Some might argue that the ones who are not legacy or come from preferred families(wealthy and prestigious), are only there to increase the worth of those legacy and preferred family students.
Essentially, ivy league schools let in a certain amount of highly talented people by offering them an incredible education, often with financial incentives, on order to increase the value of the "real" students. The legacy and preferred family students who the school is really there to serve and are the majority of graduates.
Those companies that have a hiring preference for ivy league students are often just falling for the scheme as opposed to getting truly exceptional candidates.
>The legacy students ... are the majority of graduates.
Well, the legacy students are probably closer to 10% to 15% of the student body. Certainly not the majority. [2]
> Those companies that have a hiring preference for ivy league students are often just falling for the scheme as opposed to getting truly exceptional candidates.
Another theory is that these companies target Ivy League students because they're (generally intelligent) people who have been conditioned since a young age to jump through the hoops of an elaborate application process. Top IBs and management consultancies model their hiring processes after the Ivy League application process. An excerpt from the Washington Post:
It begins by mimicking the application process that Harvard students have already grown comfortable with. “It’s doing a process that you’ve done a billion times before,” says Dylan Matthews, a senior at Harvard who was previously a researcher at the Washington Post.
“Everyone who goes to Harvard went hard on the college application process,” he said. “Applying to Wall Street is much closer to that than applying anywhere else is. There are a handful of firms you really care about; they all have formal application processes that they walk you through; there’s a season when it all happens; all of them come to you and interview you where you live, etc. Harvard students are really good at formal processes like that."
Essentially, ivy league schools let in a certain amount of highly talented people by offering them an incredible education, often with financial incentives, on order to increase the value of the "real" students. The legacy and preferred family students who the school is really there to serve and are the majority of graduates.
Those companies that have a hiring preference for ivy league students are often just falling for the scheme as opposed to getting truly exceptional candidates.