[thr0waway2]

>Ambitious students seek out prestige thinking it is the missing ingredient to achieving their own excellence. In reality, they have it backward—prestige follows excellence.

I'm not sure I agree. I've been seeking out jobs at less prestigious firms for ages but I started getting interviews only once I had Goldman on my resume. I've never would've had a seat at the table where I can try to achieve excellence if it wasn't for Goldman. I guess the author's argument makes sense for IT where barriers for entry are low, but almost every other industry worth getting into has high barriers for entry.

[thr0waway2]

To elaborate a bit more: vast majority of jobs where you can seek such excellence that you're able to say at some point "I am top 100 in my field, I enjoy it and am getting paid for it" are taught in an apprenticeship manner. Where you have to make the life of a bigger expert easier while stealing as much knowledge as possible from them. The knowledge that's worth learning is not publicised as if it was publicly accessible it would lose its value. It would become industry standard or competitors would learn how to counteract it or whatever. And if a top expert has hundreds of CVs to chose from for their apprentice, having "Harvard" and "Goldman Sachs" mentioned there is a good way of skewing odds in your favour to even get an interview.