Gladwell, Harvard, and the admissions process - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

There is an interesting article and good debate about the value of a name brand education and the keys to success over at 37signals.

The article, titled Gladwell, Harvard, and the admissions process discusses the historical shifts in logic behind merit based admissions and how atheletes succeed in their careers. Matt, the author, offers his perspective on what makes a good colleague, saying that he looks for someone who is intellectually curious and is much more impressed than any piece of parchment.

I tend to agree with Matt, but I also think that in many ways, the people who top universities attract demonstrated intellectual curiosity to get into their university in the first place, so I would guess that the two types of people (ivy league grads and intellectually curious types) would have a large amount of overlap.