Barbara Sams, Managing Partner

A little more than a decade ago, the New York Times columnist, Frank Bruni, published Where You Go Is Not Who You Will Be. At its core, the book is a corrective to a category error: confusing a college admissions outcome with an identity. Bruni argues that the modern frenzy treats college acceptance letters as verdicts, on talent, worth, or destiny, when they’re really just constrained decisions made under imperfect information. His antidote is deceptively simple: your education is not a brand you wear; it’s an experience you build. And the building matters more than the label. 

Since the book’s publication, there have been many more pieces written about the same concept, both in support and opposition to Mr. Bruni’s supposition. In early January, Annie Lowrey’s Atlantic piece from July 2023 “Why You Have to Care About These 12 Colleges” surfaced in my social media feed. Lowrey reports on research by Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman suggesting that a small set of “Ivy Plus” institutions (the Ivies plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago) operate as unusually powerful launchpads into the nation’s upper reaches of top firms, elite graduate programs, and the top 1% of earners. In their findings, attending one of these schools can substantially increase a student’s odds of reaching “upper tail” outcomes, even if average earnings differences look smaller. 

So, which is it?

Is prestige a mirage, an anxiety machine we should opt out of? Or is prestige a lever, one that shapes who ends up running the country?

Both. And that “both” is exactly where students can reclaim the best feature of U.S. higher education: the luxury of choice.

Bruni’s Big Idea: Don’t Mistake a Gate for the Whole World

Bruni’s argument isn’t that college doesn’t matter. It’s that we routinely overestimate which parts matter and underestimate how much agency students retain after enrollment.

He describes an admissions culture built on rankings, status signals, and escalating strategies, test prep, tutors, résumé engineering, that leaves too many students believing their “worth” will be established by which schools say yes and which say no. Bruni calls that belief “wrong” and “cruel,” and he’s blunt about the emotional cost. 

The point of his title, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, is not a Hallmark slogan. It’s a practical claim about how lives actually unfold: the Ivy League does not have a monopoly on “corner offices, governors’ mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants,” and what matters in the end is the student’s effort and engagement, not the gleam of the diploma. 

This is the philosophy of pathways, not pedestals.

The Atlantic’s Big Idea: A Tiny Set of Colleges Still Shapes the Ruling Class

Lowrey’s piece forces a different question: even if prestige shouldn’t define you, can we pretend it doesn’t structure opportunity?

The research she summarizes suggests that the “Ivy Plus” schools are distinct in how they funnel graduates into positions of influence. Lowrey reports that compared with attending top public colleges, attending an Ivy or similarly super-selective private school increases the chance of reaching the top of the earnings distribution by about 60%, and has even larger effects on non-monetary markers like elite grad schools or employment at prestigious firms. 

Just as important, the article emphasizes the mechanism: these colleges don’t merely select talented students; they “socially bind” future elites, credential them, and reinforce networks that echo across leadership roles in politics, journalism, science, and business. Of course, there are even newer articles arguing about how the graduates of these schools are now falling out of favor for a variety of reasons, see the April 2024 article by Forbes “Employers are Souring on Ivy League Grads”. But that’s a topic for another blog. 

This blog wants to highlight that the concept of elite prestige is the philosophy of systems, not self-esteem.

The Productive Contrast: “Prestige Matters” Is Not the Same as “Prestige Should Be Your North Star”

Here’s where students and families get trapped: they hear “elite colleges can boost odds of elite outcomes,” and translate that into “anything else is a consolation prize.”

That translation is the theft of choice.

Because the U.S. system is not a single ladder. It’s a landscape: public flagships with world-class labs; regional universities with extraordinary access to faculty; liberal arts colleges where undergraduates lead research; honors programs that offer small-college mentorship inside big-university resources; specialized institutes with co-ops, internships, and pipelines into specific industries.

Bruni wants families to stop treating the landscape like it’s a ladder. Lowrey wants readers to understand that a small corner of the landscape holds outsized political and economic power. 

Both can be true and once you accept that, you can make smarter, freer decisions.

The Luxury of Choice: What Prestige Obsession Costs You

When prestige becomes the goal, three things happen:

1) You collapse “fit” into “rank.”
Fit is not a vibe. It’s the daily architecture of your life: class size, advising quality, access to research, campus culture, geographic ties, internship ecosystems, financial reality, and whether you’ll thrive socially and academically. Prestige talk turns all of that into background noise.

2) You narrow your options before you even explore them.
The United States has thousands of colleges and universities, and an enormous variety of pathways to the same careers. Obsessing over a short list of “acceptable” names reduces a broad search into a brittle one. And don’t forget, the percentage of degrees being taught in English globally has been growing exponentially.

3) You outsource your agency.
Prestige obsession implies that outcomes happen to you (“If I get in, I’ll be set”). Bruni’s whole point is that outcomes are largely built by you—through relationships, curiosity, initiative, and the choices you make once you arrive. 

Paradoxically, the more you chase prestige as a guarantee, the more you treat your own effort as secondary. And effort is the one variable you control.

A Better Framework: Treat Prestige as a Data Point, Not a Destiny

If you want an intellectually honest stance, one that respects Lowrey’s systems argument without surrendering to prestige mania, try this:

Prestige is a signal. It’s not a self.

• Yes, some institutions function as accelerators into elite networks and “upper tail” outcomes.
• No, those accelerators are not the only engines of meaningful lives, fulfilling work, or even major success. Bruni’s argument is explicitly that many kinds of colleges serve as powerful springboards and that the student’s engagement matters more than the name.

So instead of asking, “Is this school prestigious?” ask:

• What will I be able to do there that I can’t do somewhere else?
• What support systems make it likely I’ll really do those things?
• What will it cost financially and emotionally to attend?
• What version of me is most likely to flourish in that environment?

That’s not anti-elite. It’s pro-agency.

The Real Point: Choice Is the American Advantage. Don’t Surrender It to a Status Story

Lowrey’s piece is, in a way, an argument about democracy: if a tiny set of colleges disproportionately feeds the leadership class, then admissions practices at those schools have social consequences. 

Bruni’s book is, in a way, an argument about personhood: if teenagers are taught that their worth depends on the right name, we are manufacturing anxiety and mistaking sorting for education. 

For students building college lists, the shared takeaway is this:

The goal is not to win a brand. The goal is to choose a place where you can become more capable and then do the work.

American higher education, at its best, offers something rare: multiple routes to excellent teaching, serious research, transformative mentorship, and meaningful opportunity. That abundance is a luxury. Prestige obsession turns it into a scarcity mindset.

Don’t let that happen.

Build a list that reflects the full landscape: reach schools if you want them, yes, but also places where you can lead, research, iterate, and belong. Make room for the schools that will bet on you, fund you, mentor you, challenge you, and let you try big things early. This is the theme of our blog throughout February, and of our company’s mantra from the start. 

Because where you go is not who you’ll be. And yet where you think you’re allowed to go will shape how much choice you believe you have.

Keep the choice. That’s the prize.