I don’t think that a Williams vs. Clemson comparison is fair at all. Williams has been around probably much longer and has probably been traditionally a school for wealthy Northeasterners, as were the “better” schools in the Northeast before they all became meritocracies after WWII. Clemson, on the other hand, was founded in impoverished South Carolina in the 1880s (I think) and only recently moved up in the rankings to be a first-rate institution. So Williams has had generations of wealthy alumni that helped build its endowment; Clemson is just starting to.
^ So what else is anyone measuring when they say Clemson or Wabash or Holy Cross or USC or Colgate or Princeton, etc. etc., has one of the best alumni networks? How would you verify a claim that Loyola Marymount has a very strong alumni network?
I don’t see what fairness has to do with this. If you want alumni to actively help recent graduates get jobs, wouldn’t you prefer a network of successful, well-connected alumni who are in influential positions at companies all over America? Wouldn’t the richest most selective schools be more likely to have that? If up-and-comers are doing it very well too, what are the objective indicators?
Universities-Dartmouth, Princeton, ND, Duke, Stanford. National Liberal Arts Schools-Williams, Holy Cross, Amherst, Bowdoin, and Wellesley.
Like a few others have mentioned, “alumni network” to me means a group of alumni that will help other alumni from the same school land jobs or business deals. Off the top of my head, I’m not sure how you would gather statistics to measure that. In Asia they’re very open about how connections matter, but in the US it seems to be taboo to say you hired someone because they went to your school. You have to say, “They were the best person for the job,” even though the hire actually was in large part because they went to your school.
I went to grad school at USC. The school makes a big deal about its “Trojan Family” alumni network, and I’ve heard lots of stories about how it helps new graduates find jobs. I don’t know how much weight anecdotal evidence like that carries, but there seems to be something to it. I can say that when I run into someone else who mentions they went to USC, there’s an instant connection, and that’s a big advantage in the business world. I don’t sense that kind of connection when I see two alumni come together from other schools, say, San Jose State, or even Cal.
In that respect, I don’t see how small schools can have strong alumni networks, simply because there aren’t that many alumni to network with.
Not necessarily. All I want is a leg up in the profession and region where I want to get a job. If I’m a prospective New York banker who thinks the world ends at the Hudson (i.e., the only people many CCers care about) then Williams punches above its weight and is damned hard to beat. But if my aspirations are, say, law school and state politics in South Carolina, then a Williams network is virtually useless compared to Clemson and pledging the “right” fraternity.
Similarly, if I were looking for a job in the oil industry, I bet showing up at the interview with an Aggie class ring would help a hell of a lot more than a Yale diploma in most cases.
But CC exists to try to provide general answers to inherently specific questions (well, that and to ensure the continuation of America’s hereditary meritocracy) so, by all means, carry on.
Every state has one, occasionally two, flagship state schools. Since most people are born, live and die in the same general place, those schools would be the best network a person can have for most jobs.
Ivies and Ivy plus. Globally they host events (Ivy Ball, holiday dinners) for Ivy graduates and few other schools.
“If you want alumni to actively help recent graduates get jobs, wouldn’t you prefer a network of successful, well-connected alumni who are in influential positions at companies all over America? Wouldn’t the richest most selective schools be more likely to have that?”
It depends where you want to be. Sitting here in the Midwest I see Notre Dame’s network as incredibly strong,
The movers and shakers in different parts of the country are going to be from different sets of schools.
They’re not the only schools that sponsor such events. And in most major US cities you can find an alumni “game watch” for your favorite flagship almost every weekend. That may be even better than an Ivy ball because you don’t have to wear a tux and they serve beer.
I see a lot of B1G Ten social events in my area, including races, game-watching parties, cocktail parties, etc.
I think the question is kind of unanswerable. How do you define best?
I was talking to a friend about the NU alumnae classes she’s been attending for the past five years or so. While they may not be great for “networking” per se or help the recent graduate, she says she meets the most interesting people and the classes create a real feeling of community among the alums (especially the older alums, since she also said she’s usually the youngest in the class by a decade or two). The whole of idea of alumni offerings centered on academic discussion rather than sports or social gatherings appealed to me (nerd that I am). It obviously serves a different kind of networking function for the university, but one that from an endowment and gifting standpoint makes a lot of sense.
I am a part of an NU mentoring circle which seems similar in scope - it’s a circle of 12 women discussing work life issues and strategies. I am one of the oldest.
The B1G events that I am referring to are sort of analogous to Ivy Plus insofar as they bring alums of multiple universities together for social and networking events.
There’s a bar in Lincoln Park that always has some big sign outside that indicates it’s sort of a home away from home for Mizzou grads - they hold parties, game watching, etc. it catches my eye since obviously more people in Chicago would be UIUC grads.
That makes sense to me.
If you want to settle down with a decent middle class job fairly close to your local community, some of the best “alumni networks” may be at small regional universities where you already know many students from your own high school and town. A “regional” Catholic university like Loyola-MD has educated generations of Baltimore-area business leaders, accountants, and school teachers. For a Baltimore-area Catholic student, its alumni network will intersect with (and reinforce) your HS alumni network and your parish church network. On the other hand, if you’re coming in from LA or Chicago and plan to go back from where you came, I doubt those networks will continue to help you so much.
Well at Wabash, the students get internships and jobs from Wabash graduates regularly. The alums not only contribute to the endowment, they offer their homes for job interviews. The lawyers pay for free LSAT prep classes and many of the business owners not only come back to the campus for contests and seminars they pay for the summer internships for kids who can’t afford not to work over the summer.
IMO, networking is more about extroversion / introversion than it is about a particular college. We all know people who are big “cheerleaders” for their college and that may make one think “oh that has a really strong network” when in point of fact that’s just an extroverted person who would have been enthusiastic no matter where they went.
D2 applied for an internship recently. She got an email: “We are very impressed with your credential, yada, yada…We would very much like to meet you… PS by the way, I was happy to see you are a graduate of X High School, I was as well.”
Most colleges will have some sort of alumni activities at major cities in the US. If you should to settle around the same region where you went to school, there will be events for alums, may it be game time at a bar or cocktail parties at someone’s house. What’s valuable is when you go to a place where you know no one (foreign country) and there is a built in network for you to tap into. Williams maybe a top notch school, but how many Williams graduates are you going to find in HKG or Australia? Dartmouth is very similar to Williams, but with its business school and the fact their alums would be invited to events sponsored by Ivies, their network is going to be bigger. It really depends what you are looking for.
Princeton. Dartmouth. Stanford GSB. HBS. MIT. I would guess big state schools like Alabama and UT Austin and what about Old Miss?
I think we’re over-working poor little Williams College. It was just one example I cited, and my point was not so much about Williams per se as it was about how one measures/assesses the quality of a school’s alumni network. If one function of a successful alumni network is to raise money for the college, then we ought to be able to observe that success in the form of some measurable output. I suggested endowment per student, but if that isn’t a good measure, what is? If we cannot come up with any good measures, how do we know our opinions aren’t being distorted by the kind of influences Pizzagirl describes?
I mean, the names shawbridge mentions all sound reasonable, I guess. Do these schools all have some of the best alumni networks? Would they be among the top 10? Who knows?
@oldfort
I don’t know if you are referring to a boarding school but the prep school network is indeed sometimes stronger than the college one. Those boarding schools are where extremely strong bonds are made and I have very often heard alumni say they value that experience over their elite college experience, saying the prep school was more transformative.