teacher and higher pass rate. The only catch is that you need to check with the university on it's credit transfer policy.

[spekkio]

I would say more weight is given to what the paper says, rather than which institute signs it (i.e. engineering technology vs engineering). Community college is actually a good way to get some general education credits (e.g. english or history) out of the way for less money or some of the lower level math/engineering courses (e.g. calc I, calc II, statics, circuits). You can even do it while you're already enrolled in a 4-year institution. In some cases, the teachers are "better" at community college. Sometimes at a university you'll get a professor who is only there because they have research they want to do, and they're not interested in teaching at all, but are required to teach as part of their contract. I had some classmates take english at the local CC because the paper they had to write was 8-pages, whereas the one at the university required a 20-page paper. Same with circuits for my EE friends, apparently the intro to circuits class at our engineering school had a low pass rate, but the CC class had a better teacher and higher pass rate. The only catch is that you need to check with the university on it's credit transfer policy.

1) Of course certain courses of study are more valuable than others. That's besides the point. The point was that institution matters for STEM degrees. Median starting and career income statistics are widely available; this isn't even debatable.

2) The admission rates for transfer students to reputable universities is oftentimes significantly lower than acceptance rates for incoming freshmen. Their admissions process for incoming freshmen students is more rigorous, so fewer students leave or drop out. That leaves fewer spots for transfer applicants.

3) Community college can help save some money, but not every class may transfer.

4) As to your point about the English paper: I suppose this is a matter of what you are seeking in your education. I don't think that being assigned an 8-page paper vs. a 20-page paper is a selling point for community college. That's taking the attitude that you are warming a seat to get a signed piece of paper rather than invest in your education. The level of research, effort, and analysis that goes into writing a high quality 20 page paper is significantly higher than the level put into a high quality 8 page paper. Additionally, the professor in the more reputable institution will usually have a more rigorous standard by which he grades. Put it all togeter, and the student will generally learn more from the former than the latter.

5) As to your point about professors focusing on research: Higher education is about research. There is no way around this. It's about using what you know to explore deeper concepts and answer questions. It is not about memorizing facts from a textbook, although that is required to obtain the baseline level of knowledge needed to go further. You don't want to be learning your material in changing fields from professors whose knowledge is 5, 10, 20 years old. You want to be learning from professors who understand the material deep enough to produce quality work that advances a field. You want to build relationships with these professors early so that you can be a part of their teams in your junior/senior year, so that you have more to put on a resume than "I attended class for 4 years."

6) There is also the X-factor of being immersed in an environment surrounded by other bright, motivated students instead of a class that is largely comprised of people attending the 13th grade, and thus being pushed to excel through peer pressure.

Having said all that, OP clearly doesn't have the academic credentials to be accepted into most reputable universities (that SAT score is out of a max of 2400), so community college may be his only way to start. I simply take exception to people throwing out a generic "Start at community college and transfer, it's the same thing!" advice like it's the panacea for everyone. Can one make a successful living through that path? Yes. Is it the only option for some people on a budget? Sure. But when giving this advice, it's important to recognize that it significantly stacks the deck against someone vs. his competition who attended a more presitigious university, and that they need to have a plan to overcome that.

[Druid]

Having said all that, OP clearly doesn't have the academic credentials to be accepted into most reputable universities (that SAT score is out of a max of 2400), so community college may be his only way to start. I simply take exception to people throwing out a generic "Start at community college and transfer, it's the same thing!" advice like it's the panacea for everyone. Can one make a successful living through that path? Yes. Is it the only option for some people on a budget? Sure. But when giving this advice, it's important to recognize that it significantly stacks the deck against someone vs. his competition who attended a more presitigious university, and that they need to have a plan to overcome that.

I apologize for the offense. The OP was talking about exploring options and concerned about the burdens his decision would place on his siblings. Yes, there are crappy community colleges. There are also some good ones which have agreements with state universities and act as satellite campuses for specific programs. From an engineering POV, a good example of this would be the University of Texas -Tyler and Houston Community College. No one would ever mistake UTT for a top 10 engineering school. My DW was a head hunter and I agree with you that school standing is commonly used as a primary screening criteria in human resources. Like GPA, it is an easy filter criteria to apply. Its also one reason I'm glad I don't have an HR department pre-screening the resumes I get.

[tolstoy]

Huh? Go to the best college you can afford and get a degree heavy in math and science. This will work for you in two important ways:

You will be able to take nuke jobs and pursue a career increasingly unavailable to those without a degree. It will certainly put you ahead of anyone starting out without a degree.

It will give you a marketable degree and career for the time when they shutter all the nukes. What's the average age in a nuke plant? And why isn't anyone worried? Because nukes are old technology that cost ungodly amounts of money to build. Unless you speak Chinese.

[spekkio]

I apologize for the offense. The OP was talking about exploring options and concerned about the burdens his decision would place on his siblings. Yes, there are crappy community colleges. There are also some good ones which have agreements with state universities and act as satellite campuses for specific programs. From an engineering POV, a good example of this would be the University of Texas -Tyler and Houston Community College. No one would ever mistake UTT for a top 10 engineering school. My DW was a head hunter and I agree with you that school standing is commonly used as a primary screening criteria in human resources. Like GPA, it is an easy filter criteria to apply. Its also one reason I'm glad I don't have an HR department pre-screening the resumes I get.

Sorry for the rant, not offended. I've just recently seen the advice of "go to a community college/state school, it's the same thing!" be given to my cousin who had the option of attending more reputable universities when there is an overwhelming amount of data available on the web that says it is not the 'same thing' when it comes to career earning potential.

While there are some feeder CCs, they're in the minority and OP might not live in one of those areas.

[cheme09]

1) Of course certain courses of study are more valuable than others. That's besides the point. The point was that institution matters for STEM degrees. Median starting and career income statistics are widely available; this isn't even debatable.

Making a relation between school and career income is absurd. Any added value gained by attending one school vice another decays significantly the farther you get from graduation.

Once in the civilian work force, nobody cares what school you went to, and your career progression is predominately dictated by the quality of your work and how well you work with the rest of the organization.

This is just as apparent in the Navy as it is in the civilian world. For NUPOC, I can imagine that once the Admiral makes you an offer, nobody cares which school you went to.

What does matter, however, no matter the school you attended or what industry to wish to work in is how well you did in school and what your GPA was. And that only matters in obtaining your FIRST job, from there on, it's your reputation and performance.

2) The admission rates for transfer students to reputable universities is oftentimes significantly lower than acceptance rates for incoming freshmen. Their admissions process for incoming freshmen students is more rigorous, so fewer students leave or drop out. That leaves fewer spots for transfer applicants.

If your credentials are good enough to get into a "reputable university" when you graduate high school, then they will still be good enough when you apply to college at a later date. If you decide to take classes between high school graduation and applying to said "reputable university", the only thing that changes is that whatever classes you took at community college get added to your transcript. If you continued obtaining high grades in CC then there is no reason you wouldn't get accepted. However, if you slacked off then, yes, your chances of getting into said "reputable university" go down.

3) Community college can help save some money, but not every class may transfer.

Stated in my original response

4) As to your point about the English paper: I suppose this is a matter of what you are seeking in your education. I don't think that being assigned an 8-page paper vs. a 20-page paper is a selling point for community college.

It is if you attend a university which charges by the credit hour. If you have a heavy loaded semester, and you could take one of classes at the CC down the street for half the price and half the work, for the same credit how is that a bad idea?

In my initial response, I wasn't only talking about doing 2 years at CC and 2 years at a university. Sometimes it's a good decision to take just a couple classes at CC while enrolled at a university.

Additionally, the professor in the more reputable institution will usually have a more rigorous standard by which he grades.

Bad assumption

5) As to your point about professors focusing on research: Higher education is about research. There is no way around this. It's about using what you know to explore deeper concepts and answer questions. It is not about memorizing facts from a textbook, although that is required to obtain the baseline level of knowledge needed to go further. You don't want to be learning your material in changing fields from professors whose knowledge is 5, 10, 20 years old. You want to be learning from professors who understand the material deep enough to produce quality work that advances a field. You want to build relationships with these professors early so that you can be a part of their teams in your junior/senior year, so that you have more to put on a resume than "I attended class for 4 years."

In practice higher education is about getting a job - not about research. What percentage of students get a bachelor's degree in order to go into research?

If I'm taking a freshman/sophomore level thermodynamics class, I could care less what research my professor is doing. What I care about is learning the basics and establishing a foundation I may be able to build upon for higher level problems in future classes/research. However, if my professor is only at the university to conduct research and doesn't care much about teaching and isn't open to fielding questions outside of class or taking extra time in class to go over a topic that wasn't presented clearly last lecture then that severely hampers the students' ability to effectively learn the material.

Moreover, as a student who wasn't interested in pursuing research, I found that the professors who had more to offer in terms of building relationships and being able to pick their brains were the ones who had real industry experience. Again, those that went to engineering school, then straight to a PhD program then straight to research and teaching were very smart and knowledgeable but tended be of the type that they had to teach, rather than they wanted to teach.

6) There is also the X-factor of being immersed in an environment surrounded by other bright, motivated students instead of a class that is largely comprised of people attending the 13th grade, and thus being pushed to excel through peer pressure.

If you don't have enough motivation to pass the "13th grade", things won't change when you're in the same position at a major institution. I agree, there are more educationally/culturally stimulating things at a university, but that is by virtue of a university being what it is, and is part of the decision one has to make when considering to go to a major institution for 4 year or start at CC.


I went to a 4-year institution, but if I could do it all over again or in the future, when my kids go to college, I would not disuade them from knocking out some classes at a CC. Mainly because GPA has more weight than actual place of education (for the same degree, in a STEM field).

[HydroDave63]

Once in the civilian work force, nobody cares what school you went to

My only dissent here...I've heard the chuckles that followed "he got a Univ. of Phoenix Bachelors". OTOH, I've never heard of an interviewee in the electron side of the business who possessed a Bismarck State AA in an engineering-related field NOT being hired vs. a 'soft-skills' BA. YMMV.

[spekkio]

Making a relation between school and career income is absurd. Any added value gained by attending one school vice another decays significantly the farther you get from graduation.

Once in the civilian work force, nobody cares what school you went to, and your career progression is predominately dictated by the quality of your work and how well you work with the rest of the organization.

This is just as apparent in the Navy as it is in the civilian world. For NUPOC, I can imagine that once the Admiral makes you an offer, nobody cares which school you went to.

What does matter, however, no matter the school you attended or what industry to wish to work in is how well you did in school and what your GPA was. And that only matters in obtaining your FIRST job, from there on, it's your reputation and performance.
If your credentials are good enough to get into a "reputable university" when you graduate high school, then they will still be good enough when you apply to college at a later date. If you decide to take classes between high school graduation and applying to said "reputable university", the only thing that changes is that whatever classes you took at community college get added to your transcript. If you continued obtaining high grades in CC then there is no reason you wouldn't get accepted. However, if you slacked off then, yes, your chances of getting into said "reputable university" go down.

Salary data simply doesn't support your claim that 'nobody cares about which school you attended.' I don't know how the mechanism manifests itself specifically - in other words, I am not saying that an employer will necessarily see "MIT" in a resume and suddenly want to hire the candidate with a 6-figure starting salary, which is what it seems like you think that I am arguing - but there is a clear median career earning discrepancy between schools. This data is widely available and while there are some state schools that produce students who do very well in STEM fields, there are many more that don't.

As to your comment about the NUPOC program, I think you need to read more Admiral bios, both in the sub force and the COCOMs. They overwhelmingly went to the Naval Academy. Second place would be a NROTC program. Very, very few went through OCS. That's not saying that you can't become a 3 or 4 star through OCS, just that the odds are stacked against you.

In practice higher education is about getting a job - not about research. What percentage of students get a bachelor's degree in order to go into research?

If I'm taking a freshman/sophomore level thermodynamics class, I could care less what research my professor is doing. What I care about is learning the basics and establishing a foundation I may be able to build upon for higher level problems in future classes/research. However, if my professor is only at the university to conduct research and doesn't care much about teaching and isn't open to fielding questions outside of class or taking extra time in class to go over a topic that wasn't presented clearly last lecture then that severely hampers the students' ability to effectively learn the material.

Moreover, as a student who wasn't interested in pursuing research, I found that the professors who had more to offer in terms of building relationships and being able to pick their brains were the ones who had real industry experience. Again, those that went to engineering school, then straight to a PhD program then straight to research and teaching were very smart and knowledgeable but tended be of the type that they had to teach, rather than they wanted to teach.

In practice many students view higher education like you do. I think it's important to recognize that colleges don't exist to give you a job placement program. They never did, and they never will. They are there to obtain deeper knowledge about topics, which is why professors must be involved in research to get tenure. As an undergraduate STEM student, you are there to learn the basics of the theory of your field. You then use this knowledge to get a job applying it. Better universities do a better job of ensuring their students leave with a strong foundation of knowledge.

Also, a lot of the better universities hire professors with industry experience. Do you think the professors lecturing for business school at Harvard or law school at Yale have spent their entire lives in a classroom? No.

I went to a 4-year institution, but if I could do it all over again or in the future, when my kids go to college, I would not disuade them from knocking out some classes at a CC. Mainly because GPA has more weight than actual place of education (for the same degree, in a STEM field).

Yea, and as a state school grad with a 3.8 GPA and a 33 MCAT score who never even got an interview for medical school (those scores are within the competitive acceptance range), and as someone who probably would have done better if my dorm didn't have beer pong parties every Tuesday and Wed night, I will encourage my children to attend universities that have a bit more weight to its name.

[HalfHazzard]

The institution that signs the paper for undergrad matters significantly to a lot of STEM employers.

Fortunately for me, no employer has asked where I took English II in the summer.

[cheme09]

Salary data simply doesn't support your claim that 'nobody cares about which school you attended.' I don't know how the mechanism manifests itself specifically - in other words, I am not saying that an employer will necessarily see "MIT" in a resume and suddenly want to hire the candidate with a 6-figure starting salary, which is what it seems like you think that I am arguing - but there is a clear median career earning discrepancy between schools. This data is widely available and while there are some state schools that produce students who do very well in STEM fields, there are many more that don't.

You are misinterpretting the data. The data you cite basically just regurgitates the acceptance criteria of said schools. What that data really suggest is that individuals who attend such schools generally succeed in their careers (and therefore make more money). It is more of a correlation between secondary school (pre-college) success to lifetime career success.

It makes sense when you think about it. In order to get accepted to a highly regarded institute, an individual must be an over-acheiver in the years leading up to college. He probably has a stellar GPA and plenty of AP courses and great extra-curriculars. He already have that internal drive, ambition, and work ethic to make it. That will not change after college. Four years later, the same individual with that oustanding drive and ambition now has a degree from a very well respected/highly regarded institute and carries it into their career. This individual now becomes a statistic in the data you provided.

Take for example, a classmate of the above individual who "got by". This person was smart enough and had just enough drive to graduate in the top 35% of his graduating class. He did not have the grades to make it to the highly regarded college, but could get into the engineering program at the state college 30 minutes away. Maybe this individual doesn't have a lot of ambition to climb the ladder and just wants to be a staff engineer/accountant/technician/employee/etc when in the workforce.  This also contributes to the data you cited above.

The distinction comes when the high achieving student who has the credentials to go to the highly regarded institute makes the conscious decision to start at a community college then transfer to a 4 years school, or just start at the state school and finish there, all together. This individual would not be limiting his/her potential career earning just from choosing to attend the "less reputable" school.

This is not to say that those of us that did not attend such highly regarded institutions lack any work ethic or ambition. But there is a higher density of such individuals at those highly regarded institutions.

I also realize there is some of that good ol' boy mentality in the Academy and other schools where higher ups tend to hire from their alma mater, but that is not representative of the entire workforce. Probably fair assumption for the military, though, as you pointed out. But then again, you were talking about rising to the top (O-9 and O-10) which represents a small population.

[spekkio]

I don't think I'm misrepresenting anything, and I specifically said that it's possible to be successful by attending state universities. It is just harder for a myriad of reasons that you even agreed with in your last post.

But then again, you were talking about rising to the top (O-9 and O-10) which represents a small population.

Yes, we are talking about rising to the top - military or civilian. Of those who manage to rise to the top, in either place, there are a disproportionate amount who attended prestigious universities.

I don't think it's just the good ol' boys club and I also don't think it's explained simply through hard work/motivation. The hardest working people I see on a daily basis are the illegal immigrants picking strawberries out here in CA, but I don't think they'll ever be an exec at Monsanto.

The distinction comes when the high achieving student who has the credentials to go to the highly regarded institute makes the conscious decision to start at a community college then transfer to a 4 years school, or just start at the state school and finish there, all together. This individual would not be limiting his/her potential career earning just from choosing to attend the "less reputable" school.

But that's not true. He will have spent a year not being challenged as much as he would have in a more reputable school. His odds of being accepted as a transfer student are cut anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2.  Even if accepted, his credits might not transfer to meet graduation core study requirements, which results in longer time spent in school and opportunity cost of not working for an extra 6-12 months, which for an exceptional newly minted chemical engineer, would cost him around $75k in salary... just to try to save a few grand as a freshman.

That's not including the 'soft' effects of having to socially play catchup behind the rest of your peers.

All of this absolutely could limit career potential.

There are good reasons to attend community college, but being a talented student who wants to cheap out on a small fraction of overall education costs isn't one of them.

[GLW]

is not this:

............That's not including the 'soft' effects of having to socially play catchup behind the rest of your peers.....

then this:

.....the good ol' boys club.....

?!?!?!?!?