Dartmouthfuls of Money
Damn, should've gone to Dartmouth. Who would've thought that the graduates of this little nugget of an ivy league school (pop. 4,100) in the middle of New Hampshire would be the wealthiest of them all? According to Forbes, by way of payscale.com, it looks like alumni 10-20 years out of Dartmouth are making an average of $134,000 a year, beating Princeton out at a lowly $131,000.
What are these well-paid Dartmouthers doing, you ask? Well, nothing too unusual:
Top employers for Dartmouth's 2008 graduating class include Bain, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, which are almost all high-paying posts. Yet two other big employers of recent grads fall on the other end of the pay scale: Teach for America and the Peace Corps. Both organizations are focused on helping the less fortunate and require two-year commitments. So how do Dartmouth grads, many starting at nonprofits, leapfrog their peers when it comes to compensation as they gain more experience?
That's what I want to know. I mean, I thought everybody either worked in banking or consulting or taught for TFA. Why does Dartmouth get more money for doing it?
Later in the article, Dartmouth career services (bull shit central in most schools) comments on what makes Dartmouth students so special.
"Dartmouth produces well-rounded people who can move into senior-level positions easily," says Monica Wilson, associate director of career services at the school. Another important factor in the success of Dartmouth grads is an extremely tight and loyal alumni network.
OH RIGHT. I forgot that no other school compares to Dartmouth when it comes to well-roundedness and networking. I for one am a square with no alumni-connections whatsoever. And that's the veritas-truth.
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August 1st, 2008 at 3:51 am
“OH RIGHT. I forgot that no other school compares to Dartmouth when it comes to well-roundedness and networking. I for one am a square with no alumni-connections whatsoever. And that’s the veritas-truth.”
Maybe the reason we get payed more is that the gamut of our personalities and how we present ourselves to people doesn’t rely on the fact that we “oh, you know, go to school just outside of Boston.”
This is what this post says to me: “Oh, how cute, Dartmouth alumns get payed well. But I don’t even get it, it doesn’t make any sense. I go to HARVARD. I don’t understand how HARVARD isn’t number one. How are Dartmouth students even well-rounded, it’s not like they go to HARVARD.”
August 1st, 2008 at 9:55 am
Dude. Shut up. If the article had said Harvard alumni get the biggest paychecks you’d be complaining about how Dartmouth students are just as good. It’s natural to stand up for your own school. Interesting post, thanks!
August 1st, 2008 at 10:15 am
I am just going to take it for granted that all further comments on this post will be Dartmouth self-calls. Sorry about that other Ivies, but you have to understand it’s not that often we get press.
While I think it is true that we have some pretty rabid, green-bleeding alums, the wealthy ones (who feel obliged to get us really good jobs, and sue the school every once and a while) can tend to be the Indian cane totin’ Wall Street types, which I’m not sure how much notoriety for that we really want.
That said, I’ve met my fair share of the Peace Corps/TFA types, and somehow they end up pretty well off too. Personally I don’t really care about the name recognition thing; sometimes it’s nice to just smile and nod when somebody thinks you go to UMass.
Our alma mater thinks it’s because we have rocks in our heads. I can live with that one too.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:34 am
Only Columbia didn’t make the top 20.
1. Dartmouth
2. Princeton
4. Yale (Tie)
6. Harvard
7. Penn
14. Cornell (Tie)
19. Brown
Makes sense that some of the small polytechs would make the list I guess. Bucknell (and to a lesser degree, Colgate) surprised me.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
A couple interesting things I noted:
- Dartmouth’s 0-5 Year Out Pay was among the lowest of the top 20 (16th).
- MIT, Stanford, and Princeton were the highest rated 0-5 years out.
- I dont believe bonuses are taken into account at payscale.com, and I’m quite sure that places like Princeton, which are famous for feeding investment banks, get relatively higher bonuses than other schools on the list. These bonuses would shift the rankings significantly. Its not uncommon for a Princeton grad to be making $120,000 after bonus the first year out. Just something to consider when determining the validity of rankings like this one.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The alumni networking makes sense to me. I mean, as far as I know, no other Ivy has been sued quite as often by its own alumni as Dartmouth has. The fact that the alumni interfere so much with the administration (perhaps an unhealthy amount of intervening) just goes to show how obsessed some Dartmouth alumni are with their school. I mean, be honest with yourself. How many of you are going to keep tabs on your school once you graduate? I know I sure as hell am NOT, I don’t have that kind of time nor do I really care what my alma mater is going to do with its students once I graduate.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
@loveinthepbubble
Are you sure about Payscale.com not including bonuses? In a 3 second scan of the site, I couldn’t find anything supporting your claim…that would seem to be a pretty huge oversight/methodological error on their part, no? Given the degree to which Ivy/other top colleges send grads on to banking/finance, law and general corporate jobs, and given the degree to which bonuses supplement base salaries in those fields (banking/finance=highly, law=substantially, corporate=noticeably), the whole list (and perhaps their whole website) would seem to be a futile exercise if bonuses were not taken into consideration…
August 1st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
uhhuh, where do you go to school that you dislike so much?
As far as alumni, Princeton has one of the highest, if not THE highest, alumni giving rate of any university. And thats percentage, not just a few wealthy ones getting tax deductions. People here actually care about the school, and have strong connections to it long after graduation. This year alone, 59.2% of all undergrad alums gave money. The class of 1983 alone gave $8.3 million for their reunion this year. This is probably the ultimate testament to a great school…if you are willing to give money long after you graduate, and every year after you graduate, the school must have done a few things right.
bigredgrange – i agree it would make the list futile…i just dont see a whole lot of statistical viability in making claims based a list of this kind if it included bonuses… they vary so much, and are based on many different things, only one of which is the school they are trying to pry you from.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:51 pm
check this out:
http://www2.acs.ncsu.edu/UPA/peers/current/research_intensive/alumgiv.htm
August 1st, 2008 at 3:55 pm
i’ll compile the list usnwr gives for ease:
60% , 1 , Princeton
52% , 3 , Dartmouth
44% , 5 , Yale
41% , 6 , Harvard
39% , 8 , U Penn
39% , 7 , Brown
37% , 10 , MIT
35% , 15 , Columbia
34% , 17 , Cornell
For comparison:
14% , 117 , UC Berkeley
10% , 167 , NYU
August 1st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I would bet anything that the $3,000 difference between Princeton and Dartmouth is statistically not significant. Given the large sample sizes used and the immense variability in salaries, the fact that Dartmouth came out on top of Princeton is most likely just a result of chance.
I don’t mean to demean Dartmouth’s achievement or to aggrandize my school’s. I’m just saying that these kind of rankings are bullshit.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Princeton sucks. And I don’t mean to demean it or anything, I’m just saying it’s kind of bullshit.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:35 am
i hate trolls.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:23 am
Interesting article find that was undercut by the last paragraph. Thanks for closing with a Harvard brag! I agree with SOccum.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Statistically insignificant because of large sample sizes? Take Stats 101, then make such claims.
And to lovinthepbubble, you are not doing yourself or your school any favors by being a prick.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
@Cool-umbia08
Thank you for pointing out my mistake and fuck you for being such an asshole about it.
What I meant to say is that if that difference is statistically significant, then it is only because of the large sample that was used. If the difference is statistically non-significant, then that is due most likely to the large variance involved.
Either way, it is bad data from which to try to draw conclusions about whether Dartmouth or Princeton alumni make more money.
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
jealous now aren’t we.
I mean, seriously, how could princeton NOT be number one? The data must be flawed.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
@lovinthepbubble
I go to Princeton actually though I ironically have a sibling at Dartmouth. Don’t get me wrong, I love Princeton. I wasn’t trying to say Princeton sucks or that Dartmouth is better or anything like that. My point is if the administration decided ten years from now to knock down the Fitzrandolph Gates to replace them with some new modern gates for safety or aesthetic purposes or if they discontinued cane spree for some reason, I admit that I would be a little upset (not to mentioned surprised and puzzled). But I wouldn’t call up as many alumni as I possibly could in order to draw up some sort of lawsuit against Princeton’s administration. Alumni giving has nothing to do with it. I’ll probably donate to Princeton later on in life, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to constantly check on what the administration is doing or call up a few of my alumni buddies in order to draw up a lawsuit to get the administration to do what I want them to do. There’s a fine line between school spirit/loyalty and obsession.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:25 am
@”princeton09″
You define the word retard.
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Dude, you used a hyphen and not an m-dash when you wrote veritas-truth. That makes veritas-truth a compound word, which makes you retarded. No wonder you don’t have any alumni connections.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:39 am
@Lovinthepbubble
At this past fall’s reunion at Dartmouth. One of the classes raised $42 million. (I am not 100% sure if it was the 20, 25, or 30 year reunion class, but the number is accurate). Overall, they received some $72 million in a single weekend.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Sorry for some of the typos. I am actually in Spain right now (all expenses paid by an alumni grant), and their keyboards are whacked out.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:28 am
@hedgehog
No need to lash out at others because of your personal insecurities. I am sure that you are a terrific person and that your friends love you. Alright? Will you chill now?
August 4th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Wow. The response posts on this article are ridiculous. I mean. Cockier than usual. Chill out. It’s nothing more than a $3000 difference. Is it going to make that big of a difference? Honestly?
August 4th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
In my 2 minute review of payscale.com it looks like a lot of their data is from people submitting their salaries to see how they compare to others. Maybe it’s the case that Dartmouth grads making more money are more concerned that someone else is making more than they are and need to validate it online?
Here’s what they say:
“We collect both employee (incumbent) data through the PayScale Salary Survey and employer data from surveys that we administer on behalf of trade associations.”
“Individuals complete the PayScale Salary Survey in exchange for a free salary report that anonymously compares them to other people with similar jobs in the same location.”
Interesting, but I would not risk a whole lot on the integrity of the data here.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
This study is largely useless because it only takes into account those with BAs and nothing more. So essentially, what we learn from this is that Dartmouth graduates a hell of a lot of engineers. Meanwhile, all the law, medical, and business graduates go unnoticed because, you know, it’s not as if they make any money.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:38 am
I am making 500,000 a year.
Downside: it’s Indian Rupees.
Oh well, at least I’m in a country where Penn is more well-known than Princeton.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:47 am
@ pozhal
Please don’t be an idiot. Dartmouth doesn’t “graduate a hell of a lot of engineers,” not even close. Basically, we’re just loved more than you. Sorry dude.