Interesting thoughts. The correlation between college and eventual career success is something that appears to me to be very hard to predict, although like you suggest the more elite schools do seem to enroll a greater percentage of ambitious people.
Your story has some similarities to my own, except that my drop-out/transfer came when I was working on my Masters. Georgia Southern was the only college I applied to as an undergrad (partly because my great-aunt had worked there as a librarian in the '40s). It was known then primarily as a party school which produced alot of teachers, but experienced huge growth during my time there mostly due to re-starting their long dormant football program which went on to win 4 I-AA National Championships in its first eight years.
Last year I saw an alumni magazine from the University of Georgia (the flagship institution in the state) and the alumni updates they published didn't seem all that different from what the Georgia Southern alumni magazine was releasing. A decade ago you would have noticed a big difference, but since then we've started to attract alot more students who would have gone to UGA in the past. In fact my SAT scores from 1985 wouldn't be good enough to get into GSU now :)
Duke was one of the graduate schools I applied to for my Masters in History. I didn't get accepted and they didn't give me a reason. I did get a Graduate Assistantship at Auburn, but during my second quarter there my grandmother died and I had a falling out with my mother and I realized that up to that point that I had been drifting through academia without a real desire to be a professor although that was where I was headed. Like you, I became blocked on writing and dropped out. A couple of years later I got a part-time job at a library and realized this was the kind of place I wanted to work at.
I really enjoyed my undergrad experience at Georgia Southern, but I'm not sure that would have happened at a bigger, more competitive place like UGA. And I didn't find a niche for myself at Auburn, although I loved the Library Science program at the University of South Carolina. Maybe its also time for me to track down some of my old classmates and see how they are doing :)
no subject
Your story has some similarities to my own, except that my drop-out/transfer came when I was working on my Masters. Georgia Southern was the only college I applied to as an undergrad (partly because my great-aunt had worked there as a librarian in the '40s). It was known then primarily as a party school which produced alot of teachers, but experienced huge growth during my time there mostly due to re-starting their long dormant football program which went on to win 4 I-AA National Championships in its first eight years.
Last year I saw an alumni magazine from the University of Georgia (the flagship institution in the state) and the alumni updates they published didn't seem all that different from what the Georgia Southern alumni magazine was releasing. A decade ago you would have noticed a big difference, but since then we've started to attract alot more students who would have gone to UGA in the past. In fact my SAT scores from 1985 wouldn't be good enough to get into GSU now :)
Duke was one of the graduate schools I applied to for my Masters in History. I didn't get accepted and they didn't give me a reason. I did get a Graduate Assistantship at Auburn, but during my second quarter there my grandmother died and I had a falling out with my mother and I realized that up to that point that I had been drifting through academia without a real desire to be a professor although that was where I was headed. Like you, I became blocked on writing and dropped out. A couple of years later I got a part-time job at a library and realized this was the kind of place I wanted to work at.
I really enjoyed my undergrad experience at Georgia Southern, but I'm not sure that would have happened at a bigger, more competitive place like UGA. And I didn't find a niche for myself at Auburn, although I loved the Library Science program at the University of South Carolina. Maybe its also time for me to track down some of my old classmates and see how they are doing :)