Why US citizens are obsessed with admissions in reputed universities

It is not the skills you get, it is the doors that are unlocked.

Look at how many Supreme Court justices went to Harvard. People are impressed when you have an Ivy League degree. My undergrad school was New Mexico Tech, our rival school was the Colorado School of Mines. I just read an article about how graduates from non-elite schools almost never get prestigious internships, including a girl from CSM who had sent many applications with no result.

I work at an elite school but my unit is very happy when we can award fellowships to people at small schools, Christian colleges and such because it is so easy to award them to our own students.

It's because US citizens aren't confident they can get forward in the world knowing how to build things.

They aren't looped into DoD or federal acquisition processes, which are DESPERATE for qualified contracts.

They aren't looped into natural resources extraction industries--or aren't up to relocate for work--either.

Not just Americans tho. In many parts of the world (China, India, Iran, etc.), you need to go to the top schools so that you can apply to American universities. People often do that to get a better life and escape the difficulties of their home country. American universities have so much uncertainty about the quality of applicants from unknown schools, so they reduce their uncertainty by focusing on top schools.

I think the same pattern exists in the job market. Firms can often have more "trust" in the quality of Ivy League graduates than other schools.

This would be better for reddit given the HN predeliction towards pulled-myself-up-by-my-bootstrap survivor bias and Ivy/Stanford/MIT population.

Skills are a footnote in accompishment. Smart people are a dime a dozen. It’s rarely what you know vs who you know. And the guy with the Stanford ring probably knows a lot more players and has more of the social skills and presentable self awareness required to make it big.

Alas, from your article, Asian Americans apparently don’t know their place in America’s “meritocracy” and need to stay out of the way of white quotas.

Prestige. Names matter and those with better names in their resumes earn better money. Also, better names make for better connections and better opportunities for even more money.

This phenomenon is not unique to the United States. The competition in Asian countries is much more cutthroat.

Every pupil in the United Kingdom dreams of going to Oxford or Cambridge.

In France, the Grandes Écoles, ENA, or Sciences Po.

In Russia, Moscow State University.

In China, Beijing University or Tsinghua.

In South Korea, Seoul National University.

In India, the Indian Institutes of Technology.

In Japan, Tokyo University.

In Singapore, NUS.

It's a class barrier, same as what happens in England. The majority of the lower classes are kept out so that the elites can make the contacts and networks they need to stay on top.

Skills are what the plebes have (or don't). Relationships and status are what leaders have. High status Uni are for relationships and status, not skills.