Average salary of college graduates

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Pharmacy: starting salary: 90K-120K

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<p>Nah, that's too high, for a starting salary.</p>

<p>"Current salaries differ based on the job and location in which one chooses to work. In general, starting salaries for pharmacists range from $70,000 to 95,000 / year."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.uiw.edu/pharmacy/pdfaq.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.uiw.edu/pharmacy/pdfaq.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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However, I think one of the big advantages of going to a place like Princeton or Harvard or wherever is the fact that, by the selection that goes on in admission, there's likely to be a greater concentration of people with the intellectual and leadership qualities necessary for success. How many more students than State U? How much more prepared to succeed than State U? Personally, I'd guess not that much higher, but it's tough to say. I guess the idea is that with a bunch of sharp kids in a place, you're either forced to sharpen up yourself or become the dull kid in town.

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<p>The other main aspect that nobody has talked about on this thread is the power of the networking that you can get at an elite school. This is especially prevalent and well-known within business schools (i.e. MBA programs) where a lot of students come just for the networking. But it's true even in undergrad. Let's face it. Whether we like it or not, a lot of success is based not on what you know, but on WHO you know. </p>

<p>To give you an example - how did Steve Ballmer become CEO of Microsoft? How did he even get hired into Microsoft in the first place. I have to believe that the fact that he was an old dorm-mate and poker-playing buddy with Bill Gates at Harvard has a LOT to do with it. I think it's pretty clear that if Ballmer had never went to Harvard, then he would have known Bill Gates and he would not be a billionaire right now. </p>

<p>Now of course you can do networking at a no-name school too. But the point is, the networking tends to be better at the top schools simply because the students there are more motivated and more talented and therefore more valuable as 'future social capital'. The sad fact is that the no-name schools have a lot of lazy and untalented students who, frankly speaking, really aren't going to accomplish much of anything in their lives. From a business standpoint, that's not a valuable network to have.</p>

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have many kids asking me about CMU so I do have the data memorized.</p>

<p>CS: 77-80k average starting salary not including bonus.

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<p>In fact, this post sparked my curiosity so much that I decided to look it up myself.</p>

<p>In 2005, the reported salaries for new bachelor's degrees in CS from CMU was a mean of 67.5k, not 77-80k. For CMU ECE, it was 58.7k.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/employ/salary/scs.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/employ/salary/scs.pdf&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/employ/salary/ECE.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/employ/salary/ECE.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Now, these figures make sense to me, compared to the MIT EECS numbers. MIT EECS is basically a combination of CMU's ECE and CS, so it makes sense that MIT EECS students are garnering 66k. Obviously the more "CS-ish" of the MIT students would make more than 66k, and the more "EE-ish" would make less.</p>

<p>good research sak.
CS is one of the hot spots right now. The outsourcing that occured has taken a lot of low level coding jobs and left many of the more desirable jobs in it's place.<br>
The networking really is pretty important in many of the Finance and Marketing type jobs, a bit less so in the technical type jobs, but still useful.</p>

<p>Sakky: Yes, the median is 71k reported. <a href="http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/c.../salary/scs.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/c.../salary/scs.pdf&lt;/a>
Those salaries do not INCLUDE bonuses and neither do the MIT reports. Averages are highly suspect to outliers though; especially with such a small sample group. The Median is definitely more respresentive of an avg salary and MIT/CMU are both amazing in the CS field.</p>

<p>Sorry for not being more clear.</p>

<p>starting salary changes every year depending on the job market.... </p>

<p>highest to lowest: chem engineers starts at $55,900 & liberal art majors start as low as $30,828.....</p>

<p>this is the class of 2006 starting salaries <a href="http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/5084/degreeworth0om.gif%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/5084/degreeworth0om.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>accounting seems to have the biggest increase of salary compared to last year.....very good field of study.... especially for a bachelor's level....</p>

<p>All I know is, a family friend of mine went to UVA and graduated in 2005...you should see the kind of money this kid pulls in. He already bought a BMW. He's in business.</p>

<p>I'm majoring in history so I'm not expecting a good salary from anywhere since I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with a degree in history.</p>

<p>Wharton has 55k base salary tied #1 along with Tepper. Check out Wharton if you want some MOOONEEEEY.</p>

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'I graduated from Princeton' vs 'I graduated from a state college'? It's undeniable that, with all other factors equal, the Princeton applicant would be chosen.

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<p>I disagree here... it all depends on the company's needs and resources... if the two candidates were equal in everything else, and the company was looking to cut some costs (what company isn't?) while hiring a good worker, the Princeton graduate could look less desirable simply because the company may perceive him/her to be someone who is only willing to work for a certain salary, where the state graduate may be more flexible with salary b/c they don't have the high amounts of student loans to repay, etc.</p>

<p>^ That might work for the average jobs that you don't want anyways. Try going to blackstone or lazard or merill lynch or goldman sachs or jp morgan or CGI AMS or something and going "Hey You can pay me only half the price of the Harvard grad". You'll be laughed at and then escorted out by police. Wall Street will continue to hire students from top colleges and so will top companies.</p>

<p>With the networking thing...Cornell has 30,000 students attending it's University (undergrad and grad) every year...do you understand how many connections that gets you from the get go. Someone recently posted that they just got an internship because the person was going to go to Cornell and the person who hired him was a Cornell grad. The Ivy's have a lot of recognition and connections, especially in the northeast. I read a long article about how if you start to go west the state schools begin to have more leverage over the Ivys because of all of the connections. (not that I ever intend to go west, unless it's like Cali, which is still really really unlikely. I like Boston myself...)
Are the wage estimations also inaccurate because perhaps the best of the best actually decide to go straight to a good grad school and not work straight out of school?</p>

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That might work for the average jobs that you don't want anyways. Try going to blackstone or lazard or merill lynch or goldman sachs or jp morgan or CGI AMS or something and going "Hey You can pay me only half the price of the Harvard grad". You'll be laughed at and then escorted out by police. Wall Street will continue to hire students from top colleges and so will top companies.

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<p>Yeah, because Wall Street is the ONLY place to work, and business the only career option.</p>

<p>wow **** I just realized out of nowhere that I wrote the wrong number...I meant 20,000 students...oops lol.</p>

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wow **** I just realized out of nowhere that I wrote the wrong number...I meant 20,000 students...oops lol.

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<p>Harvard also has 20,000 students (grad + undergrad). So do Columbia and UPenn. </p>

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Yeah, because Wall Street is the ONLY place to work, and business the only career option.

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<p>Nobody is saying that Wall Street is the only place to work.</p>

<p>However, I think there is something to be said for the notion that if you're just going to take a regular job, then there really wasn't much point at going to a top school at all. Might as well have just gone to a no-name state school back home. Granted, you might learn more by going to a better school, but many people believe there is little point in learning more if you just end up in a regular job anyway.</p>

<p>I'm not saying that I necessarily agree, but it is the mentality that many people have.</p>

<p>Well if one were to work in Boston I at least like to tell myself that going to Cornell would do good things...plus I want to be in that type of environment anyways...and my parents are more than willing to send me, they are as excited as I am.</p>

<p>sakky is right. I was only giving Wall St as an example. I'm sure Google will continue to hire from MIT and CMU and give 'em 70k or so median salaries too.</p>

<p>A 4 yr Wharton grad without MBA can make a starting salary of 70k.....</p>

<p>What happens if that college graduate plans to stay on the west coast, his/her home state (California) and has a UC degree.... any top companies or businesses in California (west coast) like San Francisco, Silcon Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc hire college grads like them?</p>

<p>How much would they make ?</p>

<p>Depends on what job and career and what major and which UC and what area of the West Coast and with what company. Such a broad question lol.... And yea wharton rules which is why I will ED there and Tepper too they both have good bonuses and avg salaries.</p>

<p>i think this question is really field-dependent.</p>

<p>engineering-wise, brand name isn't that important. However, as people mentioned in this thread, not all BS-Eng people want to/end up in engineering. Many become quants on wall st. or go to business consulting and enjoy higher salaries than their pure engineering counterparts.</p>

<p>employers like technical achievement, teamwork, communication skills...i go to a 60th or so ranked school (just finished the MS part of BS/MS) and got job offers from GE and BAE Systems. I also interviewed at Raytheon, got selected for the final round at Shell Gasoline, and began talks with Exxon). I signed with BAE Systems for 70k or so before bonus (Defense and Energy are the hot areas right now).</p>

<p>and if you get an engineering job with a Fortune 500, you will have alot of career possibilities. Usually they will say at the outset choose "Pure Technical" , "Management", "Hybrid". Alot of Corporate managers are former engineers that worked up through project management etc. </p>

<p>If you choose a BS-Eng and work toward the top of your class, I'm sure you will at least get a chance to interview at fortune 500 from many schools.</p>

<p>However, other fields are very brand-name oriented. If your goal is Finance or Management Consulting, you need a top school. You won't get an interview at Goldman coming from Random school X (even with a 1600 on ur SAT etc). This is because business/finance is so competitive that they can afford to recruit at top 20 only and still ensure a top of the line staff. I remember applying to banks etc and not even getting a courtesy rejection ;).</p>

<p>PS as far as I can tell for Law School, it is highly "numbers based". As in GPA/LSAT. Little else apparently matters. </p>

<p>From that angle, it may be best to go to a lesser known school where you have a shot at a higher GPA and also get to save up some money for law school. I'm sure a 3.9/175 LSAT from Zoo-Mass would get into Harvard Law, whereas a 3.5/160 from MIT would get rejected.</p>

<p>Its the last school you attend that matters, so if grad school is on the horizon, save money and go to a cheaper school where you can be a shining star.</p>