How to choose colleges when you’re an international applicant?

@thenameisi
To check for reputations with employers, I use the “outcomes” report which is available often on the university’s website, if you can find it. These are compiled by the college placement office. Results are listed by major if the number of graduates in a given year were large enough to ensure privacy. You need the breakouts by major so you will not be comparing the incomes of History majors with those who majored in Computer Science. Some sites list the hiring organizations as well as the average salaries accepted by that major. They will also report the raw numbers on job placement as well as the number who went on to listed graduate schools.

Compare this data between schools in the departments you have an interest in. If you have never heard of a listed company (not everyone works for Walmart or Apple), check out the companies on the internet. There are many incredible smaller companies that are not household words. Generally speaking, companies in greater NYC will pay better than companies in Mississippi because of differences in the cost of living (primarily housing). As an international student, you may not know what graduate schools are best in which fields. Some might argue the point, but CMU is generally considered a better place to go for Computer Science than most any place you may have heard of overseas.

After this long winded advice, I went to the Mt Holyoke website to apply my suggestion See Career Outcomes @ https://www.mtholyoke.edu/cdc/careers/outcomes The results Graduate School results shown are very good, but they are a selected list and only the highest ranking graduate schools are listed. It is a fine list of schools. The listed hiring corporations are also impressive, but the outcomes are not presented by major and average salaries are not given. The small size of the college makes a comprehensive list difficult.

A second report on graduate schools are found at https://www.mtholyoke.edu/iresearch/outcomes. It appears they are performing very well here. Place your arrow on the blue box and see the Mt Holyoke graduate School record.

Depending on your major, graduate school may be necessary for a well paying job. As already pointed out by “TTG,” well connected faculty can help admission to graduate school.

I hope this helps. Spend some time researching “outcomes.” You might want to talk to someone in the placement office to ask questions which may arise after you have poked around in their data.