Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be

Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be Plot Summary

Introduction

Peter Hart's journey to professional success didn't begin at Harvard or Yale. Ranked around 300th in his high school class, he was rejected by his top choices and landed at Indiana University instead. There, away from the Ivy League spotlight, he thrived - gaining confidence, excelling academically, and developing entrepreneurial skills that eventually led him to the Boston Consulting Group and Harvard Business School. Meanwhile, Jenna Leahy, a captain at Phillips Exeter Academy, faced crushing rejections from her dream schools. Instead of letting disappointment define her, she embraced Scripps College, where she discovered new passions that led her to found a school for low-income children in Phoenix. These stories reveal a fundamental truth that contradicts America's college admissions mania: there's no single pathway to a successful, meaningful life. The anxiety surrounding prestigious institutions has reached fever pitch, with parents and students alike believing that admission to an elite school represents the ultimate verdict on a young person's worth and potential. Yet evidence consistently shows that where you go to college matters far less than what you do there and afterward. This obsession with rankings and exclusivity obscures what truly matters in education - the development of curiosity, resilience, and purpose. The following chapters examine how this mania developed, why it persists despite evidence to the contrary, and how students can find authentic educational paths that truly serve their growth and happiness.

Chapter 1: The Prestige Paradox: Unsung Alma Maters in American Success

When examining the educational backgrounds of America's most successful individuals, a surprising pattern emerges: the road to achievement is rarely paved with Ivy League bricks. Consider the Fortune 500 CEOs - among the top ten companies, only one leader holds an Ivy League undergraduate degree. The rest graduated from institutions like the University of Arkansas, Texas A&M, Auburn, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. This pattern extends throughout the corporate world, with a remarkably diverse range of educational backgrounds represented at the highest levels of American business. The political landscape tells a similar story. While recent presidents have Ivy credentials, many influential leaders charted different educational paths. Ronald Reagan attended Eureka College in Illinois. Jimmy Carter studied at Georgia Southwestern College. Richard Nixon graduated from Whittier College. Among current political figures, Chris Christie attended the University of Delaware, Martin O'Malley went to Catholic University, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker studied at Marquette University without completing his degree. The architects of political campaigns - the strategists and managers who shape American politics - often come from state schools and regional colleges. Steve Schmidt and David Plouffe, who managed opposing presidential campaigns in 2008, both attended the University of Delaware. This pattern extends to other fields as well. A survey of Pulitzer Prize winners from recent years reveals graduates from schools like Colby College, SUNY Binghamton, Bowling Green State University, and Lewis & Clark College. Among MacArthur "genius grant" recipients, more than half received their undergraduate education at institutions outside the most selective tier. Even in scientific innovation, the Presidential Early Career Award winners come from a wide spectrum of educational backgrounds, with public universities well represented. The perception gap between actual achievement and presumed pathways to success persists for several reasons. Elite institutions receive disproportionate media coverage - as one observer noted, "The New York Times wrote more about Harvard last year than about all community colleges combined." There's also a confirmation bias at work: when a Harvard graduate succeeds, we attribute it to their education; when a graduate of a less prestigious school achieves similar success, we consider it exceptional. The reality is that characteristics like persistence, creativity, emotional intelligence, and willingness to take risks matter far more than institutional pedigree. What these successful individuals demonstrate is that excellence isn't concentrated in a handful of elite institutions but distributed widely across America's diverse educational landscape. Their stories suggest that what matters most isn't where you go to college but what you bring to your education and what you make of it afterward. As Governor Christie put it, reflecting on his Delaware education: "I think we end up limiting students' horizons too early." The unsung alma maters of American success stories remind us that potential and achievement flourish in far more places than our admissions mania acknowledges.

Chapter 2: Application Wars: Inside the Dartboard of Elite College Admissions

The numbers are daunting: Stanford University accepted just 5.1% of applicants for the class of 2018 - roughly one in twenty qualified students. This represents a dramatic shift from even twenty-five years ago, when Yale accepted approximately 20% of applicants compared to just over 6% today. Across highly selective institutions, acceptance rates have plummeted, particularly in the past decade. Northwestern's rate fell from over 40% to under 13%. Tufts dropped from 34% to 21%. Even prestigious public universities have become significantly more selective, with UC Berkeley's acceptance rate falling from 48% to 17%. Multiple factors drive this intensifying competition. International applications have surged, with elite colleges now enrolling nearly 10% international students. The internet has democratized information about prestigious schools, allowing students from diverse geographic areas to discover and apply to institutions they might never have considered before. Meanwhile, colleges actively court more applicants, buying names of high-scoring students from testing agencies and sending increasingly sophisticated recruitment materials. Admissions offices have effectively become marketing departments, creating demand they know they'll largely reject. The Common Application has further accelerated this trend by making it relatively painless to apply to multiple schools. While a quarter century ago only one in ten college-bound students applied to seven or more colleges, today more than one in four do so. In affluent communities, applying to twelve or even twenty schools has become commonplace. As one admissions counselor observed, "If I throw enough darts at the board, maybe one will hit the bull's-eye." This statistical arms race obscures a more troubling reality: admissions at elite schools isn't a pure meritocracy. "Legacy" applicants - those with alumni parents - enjoy substantial advantages. Research shows that primary legacy applicants have a 45.1% better chance of admission than identical non-legacy applicants. At Harvard, 12-13% of each class consists of children of alumni, who are admitted at roughly five times the rate of the general applicant pool. Athletes, children of potential donors, and other special interest groups also receive preferential treatment. The admissions process further disadvantages ordinary applicants through its sheer unpredictability. Colleges seek to "microcast" their student bodies, looking for specific talents, geographic diversity, or unusual backgrounds that might change from year to year. As one counselor explained, "Maybe they need a volleyball player, they need a squash player, they need someone who's worked with orphans but not five people like that." This combination of overwhelming numbers and institutional priorities creates a system one admissions dean described as "throwing darts." For students and parents caught in this frenzy, the process can feel simultaneously all-important and entirely arbitrary. The message from the data is clear: even exceptional students should approach elite admissions with realistic expectations. The declining acceptance rates aren't just statistics; they represent a fundamental shift in how selective institutions operate. Understanding this reality isn't defeatist - it's the first step toward developing a healthier, more productive approach to the college search process that focuses on fit rather than prestige.

Chapter 3: Rankings Revolution: How U.S. News Transformed Higher Education

The U.S. News & World Report college rankings, launched in the 1980s, transformed from a simple information resource into a dominant force that has fundamentally reshaped American higher education. These rankings - which many educators privately dismiss as "smoke and mirrors" - wield extraordinary influence over institutional decisions, student choices, and parental anxieties. Despite widespread criticism from university presidents, admissions deans, and education researchers, the annual rankings release triggers a frenzy of attention and institutional scrambling to improve or maintain positions. The methodology behind these rankings contains numerous flaws that undermine their credibility. More than a fifth of a school's score reflects subjective peer assessments from presidents, provosts, and admissions deans at other institutions - many of whom have minimal knowledge about the schools they're evaluating. Jennifer Delahunty, Kenyon College's admissions dean, admits she routinely throws away these assessment forms, saying, "I don't know how to rank Sewanee College." Yet the resulting scores heavily influence public perception. Schools are also judged on spending per student, regardless of whether that spending improves educational quality or simply funds amenities like climbing walls and saunas. As former Amherst president Anthony Marx observed, "Basically, the driver is how much money does an institution have and therefore how much money does it spend." Perhaps most problematically, the rankings reward selectivity - giving higher scores to schools that reject more applicants. This creates perverse incentives for colleges to generate more applications they intend to deny, inflate reported test scores, and prioritize wealthier students who can pay full tuition. Some institutions have resorted to manipulation, including reporting inflated alumni giving rates (another ranking factor) or scheduling smaller classes during the fall quarter that U.S. News evaluates. The former University of Chicago admissions dean characterized the process as "an illusion of scientific evaluation of quality," noting that the rankings measure institutional power, not educational effectiveness. The rankings revolution has triggered an academic arms race with serious consequences. Colleges pour resources into status-seeking behaviors rather than educational improvements. Tuition rises as schools compete on spending metrics. Students increasingly choose schools based on prestige rather than academic fit. As Jeffrey Brenzel, Yale's former admissions dean, wrote: "The simplicity and clarity that ranking systems seem to offer are not only misleading, but can also be harmful," as students "tend to discard excellent and appropriate colleges ranked lower in U.S. News and to add 'stretch' schools that are unlikely to offer them admission." Alternative ranking systems exist but receive far less attention. Washington Monthly evaluates schools based on social mobility, research, and service. The "College Salary Report" examines graduate earnings. Specialized metrics track which schools produce the most Fulbright scholars or send the most students to study abroad. Global university assessments often highlight excellence at public research universities like UC San Diego or the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Yet these nuanced evaluations can't compete with the seductive simplicity of a numbered list that declares winners and losers. The irony of the rankings revolution was perhaps best captured by Bob Morse, who has overseen the U.S. News rankings for decades. When asked about the relevance of college reputation to future success, he told the Washington Post: "It's not where you went to school. It's how hard you work." A truth that his own creation has helped America forget.

Chapter 4: Beyond the Comfort Zone: Geographical and Social Diversity

When Frank Bruni graduated from high school in the late 1970s, he faced a pivotal choice between Yale University, where he'd been accepted for early admission, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which offered him a prestigious Morehead Scholarship. While Yale had always been held up as the goal of his hard work at a private boarding school, Chapel Hill promised something different: a genuine challenge to his comfort zone. Born and raised in the Northeast, Bruni had never spent significant time in the South. UNC's student body, primarily from North Carolina, would expose him to different perspectives, accents, and cultural contexts than those he'd encountered at his prep school or would likely find at Yale. This geographical and social stretching represents a critically important aspect of higher education that gets overlooked in the rankings-obsessed college search. A truly valuable college experience often comes from placing yourself in environments that challenge your assumptions and expand your worldview. Howard Schultz, who built Starbucks into a global giant, credits much of his development to attending Northern Michigan University - a dramatic shift for "this Jewish kid from Brooklyn" who landed in the rural Upper Peninsula. "Here's this Jewish kid from Brooklyn who lands in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan," Schultz recalled. "I was the only Jewish kid in my dorm. I remember hearing so often, 'I've never met anyone who's Jewish.'" This cultural transplantation wasn't merely incidental to his education - it was central to it. The socioeconomic composition of a student body similarly shapes the educational experience. Rebecca Fabbro, a 2009 Yale graduate, noted that roughly half of Yale students come from families wealthy enough not to qualify for any financial aid - representing approximately the top 5% of American households. This concentration of privilege creates its own bubble that can limit perspective. "I have certainly learned more in more diverse environments than in others," she observed. While elite institutions tout their racial and ethnic diversity, they often remain remarkably homogeneous in terms of class background, creating what one critic called "the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it." Meaningful diversity extends beyond demographic statistics to include exposure to different value systems, regional perspectives, and life experiences. Institutions that serve a broad cross-section of Americans - including regional state universities, community colleges, and schools with religious affiliations - often provide richer environments for this type of learning. Catharine Bond Hill, Vassar's president, emphasized this point: "If our students are going to make successful contributions to the future well-being of our society, they need to understand how to deal with diversity, and college campuses are a perfect place—an important place—to learn that." The Washington Monthly rankings, which emphasize social mobility and public service rather than exclusivity, highlight institutions that excel at creating diverse learning environments. Their top schools include UC Riverside, Texas A&M, and the University of Washington - places where students encounter a more representative cross-section of American society than at highly selective private colleges. Similarly, the New York Times College Access Index identifies schools like Vassar, Grinnell, and UNC Chapel Hill as leaders in economic diversity. In an increasingly polarized society where technology allows people to customize their information intake and confirm existing biases, college represents a crucial opportunity to break out of comfortable bubbles and engage with different perspectives. Students who deliberately seek diversity - geographic, socioeconomic, political, or cultural - often gain invaluable preparation for navigating an interconnected global society. The discomfort of leaving familiar territory may be precisely what makes such experiences so valuable for long-term growth and development.

Chapter 5: The Elite Edge Myth: Career Success Beyond Ivy Walls

The pervasive belief that elite college credentials determine career trajectory faces a significant challenge: overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When the Wall Street Journal surveyed 479 major employers about their preferred sources for hiring, the top five schools were Penn State, Texas A&M, University of Illinois, Purdue, and Arizona State University. Only one Ivy League school, Cornell, made the top 25. This pattern extends across industries and professions, contradicting the assumption that prestigious degrees offer the clearest path to professional success. The actual relationship between college selectivity and career outcomes is far more nuanced than commonly assumed. In a groundbreaking 2011 study, economists Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale found that after controlling for student characteristics, graduates of highly selective colleges earned only about 7% more than those from less selective institutions. But when they looked specifically at students who had applied to elite schools regardless of where they eventually attended, the earnings gap virtually disappeared. Their conclusion was striking: "The students are basically self-sorting when they apply to colleges, and the more ambitious students are applying to the most elite schools." The drive and determination that lead students to apply to competitive colleges prove more predictive of future earnings than the colleges themselves. Fields of study consistently show greater impact on career outcomes than institutional prestige. Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce found that the median annual earnings for the most lucrative college major (petroleum engineering) was more than four times higher than for the least lucrative major (counseling/psychology). When Gallup surveyed business leaders about hiring factors, 85% rated field-relevant knowledge as "very important," while only 9% said the same about where an applicant attended college. This disconnect between perception and reality reveals how deeply the elite college mystique has penetrated popular imagination despite contradicting employers' actual priorities. The technology sector provides perhaps the clearest counterpoint to the elite edge myth. In widely-circulated interviews, Google's hiring chief Laszlo Bock emphasized that the company looks well beyond prestigious credentials: "When you look at people who don't go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those people." Similarly, Y Combinator's Sam Altman noted that the most successful tech startups often come from unexpected educational backgrounds, with the University of Waterloo in Canada producing more successful founders than many elite American institutions. As careers progress, college pedigree becomes increasingly irrelevant. Bradley Tusk, who has hired hundreds of people across government, politics, and business, observed: "I've had students who've had transformative experiences at schools that nobody's ever heard of." He added that he recently made three senior-level hires without knowing where two of them attended college. Kevin Reddy, CEO of Noodles & Company, similarly prioritizes demonstrated success over educational background: "I think real success, enduring success, in life, in any arena, requires substance, and that substance is much more about what people do every day than where they went to school." The most comprehensive evidence comes from the Gallup-Purdue Index, which surveyed more than 30,000 college graduates about their workplace engagement and overall well-being. Its conclusion was unambiguous: "There is no difference in workplace engagement or a college graduate's well-being if they attended a public or private not-for-profit institution, a highly selective institution, or a top 100-ranked school in U.S. News & World Report." What mattered instead were experiences during college - finding a mentor, having internships that applied classroom learning, working on long-term projects, and being actively engaged in extracurricular activities. This evidence collectively demolishes the myth that elite colleges provide a significant career advantage independent of students' own characteristics and efforts. The key to professional success lies not in institutional prestige but in how students use their college years and what they bring to their careers afterward - their work ethic, adaptability, people skills, and capacity for continued learning.

Chapter 6: Humbled and Hungry: Stories of Flourishing After Rejection

Justin de Benedictis-Kessner arrived at the College of William and Mary in 2007 feeling skeptical and bitter. After attending Phillips Exeter Academy, he had set his sights on more prestigious schools but was left choosing William and Mary largely for financial reasons. "I arrived on campus a naive and preemptively arrogant freshman, ready to excel in classes and to get the whole college thing done with," he recalled. Yet what initially felt like disappointment transformed into opportunity. Because William and Mary was a relatively small school where he didn't feel intimidated, he joined groups and took leadership positions he might not have pursued elsewhere. He became president of the rowing team, served on the student honor council, and developed close relationships with professors who engaged him in research projects. Today, he holds a doctorate from MIT and credits William and Mary with helping him "reinvent himself." This pattern of transformation after rejection appears repeatedly in the stories of successful individuals. Todd Martinez, now a Stanford chemistry professor and MacArthur "genius grant" winner, found unexpected advantages at Calvin College in Michigan. While Calvin lacked the prestige of elite institutions, it offered direct access to equipment and faculty attention that larger schools couldn't match. "At Calvin we were able to take apart the NMR machine if we wanted," he explained, contrasting this with research universities where undergraduates rarely get hands-on experience with advanced equipment. This accessibility helped develop the independence and resourcefulness that later distinguished his scientific career. Novelist John Green, whose book "The Fault in Our Stars" became a global phenomenon, found similar benefits at Kenyon College. After being rejected from an advanced fiction writing course - a devastating blow at the time - Professor Fred Kluge invited him to his home for a transformative conversation. "He sat me down. He poured himself a glass of Scotch. He poured me a glass of seltzer water. And he told me I was a good writer, 'a solid B-plus writer,' as he put it," Green recalled. Kluge explained that Green's natural storytelling ability exceeded his formal writing, advice that proved pivotal to his eventual success. "I needed someone to tell me that I had potential, but I also needed someone to tell me why I didn't get into that class," he reflected, noting this personal attention was "way above and beyond the call of duty." The rejection experience itself often catalyzes growth. Joseph Ross, now on the faculty of Yale Medical School, wasn't admitted to his top-choice colleges and attended the University of Rochester instead. There, away from the intense competition of his high school, he developed academic confidence and pursued an ambitious combination of majors in psychology and neuroscience with a minor in creative writing. When applying to medical school, he approached the process differently, focusing on state schools that offered good value rather than chasing prestige. This practical approach set the foundation for his successful medical career. Travis Jackson, a Los Angeles lawyer with a prominent national firm, found that attending Northwestern Oklahoma State University gave him a hunger that many of his Ivy League-educated colleagues lacked. "I was intimidated to compete with these people," he admitted. "But that made me not take things for granted." Without a prestigious degree to fall back on, he worked harder, graduated summa cum laude from both college and Notre Dame Law School, and developed a scrappier, more entrepreneurial approach to his career. "If I didn't put the effort in, I didn't have anything to fall back on." These stories reveal a pattern: students at less prestigious institutions often develop greater initiative, resilience, and self-reliance. They can't assume their college's reputation will open doors, so they create their own opportunities. They often receive more personalized attention from faculty and gain earlier access to meaningful responsibilities. Most importantly, they learn to define success on their own terms rather than through external validation. As Martinez observed, "It's not necessary to get into a highly selective school in order to be successful. What's necessary is to understand what you want to do and how to do it well, and to be a self-starter." The humbling experience of rejection, rather than defining these individuals' limitations, ultimately helped them discover and develop their greatest strengths.

Chapter 7: Finding Fire Over Formula: Building Authentic Educational Paths

The college admissions mania represents more than just anxiety about education - it reflects deeper societal shifts in how we approach achievement and fulfillment. The intensification of this frenzy over the past decade stems from several converging factors. Parents increasingly view their children's accomplishments as extensions of their own identity and worth. The economic uncertainty following the 2008 recession heightened fears about future prospects. Meanwhile, income inequality has widened, raising the perceived stakes of educational decisions. As economist Alan Krueger noted, "The difference between being in the top one or five or ten percent and not is bigger than ever before." This environment has spawned what William Deresiewicz calls a "system of blind striving" where students follow predetermined formulas rather than discovering their authentic interests. At elite institutions, economics has become the dominant major, and finance or consulting the default career paths. One study found that nearly half of Harvard graduates and more than half of University of Pennsylvania graduates entered these fields, despite the vast range of possibilities their education theoretically opened. "The culture at Harvard seems to be dominated by the pursuit of high earning, prestigious jobs, especially in the consulting industries," researchers concluded. Former students like Anushka Shenoy, who graduated from Columbia in 2008, confirm this pattern: "It didn't occur to me to study anything other than economics and go into a banking or consulting career." The emphasis on formula over fire affects students at all types of institutions. Surveys show a dramatic shift in students' stated reasons for attending college. In the mid-1960s, only 42 percent of freshmen said being able to "make more money" was a "very important" goal in their college decision; by 2014, that number had risen to over 73 percent. During the same period, the percentage who considered developing a meaningful life philosophy important fell sharply. Author Junot Díaz, who teaches at MIT, laments this change: "The idea that a university directly feeds into a job: This is sacred law now. When I went to school, the university was about your life and being educated in ways that weren't about markets." Building authentic educational paths requires resisting this formulaic approach. The most successful individuals frequently follow non-linear trajectories driven by genuine interest rather than external expectations. Hiram Chodosh, Claremont McKenna's president, observes that students have "a propensity to be very linear" in their thinking, methodically checking boxes they believe will lead to predetermined outcomes. "You don't become a great academic because you're trying to become a great academic," he argues. "You become a great academic when you look out the window and you have something to say about what's wrong with this picture that's unique." The stories of accomplished professionals consistently emphasize this point. Scott Pask, a Tony Award-winning Broadway set designer, graduated from the University of Arizona's architecture program, worked retail jobs in New York, and volunteered for obscure theater projects before finding his path. CNN's Christiane Amanpour attended the University of Rhode Island after financial constraints and the Iranian Revolution upended her original plans. Britt Harris, who ran one of the world's largest hedge funds, tells Princeton students: "If you are extremely smart but you're only partially engaged, you will be outperformed, and you should be, by people who are sufficiently smart but fully engaged." Finding fire over formula means recognizing that education's true value lies not in credentials but in transformation - developing curiosity, resilience, and purpose that extend far beyond any diploma. It means approaching college as an opportunity for exploration rather than validation. As psychologist Susan Bodnar advised her son when he worried about disappointing grades: "This is not the end of your journey. This is a learning experience. You will be better at whatever college you attend because you have had this experience. Trust your inner voice." The admissions process itself can become a meaningful exercise in self-discovery when approached with authenticity rather than calculation. Tara Dowling, a college counselor at Choate, holds onto this perspective despite the cynicism she encounters: "Kids become aware of who they are. Kids become aware of what they want. I love being part of that process: watching the light bulb go on, watching them work their buns off." When students focus on finding institutions that genuinely match their interests, values, and learning styles - rather than chasing prestige - they lay the foundation for educational experiences that truly serve their growth and development.

Summary

Throughout this exploration of college admissions and success, a fundamental truth emerges: the path to fulfillment and achievement rarely follows the narrow, prestige-obsessed route that dominates contemporary American thinking about education. From Fortune 500 CEOs to Pulitzer Prize winners, from political leaders to technological innovators, the most successful Americans have traveled remarkably diverse educational paths. What unites them isn't where they went to college but how they approached their education and careers - with genuine passion, persistent effort, and the resilience to transform setbacks into opportunities for growth. The rankings revolution that began in the 1980s has created a damaging illusion that a handful of elite institutions hold the keys to future success. This myth persists despite overwhelming evidence that career outcomes depend far more on what students do during and after college than on institutional prestige. The most valuable educational experiences often come from stepping beyond comfort zones, engaging deeply with diverse perspectives, and developing the initiative to create opportunities rather than waiting for them to be bestowed. As we navigate an increasingly complex and uncertain world, we need to reclaim a more authentic vision of education - not as a competition for credentials, but as a journey of discovery that continues throughout life. By valuing fire over formula, by measuring success in terms of growth rather than admission rates, we can build educational paths that truly prepare young people not just for careers, but for lives of meaning, purpose and continued learning.

About Author

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Frank Bruni

Frank Bruni was named restaurant critic for The New York Times in April 2004.Before that, Mr. Bruni had been the Rome bureau chief from July 2002 until March 2004, a post he took after working as a reporter in the Washington D.C. bureau from December 1998 until May 2002. While in Washington, he was among the journalists assigned to Capitol Hill and Congress until August 1999, when he was assigned full-time to cover the presidential campaign of Gov. George W. Bush. He then covered the White House for the first eight months of the Bush administration, and subsequently spent seven months as the Washington-based staff writer for The New York Times Sunday Magazine.Mr. Bruni is the author of The New York Times bestseller about George W. Bush called Ambling into History (HarperCollins: hardcover, 2002; paperback, 2003). He is also the co-author of A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church.

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