David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

be considered disappointments.
Next let’s look at the graduates of
mediocre schools. I say “mediocre” only
because that’s what someone from one
of those seven elite schools would call
them. In the annual U.S. News & World
Report rankings of graduate schools,
these are the institutions that are buried
somewhere near the bottom of the list.
I’ve selected three for comparison
purposes. The first is my own alma
mater, the University of Toronto (out of
a sense of school spirit!). The second is
Boston University. The third is what
Conley and Önder call “non–top 30,”
which is simply an average of all the
schools at the very, very bottom of the
list.