Paul Graham’s News from the Front explains his heretical idea that “It may not matter all that much where you go to college”:
Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to MIT or Harvard or Stanford must be smart. Even people who hate you for it believe it.But when you think about what it means to have gone to an elite college, how could this be true? We’re talking about a decision made by admissions officers — basically, HR people — based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds. And what do they have to go on? An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that’s largely an index of obedience. Who would rely on such a test?
And yet a lot of companies do. A lot of companies are very much influenced by where applicants went to college. How could they be? I think I know the answer to that.
There used to be a saying in the corporate world: “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” You no longer hear this about IBM specifically, but the idea is very much alive; there is a whole category of “enterprise” software companies that exist to take advantage of it. People buying technology for large organizations don’t care if they pay a fortune for mediocre software. It’s not their money. They just want to buy from a supplier who seems safe — a company with an established name, confident salesmen, impressive offices, and software that conforms to all the current fashions. Not necessarily a company that will deliver so much as one that, if they do let you down, will still seem to have been a prudent choice. So companies have evolved to fill that niche.
A recruiter at a big company is in much the same position as someone buying technology for one. If someone went to Stanford and is not obviously insane, they’re probably a safe bet. And a safe bet is enough. No one ever measures recruiters by the later performance of people they turn down.