Think you have to go to a fancy college to succeed in business? Think again.
Of the 50 women on Coins2Day‘s 2017 list of Most Powerful Women, just eight went to Ivy League universities as undergrads. The other 41 attended a range of institutions, from large state schools to small private colleges. At least one woman on our list, Home Depot’s Northern Division president Crystal Hanlon (No. 41 on the list), doesn’t hold a college or university degree; she started working at the company as a cashier in 1985 and rose through the ranks.
That being said, the most popular college attended by the MPWs was—as it was in 2016—Harvard University. The four women on our list who received their undergraduate degrees there are: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (No. 5), CVS/pharmacy president and CVS Health EVP Helena Foulkes (No. 12), YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki (No. 14), and Mattel CEO Margo Georgiadis (No. 49).
University of Miami, Boston College, and Princeton University all tied for the honor of second-most-popular college for Coins2Day’ s Most Powerful Women, with two alumnae each.
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While getting an elite undergraduate degree is far from a requirement, more than half of the women on our list received graduate degrees: 21 have MBAs (or the international equivalent), four have JDs, and seven have other types of master’s degrees.
Here’s the breakdown:
Another win for Harvard in this arena: Eight of the women hold higher degrees from the Boston-based institution (seven MBAs and one Juris doctor). The University of Pennsylvania is the second most popular choice, with three women receiving MBAs from Wharton and one woman receiving a Penn Law degree.
Note: Ross Stores CEO Barbara Rentler did not respond to Coins2Day ‘s request for information.