> but worry my kids might miss out on some pot of gold

The default assumption should be that if your kids enter an elite school as $SES kids, then they will leave the same (SES = socioeconomic status). So a middle class kid will likely leave Harvard still a middle class kid due to their connections, way of perceiving the world, way of interacting with the world, etc. There usually is no pot of gold.

The dream of social climbing is often more of a rug pull than many middle class people realize since it doesn’t just end with school. Some folks with classic hard-working working class or middle class values will go to an elite school, do well, and then get a top job in IB, consulting, law school/law firm, or whatever, and they think they have made it. But then their career path just flattens after a few years of very grindy work. If the social climber did not make a concerted effort to develop a network of higher class friends (which is not easy if you’re not already in it, imho), then partner or whatever becomes much tougher when job performance is basically based on if they can make it rain or not via their social networks.

There are exceptions, typically in academics, in specializing in a topic or group of people that are foreign to northeast corridor people (e.g., oil people in Texas or car people in Detroit), or in certain organizations (e.g., Goldman was/is known for facilitating social climbing).

An example of one guy I know who made a big jump in SES (sort of)…

He came from a family of educators in small town Michigan, but had a very working class mentality (pro-union, kids did manual labor, etc.). The guy was obsessive about being rich from a young age — the type of guy who actually wrote himself a check for one million dollars dated for his 30th birthday and was hell bent on cashing it.

Long story short, he managed to work his way into a PE firm as a partner in his mid 30s after a decade of decent-but-not-great pay grindy work. His speciality was suppliers to Detroit auto manufactures. Note that he knew nothing about cars and the auto industry at the start, but he knew how to talk to Detroit people without sounding like a NYC shyster.

Made a bunch of money (mid 8 figures), closed down the fund, and retired in his early 40s in the Hamptons.

Note the path though… super grindy, didn’t really make it early, relied on his prior SES, a lot of social climbing, and a bit of luck to set himself apart and make it “big”.

This is not a path I would recommend to my kids unless they are hellbent on taking it like the example above.

The experiences I see of those who tried to social climb is that a lot of them hit mid-life and wondered where their high-trajectory career went. That “high-trajectory” was a class-based illusion, imho, and they didn’t do what it would take to make that illusion become real.

Apologies if this sounds overly cynical, but I think it’s important to debunk some of the myths about what makes the elite schools seem so impressive.

To end on a more positive note, I will say that elite schools often help folks reach the top end of their SES range, especially for upper middle class folks. So kids who come from families with wealth in the 10m range might end up with wealth in the 50m range, with a few making a bigger jump to lower upper class. This may seem like a big jump, but it is not functionally since that level of extra money largely just buys QoL improvements rather than access life changing levers.

There was a guy on HN who wrote a really good social class guide and what affordances each class gave you. I will try to find it and link it here later.

Here is a link:

https://indiepf.com/michael-o-churchs-theory-of-3-class-ladd...

Michael O’Church had the original idea. I can’t quickly find a link to his original article in the internet archive (way back machine), but I think it’s still there.