Do UChicago grads not get good jobs?

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That doesn’t address most of my last post, but I’ll bite. How do you know the level of preference UChicago Law and Booth have for Chicago undergrads? Keep in mind that Columbia had two graduate schools on that list as well, and it was only 3 spots ahead of Chicago at 11th.</p>

<p>And as JHS already said, why does that matter? It’s not implausible to “speculate” that students coming to Chicago looking to learn for the sake of learning will take less interest in professional schools than students from more practical schools like Duke and Penn. You’re not trying to say that by coming to Chicago instead of Harvard one is any less likely to gain admission to Wharton MBA, are you?</p>

<p>It’s fascinating to me that the OP would criticize chicago for its low rank on wsj by speculating that the preference of chicago law and booth should have propelled it forward in the rank. If it’s true that Chicago Law and Business are in the top 5 of their respective fields, then who cares about wharton or harvard, just go to Chicago! Worried about getting into a good mba for grad school? You can take 7 classes at booth as an undergrad…think that might look good on an mba school application? </p>

<p>Worried about getting a job from Chicago in business? Check out the Chicago Career’s in Business program–they work with Booth to help ugrads get jobs and internships and the head of the group answered one of my emails and told me that they place well over 90% of their students in jobs immediately after graduation. You won’t find these kinds of programs at basically any other liberal arts school. </p>

<p>I’m sure that this has already been mentioned but the facebook groups each have about 2/3 of the class and using that to estimate the school’s entire class composition is pointless. Also, the data only reflects one year for both of these schools. </p>

<p>Essentially, Chicago is a school that doesn’t focus on being pre professional yet a chicago student would have the presence of top 5 programs in business, law, economics, public policy, the div school, political science, classics, etc that all know and respect chicago undergrads and give them preference. </p>

<p>Not to mention, most of the schools on the wsj list have the same advantage of preference from top 15 programs (Penn, Harvard, Duke, Georgetown, etc.).</p>

<p>At admitted students day this year, a speaker mentioned that Chicago was the school with the single most undergrad interns at Goldman Sachs last year (they had 37 interns). That number topped Wharton, Harvard, etc.</p>

<p>Some of the very best U of C graduates get their MBAs from U of C.</p>

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Is UChicago that fundamentally different from a Yale, a Duke or a Georgetown? There are plenty of kids at all these places that want to go to law school, business school and medical school.</p>

<p>Like I said, if all the UChicago Econ majors wanted to do graduate work in that field at some of the best PhD programs in the world, they would be SOL since there’s no way that Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford, etc. would take in every Chicago undergrad when there are grads of so many other good schools around the world that seek entrance into these top Econ PhD programs. And if you don’t get a PhD at a respectable top 25ish program, then you probably shouldn’t be going to graduate school…</p>

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Self-reported statistics from Payscale are meaningless since anyone can login to the site and lie about their school affiliation and employment information. That’s a little different from analyzing data from Facebook profiles in a group that requires a valid email address i.e. an authorization mechanism to gain entry. Wharton and Harvard are respected institutions of higher education and their administrations are going to much more adept at carefully controlling variables when doing a study than the administrators of Payscale.</p>

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This is exactly what I’m saying but to a much higher degree. If you want a Wharton MBA, you’re doing a disservice by even turning down Dartmouth. Columbia and Dartmouth degrees are more respected in the business world than a Chicago degree it seems.</p>

<p>jhaverford - you bring up some interesting points, and I think it’s good to have an earnest discussion of Chicago’s placement strength. I’ve started several threads like this in the past. Also, as a Chicago alum, I want Chicago to rank well everywhere - from PhD placement to MBA placement to happiness surveys of its undergrads. </p>

<p>Having said this, and to use a bit of legalese, I don’t think your argument (that Chicago places students at a lesser clip than Columbia, Duke, etc. into top MBA programs) is ripe yet. </p>

<p>In the past (i.e. up until maybe 2007), I have no doubt that all of Chicago’s peer schools placed much better than Chicago for any professional school - law, medicine, business, etc. What you don’t account for, however, is the drastic change that Chicago has undergone in the past 5-6 years. During this time, Chicago has transformed itself from being a graduate school-centric institution with the College as a bit of an afterthought to focusing much more strongly on the health of the College. Myriad new amenities have been built for students (new gym, revamped study spaces, new dorms, new arts center, etc.). New programs have sprung up that never existed before (expanded career services office, more chances to pursue pre-professional interests, etc.). The admissions rate has absolutely plummeted and the caliber of incoming students has increased (in 04-05, Chicago accepted around 40% of applicants, now, that number is around 15%). </p>

<p>On the other hand, Harvard today or Princeton today strongly resembles Harvard or Princeton in 2005 or 2006. ~6 years ago, these schools existed to produce leaders across every industry, and they look to do the same today. Contrast this to Chicago - in 2004 or 2005, the stated goal of the College was to produce scholars, grade inflation had not fully hit, and the admissions office did not focus on “big numbers” admissions policies. </p>

<p>Fast forward to today, Harvard, Princeton etc. look quite similar, and Chicago has changed considerably. They’ve started a much more conformist admissions campaign, targeted students with more pre-professional interests, and focused more on accepting students who can emerge as leaders, rather than just future eggheads. </p>

<p>The study you cite - feeder schools for HBS’ and Wharton’s class of 2013 - features a high number of students who graduated college from 2004-2007. The average age of a b-school student is around 28. So, when you compare Duke and Chicago in 2004 or 2005, you’re kind of comparing apples to oranges. </p>

<p>To conclude my argument, let me say this: Have Duke, Columbia, Brown, etc. historically placed much better than Chicago for business, law, med, etc.? Probably yes. At the same time, I’m much less interested in that as I am about how well Chicago is positioned to close the gap in the years ahead. Overall, no school has appreciated as well in the past 5-6 years as Chicago. (Penn has enjoyed a very good decade, but Chicago’s done especially well over the past half-decade.) Chicago’s moved up the US News rankings, gained some luster due to the Obama connection, and re-formatted its policies to fall in line with its peers. Accordingly, if the Wharton or HBS Class of 2017 or 2018 still features a big disparity, then I’d be concerned. </p>

<p>I tend to think, though, that with larger class sizes, more grade inflation, savvier students, and more of an emphasis on pre-professionalism, Chicago has made significant strides in the past few years in terms of professional school placement. </p>

<p>As of right now, even the meager data presented isn’t that surprising. What’s much more interesting, to me at least, is how the new and revamped Chicago continues to improve within the market in the years ahead.</p>

<p>(On a related note, here’s a listing of students at Wash U’s Medical School - undoubtedly one of the premier medical schools in the US. Upon running a quick search, Chicago of recent vintage seems to do fine - there are 8 Chicago grads at Wash U Med now, compared to 6 from Northwestern, 10 from Yale, 10 from Univ. of Penn, 8 from Dartmouth, 6 from Brown, and 4 from Georgetown.)</p>

<p>Here’s the link: [Alphabetical</a> List of Students](<a href=“Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis < Washington University in St.Louis”>Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis < Washington University in St.Louis)</p>

<p>Again, I think all of these discussions about placement are premature, especially since Chicago has changed so much recently. Nevertheless, here’s a tiny bit more data.</p>

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<p>In a word, yes. At least different enough to constitute an important reason for the relatively small differences in that survey. And that’s notwithstanding everything that Cue7 says about the trends that are tending to make Chicago more like those places. </p>

<p>The Chicago my kids attended was an awful lot like the Yale I attended, but with a few major differences, one of which was the number of people planning to go to law or business school. It was just much higher at Yale. </p>

<p>And – within the confines of elite universities – you would have a hard time finding places that were LESS like Chicago than Duke or Georgetown. Those colleges attract a much, much more preprofessional student body. I know four kids who were exactly my kids’ ages who went to Georgetown, and every one of them is in professional school now. So far, 0% of my kids’ Chicago friends have applied to any professional school. That’s not to say they won’t, but that’s not what they are doing now. And there is a lot more interest in PhD programs.</p>

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<p>No dog in U of Chicago, but IMO, from having known people who came from there? Yes. Which is neither good or bad. </p>

<p>And, anyway, you seem to have missed a fundamental truth: If U of Chicago’s mission is to equip its graduates with the analytical and critical thinking skills to succeed in their respective paths in life (business school being among them), it doesn’t matter how many of one’s classmates happen to choose the same path. You seem to be under some delusion that the school that consists solely or mostly of kids who desire to go to a handful of top business schools is somehow “better” than the school that consists solely or mostly of kids who have a wide range of desired careers. U of Chicago is as vibrant and interesting as it is precisely because all the students aren’t lemmings pointed towards the same few graduate schools or careers.</p>

<p>Well, lets look at some of the data we have to compare.</p>

<p>Chicago Career Survey Results:</p>

<p><a href=“Home | CareerAdv”>Home | CareerAdv;

<p>University of Pennsylvania Career Survey Results:</p>

<p>[Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports.html]Career”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports.html)</p>

<p>Princeton Career Survey Results:</p>

<p>[Student</a> Survey Reports «*Office of Career Services « Princeton University](<a href=“Search Opportunities | Human Resources”>Search Opportunities | Human Resources)</p>

<p>What this shows is that finance/consulting is very popular at Chicago (as about 25-33% of employed grads are in this sector), but it is even more popular at Penn or Princeton. At Penn, 40-45% of employed grads go into finance/consulting, and at Princeton, a whopping 50% of employed grads or so go into finance/consulting. </p>

<p>I don’t have time to assess the results along other lines, but participants in this conversation should feel free to mine through this data and see what else it reveals.</p>

<p>Well, here’s one nugget: Between Penn and Chicago, Class of 2010, almost the same percentage were working full time the fall after graduation (~60%), and similar percentages were enrolled in full time graduate study (23% Chicago, 20% Penn). But the composition of that graduate study was very different: 45% of the recent Penn grads going to grad school (or 9% overall) were in medical, law, or business school. The equivalent percentage for Chicago was 26% (6%). Maybe that means that Chicago is worse than Penn for professional school applicants . . . but maybe it means that fewer Chicago students want to go to professional school. </p>

<p>EDIT: At Princeton, it’s hard to compare the employment numbers, because they measure at graduation, not the following fall, so they look a lot worse, which is misleading. But the grad school numbers appear about the same: 20%. And the law/medicine/business percentage of that is 32% – a little higher than Chicago, and a lot lower than Penn.</p>

<p>At Chicago, more recent graduates were enrolled in PhD programs than in professional schools. Penn doesn’t break out its numbers between PhD programs and master’s programs, but there’s essentially no way the same could be true of Penn. </p>

<p>All of these numbers can be a little misleading, since most students who ultimately go to graduate or professional school do not go directly out of college, and these numbers are only measuring what’s happening right after college. Still, they give some flavor of the similarities and differences between the institutions.</p>

<p>By the way, if you apply the percentages to their different class sizes, the number of Penn students going straight to professional school from college was about three times the number of Chicago students. It’s a somewhat different culture.</p>

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<p>Where are you getting this from? A year’s crop of students at two business schools? A link on the first page cited Chicago had 11 kids at Wharton which would place it comfortably on the list as a top 20 feeder.</p>

<p>“Nope, all I hear is conjecture and speculation. Harvard and Wharton are the king of business and Chicago’s not one of the top 20-25 feeders to these programs despite its status as a top 10 university. What is going on?”</p>

<p>You’re a an actual ■■■■■■ aren’t you. HAve you ever considered that most students from Chicago that go into business grad programs go to chicago’s booth school of business? Why would they want to go to warton or harvard? They can go to their school’s already highly regarded school. Booth is ranked #5</p>

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<p>Also ranked #1 by both the Economist (worldwide) and Businessweek (domestically).</p>

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Do you have any proof to back this up? The only professional schools I’m aware of that have a clear preference for their undergraduates and whose undergraduates disproportionately prefer them are Harvard, Yale, Duke and Michigan. I won’t stoop down to your level to insult you however.</p>

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Not just any two business schools though but arguably 2 of the best 3 business schools in the world. Chicago is a top 10 school but its not top 20 at either of these b-schools.</p>

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What link?</p>

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<p>It doesn’t take more than 2 minutes for you to find that link on the first page.</p>

<p>I think this post should effectively end the entire meaningless discussion. Here are the schools (public and private) with the best undergraduate job placement after graduation:</p>

<p>Harvard University - 90%
Columbia University - 89%
Stanford University - 86%
University of Chicago - 86%
Princeton University - 84%
University of Pennsylvania - 82%
Carnegie Mellon - 79%
University of Maryland - College Park - 76%
University of Virginia - 76%
Cornell University - 75%
University of California - Davis - 74%
Duke University - 73%
University of California - Berkeley - 74%
Yale University - 71%
University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign - 70%
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor - 70%
UCLA - 71%
MIT - 68%
Boston University - 63%
California Institute of Technology - 60%
New York University - 59%
Northwestern University - 56%</p>

<p>jhaverford4587: You’ve got your answer. I thought you were asking about job placement after graduation. No? Or do you think MBA represents the entire job market? As a matter of fact, UChicago has the third highest job placement rate in the country. Can we stop this now?</p>

<p>Kudos to the Daily Beast for posting this.</p>

<p>Cya.</p>

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Ah, so if anything Chicago has fallen off at Wharton over the last 3-4 years so the trend of increasing pre-professionalism among UChicago undergrads isn’t actually occurring as the poster Cue was arguing.</p>

<p>Again, I think Chicago is a fantastic school but not all of its graduates are going to get into a top PhD program so the school needs to beef up its advising and build stronger relationships with the top professional programs so its undergrads aren’t left despondent and unemployed after graduating from one of America’s elite schools.</p>

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What in the world is this?</p>

<p>jhaverford - You may very well be right, but the amount of data you present is insufficient. Aside from data for one year of admissions at Harvard and Wharton, do you have anything else to back up your statements?</p>

<p>Put another way, the recent data I included regarding Wash U’s med school seems to indicate that Chicago, of late, is doing quite well in the placement game. From my point of view, however, we just don’t have enough to make any sort of definitive statements, good or bad.</p>

<p>Is there anything else you have here? Right now we have data from Wharton and Harvard showing that U of C’s placement is bad, and data from Wash U Med School showing that U of C’s placement is good. This just doesn’t seem like enough to me.</p>

<p>Again, before stating definitively whether the U of C is trending more toward pre-professionalism or not, we need a lot more data. Ideally, 5-6 years from now, I’d like to see a study comparing Chicago’s placement at the top 20 b schools, med schools, and law schools compared to its placement years back. A few schools isn’t sufficient - I’d like the broader picture.</p>

<p>Until then, studies from just one or two schools just aren’t comprehensive enough.</p>

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<p>This, I believe, has been effectively debunked. </p>

<p>It doesn’t matter which way you look at it. UChicago still has the third highest job placement rate in this country. I don’t think there is any point in arguing with jhaverford, because we’re dealing with someone who’s unreasonable and rather supercilious. jhaverford was questioning UChicago’s job placement after graduation, and I provided the numbers that put this institution in juxtaposition with all its peers. I’m off.</p>

<p>McKinsey doesn’t even recruit at UChicago.</p>

<p>[US</a> Schools Calendars | US Schools Recruitment](<a href=“http://www.mckinsey.com/careers/us_schools/campus_calendar/us_schools_calendars.aspx]US”>http://www.mckinsey.com/careers/us_schools/campus_calendar/us_schools_calendars.aspx)</p>

<p>They just have a general application deadline and don’t even have a presentation on campus. If a Chicago Economics degree is so revered and well-renowned, then why is McKinsey recruiting Dartmouth and Duke Econ majors much harder?</p>

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Here’s Vandy Med:</p>

<p><a href=“https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/undergraduate-schools-represented[/url]”>https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/undergraduate-schools-represented&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Harvard: 24
Duke: 15
Yale: 14
Princeton: 13
Penn: 12
Dartmouth: 8
Cornell: 7
Brown: 6</p>

<p>Chicago: 3
Columbia: 2</p>

<p>That Core Curriculum seems to be a little overrated huh.;)</p>