How do I get into a top tier university, despite everything?

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By serendipity, last night I met with two incredible people (who will remain nameless). One had a PhD of science [field redacted], and a pioneer whose name you might well recognize because he has made Billions. The other is an extremely well traveled, extremely shrewd business woman who used to be a professor of law at.. I forget where, a noteworthy university.

We talked about many things, and they seemed to become very impressed with me. They encouraged me to "pay my dues" (get a PhD - from a premier university, no less) and generally tried to open the world up for me. I understand they are attempting to manipulate me, but they are doing it with compliments, advice, encouragement, and the potential of so much more - that all have the opportunity to be of great, concrete benefit for me... and honestly, I am game for that.

I however have a few hurdles in my way. I would like any advice on how to fulfill my dream of getting a PhD from MIT/Yale/Cornell/etc. Below I detail my failings and strengths as accurately as I can:

Forget about getting into a place like MIT or Yale to get a PH.D. It is simply not realistic. First of all get your bachelors degree and try to have a cumulative average of at least 2.75 by the time you graduate. Then you should look at a Master's Degree in a well regarded but less competitive school ( a local or regional university).

Getting into a top-tiered university isn't impossible. It's attainable: if you've got the time, the money, the talent and the persistence. There aren't any short cuts.* You'll need to prove yourself every step of the way. The first step is getting a bachelor's degree and getting great grades in it. Getting that from a top uni would be helpful, but isn't strictly necessary. Getting a top result from a decent university will usually help you get into a great university. It's a hell of a long and difficult path and there are no guarantees.

*This isn't quite true. There are always short cuts, but usually these tend to be harder than going around the 'long' way. Long cuts.

Biggest hurdle is MONEY. A top uni costs $50,000 per semester. Do you have $400,000 just for the undergraduate program? My guess is no. :-/

Your letter is not appropriate as a uni acceptance letter. I can't really explain why. You need to figure it out for yourself...

Another thing to consider is this: diplomas from top schools do not translate to higher income potential later in life. You may be stuck with half a million dollars in debt, and a modest $50K salary; the same sallary paid to your community-college educated peers. Employees are looking for a diploma and for work experience. They mostly don't care where you got the diploma.

If you are doing this, not for better income, but for self-improvement reasons, well why do you need a uni then? Further your own education and invent a longer burning light bulb or something.

I suspect this is just a temporary special interest for you. Think very hard before you make life-changing decisions!

Agreed. It doesn't matter where you study. What matters is that some organizations won't even look at you without a piece of paper.

If you really want those classes, go somewhere like "iTunes U" and run through the video lectures, which are great and free. MIT and Stanford have their content and/or lectures online and for free, either through iTunes or elsewhere if you look around. Save yourself the giant debt and coming out to a high unemployment economy with no experience.

If you must get a degree while working, try setting up a situation where you work at an "easy" tech job (writing software or even simply being tech support at a local bank or another very large, "stodgy" company) where the benefits provide you with paying a portion of the college degree as self-improvement AND they give you the time to pursue your career (verify this is available during the benefits discussion). They get the benefit of your super tech skills while you get the benefit of pursuing a career where the job is both "easy" (for a good tech) and well-paid. Then after you get the degree from any local place that will give you the paper you want, give them as much extra time as you think it's fair, then move on in a friendly fashion.

The main thing is, be passionate about what you do, make it into a marketable skill and just start doing practical applications of that skill. If they see you are passionate enough to do it for free, they will start paying you for it. Don't think they are manipulating you as long as you're still learning.

Try to only stay in environments where you are made to feel comfortable, but if you notice you are no longer learning, move on, trying to stay in friendly terms with your current job (includes nice long enough notice of you leaving, and making sure they can find anything+remaining available for a little while after the transition at least via email, maybe even a visit to your old coworkers once or twice). Before you know it you'll have all kinds of recommendations and a promising career in front of you. As soon as you can, move to where the jobs are. With a couple of good jobs with concrete accomplishments under your belt, and two or three managers who really saw your potential, you will no longer have to worry about Ivy league education coming up on a resume.

I also started from pretty much bottom, in a third world country no less, but I was lucky enough to grow up in a country and a time where software skills were sorely needed and unavailable, and what I learned in jobs (if you care to get N years experience instead of 1 year experience N times, if you know what I mean) was much more valuable than any career.

I'm NT, so "easy for me to say", but I'll say it anyway: The Aspergers may not help, but it doesn't have to hurt either. Get the social scripts right enough to get a successful interview going, but do mention the Aspergers at some point so they avoid putting you in a lot of client interaction stuff or sales - you are teaching successfully it seems, so it may be less of an issue, but get some feedback from your students just the same on person-to-person interactivity, both in-topic and in general.

For the project interaction (indispensable in the workplace), consider contributing to Open source software (not just writing some Open Source on your own, submit patches to others' projects and get that email interaction and friendliness going - it's easier online so you should do ok). And finally, relax! You're on a technical field, so we expect some social awkwardness and doesn't phase at least me.

Over the last 10 years of a 20 year "pure-tech" career, I've been tech lead and chief scientist at a startup, and some of what I do has on and off involved hiring, both the initial tech screen on the phone and then being part of the team that interviews the candidate, and not once have I cared about which college someone comes from. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both made it without a college degree, and they seem to have done ok (Gates may have attended Harvard, and Jobs attended Berkeley, but they found their passion from a Popular Mechanics magazine and a friends' electronics project, respectively). Edison only had 3 months of total public schooling (he was homeschooled the rest of the time by his mom).

I personally know several people who have done well in the startup environment with nothing but passion and a clever application of their skills (sometimes their skills were not even that great, but it was on the application). Bottom line is, passion for technical jobs comes from the heart, not from a college degree from a particular school.

Note I'm not knocking the good schools, I just live and work in tech in the Sillicon Valley/San Francisco area and have for a long time now, and it's simply not my experience that you have to have the paper to be smart at all, and if you don't have the money there's no reason to saddle you with a large school debt. Just from a "life optimization standpoint" it's just not that great.

On the other hand, I will want to see some code, will want to talk about code with you one-on-one (or sometimes one-on-two) and see you write code on the fly through a joint coding session where you type. So when you interview make sure you have code samples and demo-able software on a laptop or something, and links to the Open source software contributions. That's the kind of thing you have to be ready for on a professional technical job interview.

To get in the mindset, read these books: "Land the Tech Job You Love" and another one called "The passionate programmer".

And you may find it boring, but make sure you read up on business, tech startups and how Angel funding works, particularly if you are in the market (as you seem to be) of more basic, systems-level research type stuff that requires funding and time. Skip any sales stuff which you can always hire people to do, but do learn about typical business models for technology companies. Just think of it as designing structural systems to maximize quantifiable inputs (income) and minimize quantifiable outputs (expenses)

There is absolutely no substitute for academic performance, and demonstrated research ability.

There are two things you need to get into a Ph.D. course at a top university: an outstanding academic track record, and a research area that matches up with the interests of a potential supervisor, who has the space to take on a Ph.D. student.

There is no point in trying to go to, say, MIT, if there is no member of the faculty who is conducting research into your particular specialty. I expect that in about 95% of cases, Ph.D. students seek to work with a particular researcher, rather than at a particular institution. So, if you know what you want to research, who are the people who are leading in that field, and where are they teaching? Those are the institutions that you want to target.

Once you have that sorted, you need the funding to get back on the horse and get a summa cum laude undergraduate degree. A 4.0 GPA in your third and fourth years on a full course load is the goal. 3.7 is fine, but 4.0 is better.

If you don't do a thesis for your undergrad then you are going to have to demonstrate your research chops, and that means a Master's program. You best bet is to move on to a different school for your graduate work, and make sure that your Master's research is readily expandable into the original research area that you intend to pursue for your Ph.D.

Forget about the problems in the past--they're water under the bridge. You need to approach this in a forward looking perspective. You need your depression under control (that's the big impediment, in my view), and you need to find support to help you adapt to the traditional university learning environment. You cannot pursue this goal as an autodidact, so the sooner you can find an adaptable model for learning, the better.