I suspect that this doesn't hold nearly as much in high tech as it does in other fields like banking or law. For starters, the "top" programs in engineering an

I suspect that this doesn't hold nearly as much in high tech as it does in other fields like banking or law. For starters, the "top" programs in engineering and computer science is shuffled pretty heavily - Caltech, MIT, and Stanford are in there, but so are Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, etc... These are all serious institutions, of course, and of course by national standards even the huge public ones are selective. But I've also noticed (this is just my own experience) that top "tech" companies considerably less concerned with whether you went to a "top" school in the first place. I wonder why this is - I mean, I'm glad for it. I have a few theories. The typical techie degree programss (math, physics, computer science, engineering) are so rigorous that people tend to respect the accomplishment (as long as it comes from a recognizable school with integrity). Tech is a fundamentally creative field, rather than a positional - in other words, techies have the opportunity to create wealth rather than position themselves for a slice of the pie. If you can create wealth, well, get out there and do it! No permission is required. On a similar note, high tech is extremely disruptive - time and again, tech founders overthrow the established order. These disruptive people often do come from Stanford or Harvard, but I think the personality type of someone who seeks to disrupt the ruling elite is going to be more open to top talent regardless of where it comes from (unlike investment banking or law firms, where (according to the article) graduates of super-elite schools are likely to filter out people who haven't attended a similar school). Also - high tech tends to have a closer, more symbiotic relationship with academics than investment banking or even law. So high tech will place a greater premium on degrees from universities where top research in engineering and science takes place - not so much out of snobbery as because they have a close connection with these universities and get to know the students there. Interestingly, this doesn't correlate all that well with eliteness of undergraduate admissions (the ivy league, in particular, is surprisingly MIA where it comes to top graduate and or faculty departments in engineering and science... Cornell, which isn't high in the ivy pecking order, is probably one of the best).