The philosophy behind this sorting system is that the admissions offices at elite colleges know what they’re doing. If you graduate from a top-tier university, that means you were admitted to a top-tier university. And according to the recruiters Rivera interviewed, that admission offer, even though it came when you were just a teenager, signaled a lot: that you’re smart, that you learn quickly, that you can handle hard work. How well you did at college and what you learned there is largely irrelevant, the recruiters explained. What matters is that you got in.
