<p>dufus3709,</p>
<p>You seem to keep confusing what I said. Where did I say there's "huge divide" between NU and ND? In fact, I wrote this:
[quote]
the difference in career/grad school placement between ND, Emory, Georgetown, Hopkins is probably not significant
[/quote]
Yes, job interviewers can be football fans. Where did I say they can't be? But so what? The scandal of Colorado football program few years ago was a big news. That's big time opportunity for name recognition! If you think that really helps how recruiters think of Colorado, power to you! Regarding JHU vs Nebraska, I was talking about the overall performance of the student body. </p>
<p>That NU has many more ranked programs is a fact and NOT my personal opinion. I didn't author the ranking. I merely stated what's out. It explains why Northwestern comes up more often on CC. Whether you think the rankings are just or not is another issue. </p>
<p>
[quote]
USNWR is a much better way to rank colleges than just prestige?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>USNWR ranks one kind of "prestige"--academic reputation or "peer assessment". There are several kinds of "prestige". Two of them are "name recognition" and "academic reputation". The former can be obtained by some good football/basketball program whereas the latter cannot. Most recruiters are most likely in the knows and care more the academic reputation. You can't deny that there are more major firms recruiting at Penn than Oklohoma. Look up the list of core schools for top consulting firms. Do you see any school on that list simply because of its football program? There are even couple LACs that most general public have never heard of but in the eyes of recruiters, they are stars.</p>
<p>Regarding the fit, I didn't comment on it and I never said anything to suggest they aren't imporant. It's just not related to the discussion until you brought it up just now.</p>