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Comment by therobot24 | Hacker News Reader

if there's a positive correlation it can be due to:

- VCs biasing toward founders with an elite school on their resume

- Elite schools offering more opportunities for building a start-up (Stanford, CMU, etc. have separate funds dedicated toward investing in student start-ups)

- Those who go to elite schools usually come from a place of privilege allowing for higher risk opportunities

- Those at elite schools have more connections to get their foot into a VC's door

and so on..

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So, are you arguing against elite colleges being worthwhile, or in favor of them? Are we not supposed to use every opportunity we get? That's cute ;)

VCs are probably missing opportunities by biasing in favor of elite universities. Just desserts, of course.

This argument is also commonly made in the context of the pool from which companies search for candidates to hire.

The problem with both situations (VC/entrepreneurs and employers/employees) is that there's a cost associated with evaluating a candidate.

I don't think anyone doubts that good opportunities (and candidates) exist at all at lower tier schools, but it seems very likely that there are fewer of them.

If your resources are already constrained by something other than the number of opportunities you can afford to fund/hire (e.g. time to evaluate/interview), then it doesn't make sense to expand your search if it means lowering your success rate.

Sure, maybe. One could also claim smart students self select top universities.

Elite schools expose you to people with a strong risk tolerance who are aggressively ambitious; this view is not reflected in many other institutions where people are primary looking for a job which leads to solid, middle class employment.

Pretty easy to have a strong risk tolerance when you come from a wealthy background and have an elite degree on your resume. Also, there's very little risk to starting a company these days.

That doesn't obviate the point that it's an asset. If family or the rest of society is willing to bear most of the risk of failure with no upside, why wouldn't a VC take advantage of it?

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