[mitchelldm7]

Ridiculous. To say that a top-tier university produces a better employee, or business leader, is to say that a person's individual personality, upbringing or work ethic plays no part.

A high GPA - that's an understandable requirement - but to base it arbitrarily on a 'top-tier' university is depriving qualified, talented employees from consideration.

[bishnu]

Turning away a qualified candidate isn't the bad outcome for a hiring process - hiring an unqualified worker is. So if the trade off for avoiding the latter is some of the former, it is arguably worth it (and Thiel is likely in a good position to know what the appropriate ratios are)

[GuiA]

>Turning away a qualified candidate isn't the bad outcome for a hiring process

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

[tomjen3]

I am so tired of hearing that argument. There is not a line of super qualified people banging on your door to get a chance to interview at your company.

Unless your are google or facebook, you are not going to be able to just turn away qualified people. It makes it too easy for your competition.

[jhowell]

Perhaps they feel that being admitted to a top-tier university is indicative of the quality of a persons upbringing and work ethic? I would not agree, but perhaps that's an assumption in play here.

[mitchelldm7]

It's a poor assumption, for sure.

I, for example, went to a state school because quite frankly, I was not really interested in taking on hundreds of thousands in debt to finance a college education. I was accepted to a couple of top-tier universities but for financial reasons, attendance at such schools was not feasible.

[binarycheese]

Actually there is a difference: Employees from Top Tier universities make better slaves .i.e. They have been trained to "Do as you are told" (no creativity allowed), and "Wait for your turn"

[intenex]

Can't agree with that, even though I dropped out of Harvard to be a Thiel Fellow. Top tier uni students in my experience tend to be quite a few deviations of individual above the norm.

Creativity/individuality/freedom/etc are all very highly valued and encouraged at the best schools. Harvard was remarkably open and innovative. MIT even more so.

(Tangential, in response to the article - Harvard's very accommodating and even encouraging of people taking time off school to pursue other things. They have an indefinite leave of absence policy, which means that if I ever decide, 2, 5, 10, or 20 years down the line that I'd really like to go back to school and get a degree, they'll let me come back. Very nice and farsighted people.)

[MartinCron]

Harvard's very accommodating and even encouraging of people taking time off school to pursue other things. They have an indefinite leave of absence policy, which means that if I ever decide, 2, 5, 10, or 20 years down the line that I'd really like to go back to school and get a degree, they'll let me come back

That's great. I wonder if many (any?) other universities have such a policy? At my school, I would have to formally re-apply after being gone for a year or so. That's the sort of policy I would encourage my children to take into account when they're choosing where to go to school.