Elite education fosters elite alumni. Earlier studies indicate that peer networks formed during higher education are essential to elite socialization, and that such peer networks form early on during the course of education. Moreover, the composition of such peer networks can be highly consequential, impacting long-term career outcomes such as pay and position.

In this research, Anna Tyllström and colleagues study how students’ early peer socialization plays out during the first months of elite business education. Drawing on structured interviews with students entering high-ranking bachelor programs in business studies, they find that the first few weeks, or days even, at university seem essential to students’ social integration, and identify four stereotypical socialization tactics, i.e. strategies that constitute separate sets of behavior and thoughts about social life, placed on a continuum between academic and social focus. They also find these tactics to be heavily gendered: while male respondents are over-represented in groups applying super-strategizing and loning tactics, female students tend to crowd in the middle categories of balancing and swotting, working hard to balance academic and social expectations during the first intense months of higher education.

As this is a work in progress, spanning several social science disciplines, Anna Tyllström and colleagues presented the work at the seminar to brainstorm together with audeince around the potential relevance of these findings, and also around framing and outlet.

Recorded at the Institute for Futures Studies in November 2024.