Ask HN: Does University Choice Matter?

It varies depending on the field but what matters more than university popularity is how you spend your time at said university.

I'm a CS student from a very small university myself (so apologies if this doesn't translate well for you), and I know several smart people from very small universities whose contributions to open source software, personal projects, and connections within the startup community and various other factors really pushed them ahead.

So spending time meeting people with similar interests and pursuing meaningful things in university is essential to your experience there.

Malcolm Gladwell makes the case for smaller schools > https://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwells-david-and-...

> "Does University Choice Matter?"

A better university matters only if you're able to take advantage of what it offers. While the core curriculum is more or less the same for all accredited colleges / universities, a better university gives you access to a larger selection of advanced courses, proportionately more well known instructors, and better labs and facilities. However, the pace of a better university is higher, the hours are much longer, and the competition from fellow students much stiffer than in high school; the transition can be very jarring. Only you know whether you're talented enough and able to put in the hours (the latter can substitute for the former to an extent) to do well enough as an undergrad to make it into a post-graduate program, but understand that the bar is generally pretty high.

For lesser known schools, I would favor a smaller regional school with a real campus. Personally I think the community experience and potential to build relationships with faculty is greater, compared to a lower tier "me too" university in a larger center that is more about the city than the university (I don't want to pick on any schools, but e.g. some other english universities in the same cities as the Canadian schools you named)

Yes, it matters. It doesn't guarantee anything of course but it makes life a bit easier down the road. Go to the best university that will accept you. (I didn't and I think that it was a big mistake)

//My university has had a couple Prime Ministers//

//other than that, there is no real "prestige" to the university //

I am not sure what to say. Okay how many Prime Minsters from one university needed to count it as "prestige"? sorry for naïve query.

It matters, but choice of major and taking advantage of opportunities matter more. After your first job, for most career tracks, nobody asks what your school / GPA was.

There are a few really specific situations where I would advise you to only attempt if armed with the most insufferably prestigious degrees possible (if you wanted to be a humanities professor at Oxford, for example), but for most industries there are plenty of ways in. Practicing medicine? Definitely can do that without the Ivy-tier prestige degrees.

You can probably call up some department at your school and get actual stats for what schools the pre-meds go to.

The prestige racket is real but it's not everything, it just wants you to think it is. Hope you can get away from the grueling college app process and let the wind blow those clouds off your sunrise a little. There's gonna come a day when you look over at your work colleague or close personal friend and realize you don't know where they went to school and you don't care enough to ask.

So there’s this study[1] that says it largely doesn’t matter if you already come from privilege and wealth, but it CAN matter if you don’t.

In my personal experience, the professional network you build in college is ultimately what has value to your career long term. This opens up opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t occur. You’re basically paying for a 4 year opportunity to collaborate with folks at a certain level of ability(?) wealth(?) social standing(?). And the degree you earn signals more about your social standing - you belong to that “club” - then specific knowledge or skills you’ve earned.

I think if you didn’t go to college and could swing a gig at Google or another FAANG, you’d have the same kind of credentialing...

1- https://www.nber.org/papers/w7322

I went to a mediocre school and have paid for it since. I worked super hard in college to optimize my resume and still have difficulty getting the opportunities “slacker” students at better schools get. I really have no hope for my future in this industry to be honest.

If you're majoring in STEM, degree choice has much less of an impact than if you're a liberal arts major.

If you're going to grad school- your second college matters a lot more than your first

> but nothing like the Ivies, Berkeley/Stanford, or McGill/UfT.

Wow, you are putting universities of vastly different calibers in the same bucket. McGill/UofT are pretty much large state schools, not at all in the same ballpark as Berkeley or Stanford.

For tech recruiting in Canada I found that UBC and UofT were pretty good in term of signal to noise ratio. The best one was Polytechnique in Montreal, but it's really small so recruiting season doesn't last a long time.

For med school, I have no clue. I suppose it's about choosing the best program to prepare you for the MCAT, or whatever the exam is in your country.