<p>The author said that the employer considers a 3.3 GPA from any undergraduate from the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Washington University in St. Louis, and a couple others. If the job applicant is not on that list of competitive, prestigious colleges, the applicant needs a 3.9 GPA to be even considered. Basically employers are cutting some slack for those who had it tough, due to competition, in their undergrad.</p>
<p>One author from one unsubstantiated article, in an unnamed field from an unnamed company.</p>
<p>Most extreme case: some of the employers only consider graduates from HYPS+Wharton.</p>
<p>This may be true for a tiny handful of firms that can afford to do so, but the vast majority of employers will not have this view. It’s ridiculous to think that a top engineer from MIT or Caltech won’t be able to find a job.</p>
<p>To answer the OP’s question, that answer is pretty much impossible to answer because rankings are not the most important thing. Finance tends to be a more pedigree-conscious field, but it depends on what you mean by finance. Do you want to work on Wall Street, or will some well-respected but not top finance firms be fine, or do you want to be the in-house person at a more local bank or financial institution? It also depends largely on what you do; if you go to the prestigious school but don’t do any internships, that may be worse than going to a lower-ranked school but scoring a great internship in your field.</p>