Could people please consider addressing the OP’s questions He/she is looking to transfer. Therefore, MIT, Harvey Mudd and HYPMS are almost certainly not what they’re asking about.
Recap:
Transfer student
majoring in Computer Engineering
Wants to know:
if it matters what college or university they attend
if grades are more important than the school name, and if so, how important is it?
how much of a difference does school selection make both financially as well as job opportunity wise?
@TotallyClassy These are excellent questions. Here are my takes on the answers in the context of your being a transfer student:
Yes, the school matters, not in terms of prestige but very much so in terms of courses offered, internships, etc.
I would say that the opportunities the school offers in job placement and internships matter more than grades BUT grades are part of the package in determining who gets the best research opportunities, internships, and recommendations.
Focus on job opportunities in school selection and the financial opportunities will work themselves out. Of course, if one school is significantly more expensive than another, this muddies the water a bit.
@yikesyikesyikes CMU has about 6,500-ish students and is #3. Stanford has about 7,000 undergrads and is #2. Santa Clara is #21 and has around 5,500 undergraduate students.
However, the point is, as far as SV jobs go, lots of jobs go to graduates of big name universities.
In the survey at https://www.chronicle.com/items/biz/pdf/Employers%20Survey.pdf , hundreds of employers were asked to rate the relative importance of different factors in evaluating resumes. The 100+ surveyed science and tech employers as a whole rated college reputation as the least influential of the surveyed factors by a good margin. GPA was 2nd to least influential, although many CS companies do screen resumes by GPA, often with a 3.0 GPA cutoff.
As has been noted, there are specific situations where school name and/or GPA can be more important. For example, the link above references Goldman Sachs investment banking, which has traditionally been very sensitive to prestige of school name. As discussed, if you want to work in a particular area or at a particular company, different colleges may better assist with that goal than others, including having better on campus recruiting and alumni connections. However, the colleges that offer the most benefit, may be quite different from the ones that are ranked highest or have the highest prestige.
@sushiritto - the poll isn’t limited to undergraduates (it’s also very limited and run by a private for-profit firm that simply harvests data from social media sites, so pour out some salt).
It may be that MIT grads are not as likely to covet a SV position as some of the 19 schools ranked above them. To do it right you’d have to figure out the percentage of successful applications.
OP where you go might or might not matter. Name recognition and prestige are real factors that come into play whether we like it, value it, or not. Bottom line, it’s always going to come down to you no matter where you go to college. You could go to the most highly rated prestigious school and not do well, struggle, and have a hard time finding work after graduating, or a lowly ranked unknown and shine, get recognition, and support for pursuing things and end up with amazing opportunities. Where you go mattering is actually a rather personal thing. There are no gurantees.
@sushiritto - I agree I provided no data point. As for the validity of that survey, well, reasonable people may differ. (And it’s not limited to undergraduates, so schools’ varying sizes should be adjusted for anyway.)
No one can deny that prestige matters but it all boils down to how much are you paying for that. If money isn’t a issue because you are rich or poor, go ahead and let daddy or system add prestige to your resume. Its going to help, not harm.
If its going to put you in heavy debt or squeeze all air out of your parent’s financial parachute then weigh your options and put some thought into your decision. Real value of this prestige is going to be different for different individuals.
Prestige doesn’t matter with computers. I never went to a prestigious school nor any of my family members, and we all have strong gainful employment. What really matters is location. Most employers are small to medium size companies. For an entry level job, it’s far more practical to recruit from a nearby university than travel halfway around the country to Georgetown. If you’re in an area where there’s internships and job opportunities, you shouldn’t have a problem finding an entry-level job.
While it will matter to some extent what school you attend & graduate, it matters less for certain majors & is very important for other majors with respect to job opportunities immediately after graduation & within a few years of graduation.
Accounting majors from no name schools do as well as those from Illinois or Texas-Austin. CS & Computer Engineering majors are in high demand & tend to do well regardless of school attended.
Finance, however, prefers a pedigree for the highest paying positions for recent graduates. For example, Penn-Wharton undergraduate finance majors average total first year pay is $90.600 (Salary & Bonus). High pay ($78,000 -$82,400) for recent finance grads from CMU, Georgetown, NYU, UCal-Berkeley, Virginia, & Michigan.
Significantly lower average first year pay (low 60s) for recent finance grads from Georgia, Penn State, BU, Richmond, Maryland & Fordham.
Prestige matters. This is a continuing debate. Maybe it’s the word “prestige” that’s the issue. How about this instead: The experiences you bring to potential employers matters. And, those experiences and opportunities will be shaped, to a large extent, by the college you attend. Consider what new grad resumes look like. A new grad resume typically leads with degree and school, so if you list a prestigious school that will definitely not be a negative (should I go so far as to say it would be a positive??). Next is work experience/ research, and here again location and school are strong influences. Next, perhaps is project experience, so what you do in project based classes counts. Bottom line, everything of major consequence on a new grads resume is directly related to the college attended and prestigious schools can just offer more.
For every poster that says prestige doesn’t matter in computers there is another who says it does. If you don’t think it matters, that’s OK. This in not to say that graduates from “non-prestigious” colleges will not find employment or build great careers. I do think (common sense?) that not all colleges are created equal, and not all CS programs are created equal.
@Publisher “Accounting majors from no name schools do as well as those from Illinois or Texas-Austin. CS & Computer Engineering majors are in high demand & tend to do well regardless of school attended.”
Not in certain areas like LA or SF, larger markets for example. At Big 4 accounting firms, the coveted summer internships go to top students at top schools. When I helped with recruiting we would not even do campus recruiting at any CSU (other than Cal Poly SLO) and 90% of the interns came from USC or UCLA.
At least in my industry, where you went to college definitely had an impact on what firms would be recruiting you. Can you still be successful not attending a top school, of course, but in some professions and industries where you went to college could have an big impact on your career. Also, don’t forget that it’s not just the name of the college that’s important but the education you get for 4 years studying in an exceptional college environment. Some on CC will tell you that the education you get at Fresno State is the same one you will get at say Stanford, but its just not the case. My advice is go to the best college you can afford, one that checks most of your boxes for fit. You only get one shot at an undergraduate degree, make the most of it.
@socaldad2002: Thank you for your input. I am not as knowledgeable about internship recruiting/offers/opportunities as I am with respect to job offers & senior manager/ director positions.
Then, other than with respect to internships, we disagree. And I do know that internships are very important for getting on with a Big 4, but there are CPAs from schools that I have never heard of at many of the accounting firms right below the top 4 (Grant Thornton, RSM & BDO, for example) and many opportunities available in SF & San Jose/Silicon Valley for those wishing to endure the high cost of housing & terrible commutes at Big 4 & regionals.
And many in key management positions from no-name schools at all national accounting firms.
@socaldad2002: I just googled the PwC Tax Leadership Team (highest ranking members nationally). While several have JD degrees from University of Detroit-Mercy, Pace University & BC, the college degrees are from Ohio State, CMU, BC, American, Hamilton, Minnesota, Penn & Manhattan College. And this is the most impressive college list that I have seen recently.
When researching audit/assurance at Big 4s, many, maybe most, of the colleges are rarely mentioned on sites like CC.
And these are not interns, these are among the highest ranking department leaders in the nation. And I have researched multiple locations & multiple firms.
Returning back to the CS field another issue to think about when choosing a school with an eye towards employment is what the peer group is.
Yes, the big flashy employers will recruit heavily on big name CS campuses. But you will be competing with the other students at that school. If you are near the top of the class at a big name CS school you will have recruiters beating down your door. If you are in the middle there will still be employers interested in talking to you. If you are near the bottom you will have some challenges.
If you are at a school with a decent enough CS department, no big reputation school the big names won’t be at your college fair. You may have to do your own leg work on linked in and recruitment websites. You will have to be proactive about finding and applying for internships. But…if you are near the top of your class your CS professors are going to love you. They are going to offer you lab assistant gigs, and research opportunities that really make your resume sparkle. They are going to write stellar references for you.
To get an internship or job, your resume/application has to make it out of the quick glance pile and into the give it a closer read pile. A big name school can help. Top notch grades can help. Excellent recommendations can help. Projects/competitions/research assistantships/etc.can help. There is no silver bullet.