You really believe that a person with the same intelligence and drive who goes to say Stanford vs a mid tier state university will have the same outcomes in life? Unless this person has an exceptional will, this will never be the case. The kind of network that you will probably build at Stanford without noticing is vastly superior to the one at a mid tier state university. You probably personally know many people who've started up XYZ company, work for FAANG, top hedge funds, scientists etc... No one is saying that life is easy for a Stanford graduate, i'm sure any ambitious person will face a ton of rejection in their life time regardless of where they went to school but a lot of doors will open for you in your life time just because you went to Stanford vs going to UC Irvine.

You're right.

But I'm more curious as to the people that can't get into Stanford and have to go to lesser schools like I did - what exactly are we to do? It's pretty clear that our outcomes are not going to be as good by any means, and it seems like political correctness limits any discussion of that.

It just means you are gonna have to initially work a bit harder, be a bit more resilient to rejection, and be a bit more creative in trying to build those networks. I.e You are going to have to force those doors to open for you.

But yet...outcomes seem like they're destined to be worse overall.

If you discount that different people value different things in life, and take a viewpoint of money as being the sole measure of success, then the median Harvard salary after 10 years is like 90k? Certainly not every Stanford/Harvard/whatever graduate is killing it regardless of how many opportunities they have had. At the end of the day, success is really on an individual level. You make your own outcomes in this world. I could name countless people who've done very much without a degree from a prestigious university, David M. Solomon, the ceo of Goldman Sachs, Andy Rubin, etc... Certainly guys who went to HYP/X/Y/Z will have it easier in many regards, but you can also think of clawing your way to desired outcomes as teaching you life lessons that those guys will never have learned.

>My point is that for someone who could have gotten into Stanford, the actual admission it isn't defining.

I didn't get into Stanford (or anything like that, best I did was UNC in-state) - what exactly are my options here? It seems to me what you just said only applies to my intellectual superiors who are choosing between Stanford and UC Irvine, not the people that go to UC Irvine or Santa Cruz or Merced because they couldn't get into Berkeley or Stanford (who make up the majority of the country).

The fact is that people have this weird idea that college doesn't matter come from a position of immense privilege that someone like me doesn't even have the capacity to fathom. Of course it matters - being a Cardinal is a life-long thing, but being a member of the Wolfpack is more of a temporary embarrassment at best.

>>My point is that for someone who could have gotten into Stanford, the actual admission it isn't defining. Someone with that sort of intelligence and drive will find a way to meet the future CEO, get a great job and so on regardless of whether they attend.

Maybe, but getting into an elite college is a very strong signal that can act as a multiplier for every other character trait.

Having drive and intelligence is great. Having drive and intelligence, and getting into Stanford, is life-changing.