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<p>I have noted from H’s experience (who went to a U commonly noted for its extremely strong alumni loyalty and connections), it continues to matter to this day (about 30 years and 8+ jobs later). He has done a tremendous amount of hiring and whether consciously or subconsciously, it is obvious that he has always given fellow alum applicants a leg up.</p>
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<p>It depends on the type of job / industry. In engineering and CS, the importance of prestige of one’s school fades relatively quickly. In some other areas, the importance of prestige of one’s school probably remains high for a long time.</p>
<p>Should work history and performance trump college pedigree? Bay does your husband hire less qualified or less successful people because they attended his colleger or is that a tie breaker?</p>
<p>Not an original thought, I know, but I am convinced it comes down to the individual student and what they will make of the opportunities afforded them by their choice of school. </p>
<p>I have absolutely no doubt that most superstar, self-motivated, ambitious students can make the most of almost any learning environment: big fish/little pond, big fish/big pond, LACs, research universities, honors colleges at state us etc.</p>
<p>My concern lies with the bright, but not super motivated or not so confident student. Clearly, one can’t look at the college to be the motivator, but there is a subtle peer pressure at work that will affect the somewhat slacker kid if he is an ambitious, can’t hide environment, or at a larger place where you can hide and end up drifting. </p>
<p>When surrounded by motivated students, the motivation does tend to rub off. And when a student is in a smaller, more intimate environment, accountability is harder to avoid.</p>
<p>My room mate in college was at a small LAC, while I attended a large Ivy. She had started to struggle academically and was missing class. Her concerned professor called our place and asked where she was. I said the library, sure that she wanted to dodge the call. The professor asked: “which library?” Not because, he wanted to get her in trouble, but because there was true concern and he wanted to talk to her and help her and was willing to go find her to this end. This would NEVER have happened at my Ivy. Not that is necessarily should, but these were very different learning environments, indeed.</p>
<p>“Quote:
Originally Posted by tom1994
How many years out of school and how many jobs before it does not matter where you went to school?
It depends on the type of job / industry. In engineering and CS, the importance of prestige of one’s school fades relatively quickly. In some other areas, the importance of prestige of one’s school probably remains high for a long time.” #402</p>
<p>I don’t know how you are defining “fades relatively quickly”, but my engineer child is three years out of school and recently started his second job since graduation. Without a prestige degree he wouldn’t have been hired, definitely at the second. And from reading salaries people are writing their kids are making, I know at his first and second job he makes more than others are quoting.</p>
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<p>I do not know the answer to this, but I can’t imagine that H would hire someone significantly less qualified because they shared the same alma mater. </p>
<p>One anecdote: I know that H did once hire an MIT engineering grad and was unusually pleased with that “catch.” I feel pretty confident in stating that this guy’s MIT pedigree did play a significant role in his hiring. Ironically, the MIT guy was eventually fired for making an error that put the company at significant risk. I ended up feeling sorry for this guy because I knew the expectations for him were huge, based upon his MIT diploma.</p>
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<p>Do you happen to know many undergraduate schools where the vast and overwhelming majority of grads WILL work for Bain or Morgan Stanley?</p>
<p>Check out the undergrad degrees on the management staff, the board too for that matter-</p>
<p>[Management</a> team ? Company](<a href=“http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/execs.html#nikesh]Management”>http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/execs.html#nikesh)</p>
<p>They are all from all over the place, and I could pull up many examples from other companies, but since it’s pointless on this website I won’t bother.</p>
<p>I participate on a couple other engineering message boards, with hundreds of engineers and only a handful from these elite schools. They’re all employed, making decent salaries. Maybe not the apocryphal astronomical salaries implied on here, but certainly very good salaries for the places they live. Same story in the professional groups I belong to and at the conferences I attend.</p>
<p>If you can graduate from MIT or Caltech, great - take advantage of it. But you are not destined to a life of servitude if you can’t.</p>
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<p>Of course, that is what HE is saying. It is up to others to weigh the credibility of the information and the poster himself. </p>
<p>The value and “name brand” of the HYPS and MIT/Caltech/Berkeley is well known. But it does not stop there … is Wharton unknown and of dubious value? Duke? JHU? And the list goes on and on! </p>
<p>I am afraid that name brand shoppers are so focused on their narrow view of the world that they cannot imagine how small and limited their own world is. </p>
<p>Rose-colored glasses and blinders make for a potent combination.</p>
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<p>Interesting how they list the undergrad degree first for the Executive officers, and the grad degree first for the Board.</p>
<p>Isn’t the alma mater of one’s highest degree generally held to be the most important, career-wise? I know my D and her friends think about this. Do you dilute whatever added credibility you acquired attending HYPSM et al. for undergrad, if you go to a lesser-ranked grad school?</p>
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I don’t know about that. But I do know that another frequent statement I read on this message board (and probably on this thread as well if I wanted to look) is that you should pretty much write off a super elite grad school if you don’t attend a super elite undergrad. Apparently not for many of these people in Google management.</p>
<p>But I thought this thread was about undergrad anyway.</p>
<p>I don’t really know anything about any other careers, but as far as engineering, here’s the opinion of one person who has worked in engineering for decades, in aerospace, Silicon Valley and the energy sector - and who attended UCSD and UCLA - this is what I believe -
<p>You’ll be fine, maybe not one of the world’s richest people, but you’ll be okay.</p>
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<p>They don’t do that much at Yale either. My CA daughter has an intense aversion to that sort of thing and was quite happy at Yale.</p>
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<p>From what I have seen recently interviewing experienced candidates for CS jobs, most of those who get past the initial resume and phone screening to the interview have non-prestige universities on their resumes. Most common are local CSUs.</p>
<p>The interesting thing about hiring is that it is not easy to tell who’s great from who talks a great game. This may not be true in computer science or physics but is true in a lot of other fields. It is certainly true for management positions. (I’ve known/seen a number of CEOs fail upward by spinning their firing as a disagreement with management on the direction of the company, etc., and turn it into their next mediocre stint as a CEO). It is in those areas in which pedigree matters and, frankly, probably continues to matter somewhat (though the value declines but over many years). </p>
<p>As a result, tom 1944, while people would never intend to hire less qualified candidates because they have a great pedigree, they will tend to see pedigree as correlated with competence (and in a large sample, it probably is). </p>
<p>Interestingly, colleges have the same problem. How do you distinguish a truly superior candidate from the typical top of the high school class/excellent board scores/good ECs kid who works hard and diligent jumps through all hoops presented?</p>
<p>Responding to the OP–while there may be some name recognition issue among your neighbors, any major employer or grad school will know who Williams and Amherst are, I don’t think you should be at all concerned about that. In terms of the question of whether they are worth it, that really is an individual value judgment. I believe good LACs are worth it. While I am an alum of my Big State U and its law school, my first two children are at LACs, and I could not be happier. My belief is not based on where alums are getting jobs, but on the quality of education one receives. There was an article in the New York Times re a Harvard committee looking at its undergraduate curriculum in response to concerns raised by, among others, Harvard’s former president Larry Sommers, who essentially said Harvard was doing a crappy job with undergraduate education. A student on the committee said something like “everyone knows you don’t go to Harvard if you are interested in a great undergraduate education, you go to Amherst or Williams.” I am sure I got the quote wrong, but the idea was that LACs do a better job with undergradute ed. The average class size at my daughter’s LAC is 10, the largest class she has had is 35. Averge class size at my son’s LAC is 12, he has not had a class larger than 30. Both son and daughter do lots of reading and writing, classes are mostly discussion based, they know all of their professors. Western Civ classes at my alma mater have 250 students, all lecture, very little writing because of lack of resources to read the papers, no meaningful feedback from professors because they have too many students, students have a hard time getting faculty recommendations because they don’t know any professors, etc. I just do not believe that having a dancing dot talk at you constitutes a good education, could just as well save a lot of money by staying home and doing it on line (which is what some big state schools are moving to, classes of 1500 where students never leave their dorm room). Again, I am not looking at job data in making my judgment, I believe that a certain type of college education can lead to a more engaged, thoughtful type of person. I have worked long and hard to save for my kid’s college, I have the money, and it is well worth it to me.</p>
<p>And yes, it does make a difference on jobs. When my firm hires, we get 100s of resumes. It is very difficult to distinguish among all of them. A kid who goes to a top notch LAC, like Williams or Amherst, absolutely jumps out of the pile.</p>
<p>A kid who goes to a top notch LAC, like Williams or Amherst, absolutely jumps out of the pile. </p>
<p>But how about an adult that is not interviewing for an entry level or first promotion position. Does their work experience and achievements count more. My anecdote on this is a brother who would never have been hired by his firm out of college however he is now their world wide director of sales responsible for over $2 billion dollars of revenue. He climbed the corporate ladder by moving from (in no particular order) Seimans, Kodak, Xerox, IBM and one other firm. He never failed to get hired at any place he applied. His current firm only hires from national or very local highly considered colleges. His college and grad school not qualifying in either category. By far the vast number of his hiring comes from experienced applicants and via acquisition of smaller companies where they keep the staff. He says for prestigious firms like his where you go to school matters at the entry level after that no one cares. You have to do it like he did. Move from firm to firm and have a track record of success. Or if hired from a prestigious school still be a top producer. The guy or gal from Podunk U can and will do fine if they are better employees.
If I had the funds I would send my kid to whatever school was the best match. I would not go in debt to do it though- for them or me. That does not mean I believe either attending the best school or not ultimately means much to career success.</p>
<p>I think it noteworthy that Google (like most or even all companies whose corporate profiles I have read), specifically do list by name the undergraduate and graduate colleges that their Board and Exec officers attended. Obviously, Google must think that where their leadership team matriculated matters enough to some people to include it in their publications. (Maybe this is also an SEC requirement, idk).</p>
<p>tom1944–I don’t disagree with you that further along where you went starts to matter less. I could not get an interview at my firm coming out of law school, I am now in line to be the managing partner. But, I do think the quality of the education one gets does affect success over the long term. The ability to read, write and think critically is what allows one to climb as you describe your brother having done. And I believe that the quality of the education has a big impact on the develpment of those critical abilities. I’m not sure how good of a job many of our publics are doing, particularly the second tier directional state U’s. I am afraid they are becoming assembly lines, where it is not education that matters so much as accreditation. Again, my example of on line courses being taught at campuses. U of Florida has classes of 1500 where there is not actually a classroom. Really not sure what the kids go to campus, I guess to party and attend athletic events.</p>
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<p>Perhaps it is because the main audience of financial reports, the investment banking community, is very “brand conscious” about schools attended and expects to see that information in the financial reports.</p>