Korean Job Discussion Forums

[AmericanBornKorean]

I doubt people with ivy league degrees would get substantially more than one with a "no-name" degree simply because there is no need for it. It doesn't take a large brain to teach English, and there are already a substantial amount of supply to fulfill the demand.

Unless your hagwon or school aggressively markets that their teachers are Ivy leaguers and somehow can charge a premium to those parents to make up for the price of acquiring you, then someone from Univ. Phoenix online and Harvard are probably on equal footing.

If they do get more, it won't be much more and probably would cap out at standard MA degree rates.

Those world university rankings are also a crock unless you're in academia. They are based on research related criteria like the number of publications and other academic related statistics that most of us wouldn't be concerned about. On that basis, those rankings tend to be highly volatile. I've seen my school in the top 15, dropping to top 50 and back and forth over the years.

[bucheon bum]

[redaxe]

If you have a "near-Ivy" education why did you need to come to Korea?

If you have a prestigious enough education to command a "high" salary as an ESL teacher in Korea, you should go find an even higher-paying in your home country.

Or maybe the term "near-Ivy" is just a meaningless marketing buzzword used by admissions offices, and your education isn't actually as prestigious as you think it is?

[Mr. Pink]

I disagree to the poster that said Ivy's don't make more:

My roommate when I first came to Korea back in 97 was from Yale. Honestly, I never even heard of Yale before I met him (I had heard of Harvard and Stanford though). He wasn't really making more at the hawgwon we worked at, but he had a sweet private every morning teaching the president of some LG division...100k won an hour, and that was back in 97 when salaries were just over 1mil a month. Do you think he would have scored that without the Ivy in his back pocket? He left the hawgwon and went to work at a private company that sponsored his E-7. Guy was the "golden boy" of that company...why? YALE and that Ivy league status. (BTW this guy's major was biology...no much to do with English or teaching.)

When I went to do my B.Ed there was a guy in my class who got his undergrad at Harvard. He told me how he had taught in Korea for 4 months once summer (illegally). They flew him over, gave him an apartment and paid him over $3000 a month. For just the summer. Some Kangnam Apkujong hawgwon. You telling me Ivy doesn't matter? They would NEVER do that for someone with a "near ivy" or regular degree...oh and the kicker is this guy sucks as a teacher...but it's Harvard. He is now working at a private school in Canada. Again, sucks as a teacher. Why did that school hire him, Harvard. (Funny enough, this guy's major was science, I think biology...2nd Ivy Bio guy I've met.)

If you think Ivy's don't get special treatment, you are wrong.

[AmericanBornKorean]

[decolyon]

There's no such thing as "near Ivy." There's Ivy and then there's not.

Places like Cal Tech and MIT wouldn't want to be considered Ivy or near Ivy because what they do is totally different. They are less concerned with prestige and more concerned with you know, proper education. It's said that the hardest part of Harvard is getting in. The hardest part of MIT is getting out.

Berkley, Standford, Georgetown, Chicago, even Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins are world class institutions but it degrades whatever they do to try to lump them in a category like "near Ivy."

I think we also over emphasize the international importance of Ivy's. Every country has their own top tier uni's. If you ask Korean, many would say that Seoul National University is on the same footing as Harvard, which in no way it is. But, a Korean graduating from SNU is probably have more job opportunities in Korea than one that went to Harvard. The same for Japan with the University of Tokyo.

So sure, Ivy league will open a lot of doors for you in the US. Mainly because of the name on the degree and not necessarily the quality of education they provided you. But if you went to any Ivy other than Harvard, it might not matter much anywhere else in the world. Do you really think Korean's know or care that Brown, Cornell, or Penn are also Ivy League? Probably not.

Even with a Harvard degree though, you're not likely to make much more teaching English in Korea. Maybe at a university they'd be willing to come off the wallet some. But people often forget that hagwons are not schools. They are businesses first and schools second. What matters to the business is seeing an attractive white face in the classroom, where their degree from is of little issue. I've heard of one school that marketed Ivy league teachers, but it was only one school, in one area, with no other branches. Basically because there aren't that many Ivy people here and it's not really a selling point for moms. Last year one of my coworkers had an MA from Columbia. I went to a no name little private school in Florida and just had my BA. I made a few hundred more a month and I had only been here a year longer.

[NYC_Gal]

How about instead of near ivy we call them Hedera league?

[Mr. Pink]

[Chaucer]

That's spot on that it's harder to get into Harvard than it is to get out. Read Malcolm Gladwell on it here:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge
As for the Ivy League in Korea--the numbers Mr. Pink mentions are understating the issue. Gangnam parents/students are crazy for the Ivy League--any of the eight schools will do in a pinch, but the top three are to die for. The Korean kids who get in there every year are featured in the newspapers and on TV. And teachers from those schools (mostly gyopo, and so on F visas) can command huge private teaching fees. 200K/hr would not be unreasonable for a Harvard grad to ask for to just sit with a kid and talk about applications, for example.

[madoka]

[chellovek]

[northway]

[Chaucer]

Darn right--these are, in many cases, 22-23 year-old gyopos who majored in Biology or Engineering and are in Korea to learn about their culture. 200/hr is nice money for that.
For the, uh, Anglos who are over here, what's wrong with that money? Do you immediately start making that in the US at whatever job you do? Some, perhaps, do, but not all.

[AmericanBornKorean]

[madoka]