For prestigious firms that get tens to hundreds of thousands of applicants, it's understandable that they hire from elite schools - a lot of the vetting has alr

For prestigious firms that get tens to hundreds of thousands of applicants, it's understandable that they hire from elite schools - a lot of the vetting has already been done by the schools, and you can obviously save a lot of resources. But here's some points on why I feel it's problematic to only rely on the top 5 school -> top firm feeding pipeline 1. These companies have A LOT of influence on how the world operates. For example, has there ever been a more influential company than McKinsey? So if these firms only hire from certain schools, that in turn mostly accept people from certain socioeconomic backgrounds, you can wind up with a serious diversity problem. 2. For many people, their lives are already decided by their teenage years. Or maybe better said; many powerful careers are already excluded by the time they go to high-school. If many prestigious firms only care about what college you went to, then those career paths have already been decided - depending on what school you've been accepted to. 3. It's not really meritocracy. There are probably students that are just as intelligent and hard-working at state schools, as there are in the top schools, but for whatever reason didn't get accepted or didn't apply for the top schools. But yet, they may not get a chance, simply because of the school name. I know many big firms have started to expand their view on this mater, and have realized that the top x students at large state schools are just as capable as their top private school counterparts, so hopefully a problem which will disappear with time. --- In short, I think a lot of the meritocracy you see is just time/money saving measures masquerading as meritocracy. And if you want to succeed at following the current rules, you either need to be exceptionally talented and driven, or be driven enough but with LOTS of help from your family (i.e born into right class)