Colleges with best connections/alumni/networking

College Search & Selection
21

<p>For good connections, you generally want bigger schools that have strong alumni base of support. If a school has been strong for 20+ years or so, it would be even better. Here are my suggestions:</p>

<ul>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Barnard Baruch College of the City Univerity of NY (not as well known,but big, strong group of alumni for many years). This was the business school of City College many years ago. It goes back a long time and has a very successful history of satisfied and prosperous alumni</li>
<li>University of Miami: Smaller than Michigan but very active alumni</li>
<li>Princeton: Not big school but active and rich alumni</li>
<li>HYPS for same reason as Princeton; however, Cornell may be best because of its bigger number of Alumni</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Penn State</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Northwestern: meets both criteria: big school and strong alumni support</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>NYU isn't bad because it is a huge school,but its alumni doesn't seem to be as supportive as that of other schools.</li>
</ul>

22

<p>This is one of the few times that USNews is helpful. </p>

<p>Look at the percentages of alums who donate - it's a good proxy to the strength of alumni connections.</p>

23

<p>
[quote]
HYPS for same reason as Princeton; however, Cornell may be best because of its bigger number of Alumni

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I disagree about Cornell. It is not clear that Cornell has the largest number of alumni. Cornell has the largest number of UNDERGRAD alumni. However, when it comes to total alumni (grad + undergrad), Harvard, Penn, and Columbia probably have more alumni. </p>

<p>Think of it this way. 4 of these schools have about 20,000 students (grad + undergrad). However, the majority of Cornell's students are undergrads, whereas the majority of the others are grad students. Grad programs tend to have a shorter turnaround time to completion. For example, law school only takes 3 years, B-school takes 2, master's degree programs take 1-2. Hence, these programs are able to spit out a larger number of alumni relative to their student body. For example, if you have 1000 students in a 1-year master's degree program, and nobody flunks out or drops out, then they will all graduate in 1 year and so you will generate 1000 new alumni. However, if you have 1000 students in a 4-year undergrad program, then only 250 will graduate per year, so you're only generating 250 alumni every year. </p>

<p>Now some of you might object and say that graduate alumni don't really 'count' for the purposes of networking. I personally find that dubious. I don't think too many people care to make that strong of a distinction between the various programs. I don't think that a graduate of Harvard Law is going to immediately dismiss somebody who came from Harvard College because they didn't come from the same program. They may not share much in common in terms of coursework, but they still share the overall Harvard experience. And in any case, I don't see how that is any different from 2 Cornell undergrad alumni who did completely different programs (i.e. Art History vs. EE). They didn't exactly share a whole lot of common coursework either, but they did share the Cornell experience.</p>

24

<p>as a current Cornell student I'd have to say that the alumni connections are incredible. I had 3 short-term job offers to do over winter break all from alumni. Career services is constantly networking current students with alums for internships and jobs upon graduation.</p>

25

<p>ariesathena, alumni donations are actually the USNWR weakest criteria. It measures how small the alumni base is, not how powerful or influencial or cohesive it really is. If you look closely at the alumni donation rate, you will see that it is almost directly proportional to the overall size of the university's alumni base. That's why 38 of the top 50 LACs have alumni donation rates over 40% compared to only 9 top 50 universities that accomplish that sought-after milestone. Even more alaraming is the 18 LACs that have alumni donation rates over 50%, compared to just 1 (one) university that has an alumni donation rate over 50%. Just look at the 25 institutions with the highest donation rates:</p>

<h1>1 Carleton College: 67%</h1>

<h1>2 Amherst College: 62%</h1>

<h1>2 Center College: 62%</h1>

<h1>4 Princeton University: 61%</h1>

<h1>5 Williams College: 60%</h1>

<h1>6 Davidson College: 57%</h1>

<h1>7 Hamilton College: 56%</h1>

<h1>8 Agnes Scott: 55%</h1>

<h1>9 Bowdoin College: 54%</h1>

<h1>9Scripps College: 54%</h1>

<h1>11 Swarthmore College: 53%</h1>

<h1>12 Haverford College: 52%</h1>

<h1>12 Wellesley College: 52%</h1>

<h1>14 Albion College: 51%</h1>

<h1>14 Washington and Lee: 51%</h1>

<h1>16 Claremont McKenna: 50%</h1>

<h1>16 Colby College: 50%</h1>

<h1>16 Colgate University: 50%</h1>

<h1>16 Pomona College: 50%</h1>

<h1>16 Wesleyan University: 50%</h1>

<h1>21 Dartmouth College: 49%</h1>

<h1>21 University of Notre Dame: 49%</h1>

<h1>23 Bates College: 48%</h1>

<h1>23 Holy Cross: 48%</h1>

<h1>23 Rhodes College: 48%</h1>

<h1>23 Trinity College: 48%</h1>

<p>As you can see, size and alumni donation are generally directly proportional and give almost no indication of alumni networks. Harvard is universally acknowledged to be the most powerful network in the US. Michigan, which according to Forbes Magazine has the 4th most powerful university alumni base in the country, has an alumni donation rate that barely tickles the 15% mark. USC, Notre Dame, Duke and Stanford all have excellent alumni bases, as do Yale, Penn, Cornell, Brown, Georgetown and several others...and yet, none of those make the top 25 where alumni donation rates are concerned. In fact, mostof those schools don't even make the top 50.</p>

26

<p>I would say there are two types of strong alumni connections:</p>

<p>1) Princeton, Dartmouth, Duke, Amherst, Williams, Notre Dame, Wellesley, Swarthmore, Carleton, Bowdoin, Yale. From my personal experience, these schools have fiercely loyal alumni groups. These schools have community oriented experiences and usually aren't located in urban settings. You basically hang out with many people over four years, and thus there is only one or two degrees of seperation between you and someone else in the four classes above and below you. They also have a lot of infrastructure to cultivate this sense of attachment. Alumni even tend to move back to the areas the schools are located in after retirement. Adding to this is incredible alumni loyalty, almost cultish. People at these schools hang out together, all show up to reunions, and bend over backwards to help each other. This does reveal itself in alumni giving and in how successful they are at recruiting. I know firms which will do everything possible to hire from schools where a partner might have graduated from. These schools are also "old boys (or girls)" schools, with rich alumni and generations of legacies.</p>

<p>2) Larger schools like Michigan, UNC, Cornell, Penn will have a number of successful graduates out there willing to help their school, but chances are the alumni loyalty isn't as deep. You won't know people in common as you will with the group above and there are likely to be more graduates who are less tied to the school because larger schools simply are more institutional by nature (the registrar doesn't know you by name). Yet there are going to be many alumni in a broad range of professions that are likely to lend a helpful hand.</p>

27

<p>
[quote]
ariesathena, alumni donations are actually the USNWR weakest criteria. It measures how small the alumni base is, not how powerful or influencial or cohesive it really is. If you look closely at the alumni donation rate, you will see that it is almost directly proportional to the overall size of the university's alumni base. That's why 38 of the top 50 LACs have alumni donation rates over 40% compared to only 9 top 50 universities that accomplish that sought-after milestone. Even more alaraming is the 18 LACs that have alumni donation rates over 50%, compared to just 1 (one) university that has an alumni donation rate over 50%. Just look at the 25 institutions with the highest donation rates:

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree that donation rate tends to be correlated with size, and a fairer way to measure donation rate is to look at relative donation rates, where similarly sized schools are compared to each other. </p>

<p>However, even there, we can see that certain schools are far more successul than others. For example, let's face it - for its size, the University of Virginia is an extremely successful school at obtaining alumni donations. And I have to believe that this is somehow correlated with Virginia's vaunted school spirit and alumni loyalty. The UC's, on the other hand, seem to exhibit unusually low levels of giving, even after correcting for size. Anecdotally speaking, I have to believe that this is related to the disturbingly large number of disgruntled UC alumni that I often times meet. That doesn't mean that I am out to overly pick on UC, as I'm sure that there are other large public schools that have even more disgruntled alumni and thus even lower donation rates, relative to their size.</p>

28

<p>Sakky, UCB and UCLA have over 22,000 and 25,000 undergraduate students respectively. UVA has 13,000 undergraduate students. I agree that size isn't the only factor mind you. Private vs public is another big factor. Private schools have had to depend on alumni donations for centuries. State schools only started needing alumni donations in the last 20 years or so.</p>

29

<p>Yeah, but UC's tend to range across the board from medium-sized to really big. Yet, on the aggregate, UC's are not particularly impressive at alumni donations when compared to other public schools of comparable size. You would think that the UC's should do really well in this respect, as the UC system aspires to be the best public school system in the nation. </p>

<p>However, the public vs. private idea really is only a definition of terms. The truth is, nobody really cares about alumni donation percentages per se. What really counts is the satisfaction and loyalty of the alumni. Yet nobody really knows how to measure that, so USNews uses donation rates as a proxy. The real question is how do schools engender alumni loyalty. Because, like you mentioned, private schools have been more reliant on donations, they have worked harder to develop greater loyalty and greater satisfaction among their alumni. The result is (usually) greater loyalty among the alumni of private schools. It doesn't really matter WHY the alumni are more satisfied, it just matters that they are more satisfied. </p>

<p>So taking the example back to UC, the result has been decades of unfortunate neglect in which many of the alumni just don't think very highly of their schools. Much of that has simply been because UC used to rely almost solely on state government largesse and so the UC administrators knew that they didn't have to rely on old alumni, so felt no compunction to reach out to them or try to keep them satisfied. The result - a lot of indifferent or downright hostile alumni. I have talked to many UC alumni who graduated in years past who feel that the UC experience was such a cold and heartless one that they don't feel like they owe UC anything. While I wouldn't say that they hate UC, I would definitely say that a lot of them have strongly mixed feelings about their experience.</p>

<p>Now to UC's credit, I think UC is getting better in this respect in removing some of things that really serve to tick off its students. But it's a glacially slow process. Moreover, it is often a case of 2 steps forward, 1 step back. {For example, Berkeley's new rule requiring people to have strong GPA's in order to switch into L&S is a major setback for the engineers because there is now no safety net for engineering students who do poorly. In the past, poorly performing engineers could just escape into L&S and graduate from there. But now that escape route has been cut off so now they either have to transfer out of Berkeley entirely, study very hard for something they dislike in order to graduate from Berkeley, or simply flunk out. The result will be less alumni or more ****ed off alumni.} </p>

<p>But anyway, the point is that I agree that the private schools have had a big headstart in developing the infrastructure for extracting alumni donations, including simply creating more satisfied alumni in the first place who will then be amenable to donation requests. But it doesn't really matter WHY the private schools have a head start. It only matters that they have a head start.</p>

30

<p>Yale has by far the strongest alumni network. Runners-up would be Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard, Williams and Amherst.</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
Alexandre writes: ariesathena, alumni donations are actually the USNWR weakest criteria. It measures how small the alumni base is, not how powerful or influencial or cohesive it really is. If you look closely at the alumni donation rate, you will see that it is almost directly proportional to the overall size of the university's alumni base.

[/quote]
Alexandre's interpretation is one way to look at the data. Another is that the statistic is quite telling and reveals exactly what ariesathena says. Maybe kids at smaller schools get to know their classmates better than those at large more anonymous U's, get more personal attention, take smaller classes, etc. and as a result are more satisfied with their experience and consequently more likely to donate.</p>

<p>Here's my nomination for another stat, although you can't find it in the US News. How many people attend class reunions? At many LACs and smaller U's they have enough interest to set up an entire weekend in which alums attend lectures, events, socialize, etc. And a significant percentage attend. At a large state school like ucla (which taxguy recommended for its networking, BTW) the "reunion" is a tailgate party at a football game and they can only get about 100 people to attend out of a graduating class of 4000+. You tell me which school has people more attached to their alma mater.</p>

32

<p>I totally agree. Dartmouth 5-yr reunions often have over 80% of alumni returning for the 5-yr reunion. Its about so much more than sports.</p>

33

<p>Mikemac, you probably don't know this but at many large schools there are various sub alumni groups that have there own meetings based around the major dept. For example my dept had its own reunion and conference every two years which 40-50% of the total alums attend. That's pretty amazing for a group that works all over the US and overseas. I know many other depts have their own associations, newsletters, etc. Meeting with a group in the same general business is far more productive than some random gathering of all alums.</p>

<p><a href="http://wreaa.org/Publications/2004%20WREAA%20Annual%20Report.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://wreaa.org/Publications/2004%20WREAA%20Annual%20Report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

34

<p>Here's an example of alumni networking at a place like Dartmouth. Dartmouth has an alumni email system for life (blitz) where you can lookup any alumnus or student in literally a second and it shoots them an email. We even have out own Dartmouth designed alumni version of friendster (I have heard similar types of things about Yale, Princeton, Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, Duke etc but not about many other places outside of these.)</p>

<p>We all have a class email sent with news and updates every WEEK. </p>

<p>Here's this weeks:</p>

<p>There are 2 messages totalling 51 lines in this issue.</p>

<p>Topics of the week:</p>

<ol>
<li>4 job openings for Software Company (Name withheld 02)</li>
<li>NYC apt available (Name withheld 02)</li>
</ol>

<hr>

<p>Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 23:31:57 -0500
From: ListServ Manager
If thoughts of pioneering the latest online marketing trends and
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<hr>

<p>Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 23:34:16 -0500
From: ListServ Manager </p>

<p>NYC apt available:</p>

<p>Room available for $675/month in three-bedroom apartment in LIC - just three
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