Graduate surveys suggest nothing of the sort for tech majors. For example, Berkeley EECS survey results are at https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2018EECS.pdf . Fewer than 1% of respondents appear to be working in a finance type job, although at least 2 are working as a software engineer for a stock trading app company. The rate is also quite low for the other engineering majors I checked. A list for CS grads at CMU is at https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/scs/1-Pager_SCS BS 2018 rev 2.1.19.kc.pdf . Fewer than 1% working of CMU CS grads appear to be working in finance, like Berkeley; and again the rates are low for other fields of engineering as well. The list of employers attending recruiting events for engineering/CS schools/majors shows a similar pattern.
I really don’t agree with that one. You can be happy and still stressed at times. IMO if you are not stressed at times you are not being challenged. If you’re stressed to the point of breaking you should reconsider your goals.
The OP’s question in the 1st post of this thread begins “For engineering, what is the difference between a top engineering school - Illinois, Purdue; Georgia Tech, MIT - and a flagship or good state school with a good engineering program.” He isn’t talking about an “Unknown regional U that nobody has ever heard of and isn’t ABET accredited.” He’s comparing a top engineering school to a well known public, with a good engineering program. I believe Missouri S&T fits the latter description. For example, Missouri S&T is a ~80% acceptance rate school that USNWR ranks among the top 100 for engineering, but not top 50. However, if you want to choose another, there are many others publics with a quality engineering program where a similar list of highly desired tech companies recruit.
I went to one of those ‘well known publics’ that wasn’t GT or Illinois, and my engineer classmates have had great careers. One worked for NASA for 30+ years, was in charge of a major project. She had many engineers reporting to her, and I’m sure some of them went to MIT.
Engineers get jobs. Most of the engineers I know (and I know a lot) did not go to Purdue or MIT. Go to the school that you like and can afford.
You seems to confuse the number of recruiting firms coming to these few tech campuses with the number of graduates these recruiting firms hire. They’re different concepts. Many of these firms (HF, PE, etc.) hire only a few graduates, and they only go to a few schools where their target hires are highly concentrated, because they simply don’t have the bodies to cover more schools, or larger schools where their target hires are less concentrated (such as Berkeley).
I was a very happy engineering student. I graduated with high honors but had a great time in college. Yeah, there were stressful times, but it was a rewarding 6 years (BS and MS).
None of the government employees at NASA make much money. If you went to MIT and took a government job at NASA, you made some poor career choices. It might be possible to make a reasonable salary as a contractor.
Agree, but do not underestimate the “like” part.
Attitude and enthusiasm make a big difference in performance in a challenging curriculum. . This is what I like to call the “pull” part of an education. Your interests build the energy level which pulls you into the program and subject matter. It also fuels creative thinking. The whole “ball of wax” is a genuine and personal commitment.
I believe it is important for students to look beyond their tests scores and to commit to the full program when they personally identify with their match.
Hard work can be fulfilling when you want the answers and not just a grade.
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That’s a bit harsh, @roethlisburger.
As a former engineer who has worked with engineers throughout my life, my observation is that for most engineers, salary maximization is a secondary goal. For the best engineers I have known, their primary goal is to work on really interesting projects, and getting paid decently is just icing on the cake. For those who really want to work on space projects, I imagine working at NASA is a pretty good life.
But getting back to the point of this thread, there is no need to go to MIT if your goal is to work at NASA.
We have a friend whose SIL is at NASA, designing spacesuits. He is very happy. 
Does it matter at all? Well, yes, it can. Bragging rights to MIT not something I will dismiss. But is it worth the price differential? That’s what I’d consider. I’ve known many kids who had this choice and when it’s free of nearly so, a huge price differential, none of them have been able to make it up. If money is no object, that’s a different story.
Yeah the whole moon landing, mars rovers and Hubbell Telescope type things are perfect examples of engineers who just couldn’t get it done in the private sector. And obviously none were bright enough for the really good schools.
This is when we should all just step off the crazy train and spend some more time conversing with adults.
It may not be necessary to go to a top tier engineering school if you want to work at Facebook. Their recent scandals have made them a less popular employer and they are having difficulty recruiting. To be honest I would prefer that my kids not end up working in Silicone Valley regardless of the salaries. https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-recruiting-2019-5
Something I wonder about, although without specifics maybe we can’t make a determination: suppose the kid is a talented but late bloomer and come senior year, the available options for engineering include the state flagship vs medium size, lower-ranked privates such as Gonzaga, Loyola Chicago, etc. If the latter seem like a better fit for the individual, would the same student have substantially different job opportunities between large flagship vs medium private? Would the analysis be different for CSE vs other engineering?
@evergreen5 for such a student an alternative would be for them to look at programs in Canada since they will only be assessed at most based on their Jr. and Sr. years and most likely only Sr. year. They could get into a much higher ranked program for probably comparable cost.
If I got full FA to go to MIT for 4 years, then working for NASA makes complete sense! Even if that is not the case, if that is what you love and are passionate about, go for it!
For those engineers, at least DH 20 years ago, he was not interested in the most paying job, rather an opportunity to make advancement in his fields, and doing things more enjoyable and challenging to him.
As a society, I do think we become more commercialized, or money driven. D and their generation seem to chase those IB, Consulting jobs instead of doing real engineering. Therefore, the schools or brand names might matter even more.
DH and I could have gotten high-paying jobs in a big city like New York City and designed skyscrapers. We made a conscious decision to go for lower-paying jobs in a state where our quality of life would be better. We’ve worked from home for 20 years and it’s not bad.
My H is a professor of Engineering. He says for graduate school and looking to go into academics that the bigger names like Berkeley, Michigan, Stanford, Illinois etc are helpful. For first jobs out, you may get an alumni boost or networking opportunity from some schools but as long as it’s ABET accredited and gpa is over 3.5 they are considered well prepared and very likely to get a job.
FWIW my H went to a T20 school. However, they aren’t specifically top in engineering…since he is in research/academics sometimes he thinks he should have aimed higher for grad school.
I think my NASA friend was best served by not going to a school like MIT. She is a stereotypical geek (and she’ll admit it) and I think at MIT she would have been consumed into the engineering world and never emerged to do anything else. Instead she joined groups with non-engineers, took classes in other departments, stretched herself. When we were in school, the engineering school was only about 10% female but the university was 50/50. She found a lot of support outside the COE to just be a college student.
In picking Ohio State over MIT, the student may be looking for a different experience while in college, not just the job at the other end.
Schools generally don’t publish number of recruiters in different fields directly. so instead we can look at what information is published. If less than 1% of graduates in the most popular engineering/CS major report working finance-type jobs and extremely few finance-type employers report attending engineering/CS career fairs, then it’s highly likely that the original claim about half of recruiters being in finance is not accurate. Sure, it’s theoretically possible that half of the total recruiters are in finance, but they never hire anyone because they are too selective, and they recruit without attending career fairs. However, the far more likely explanation is the claim not being accurate.
The claim was specifically about “top tech schools”. I used Berkeley and CMU in my examples, which are undoubtedly “top tech schools.” The vast majority of top tech schools are not correspondingly top schools for finance recruiting, and among those that do overlap, the vast majority of students entering finance are generally not engineering/CS majors.