<p>So Georgia Tech is ranked #5 in Engineering. The thing is that the classes grade on a bell-shaped curve. If everyone in the class gets As and Bs on the tests, there will still be Cs and Ds after distribution. Also, you're competing with the brighest minds in your major. </p>
<p>The question: is it better to graduate with Cs and Bs at Georgia Tech or As and Bs at a lower-tier school such as UF? </p>
<p>In other words, will the prestige carry you?</p>
<p>The prestige of having a bowl of Pineapple-Caramel ice cream will go very far.</p>
<p>I also like Cookies & Cream.</p>
<p>^I do not understand this. You seem to be implying that prestige doesn’t matter (?).</p>
<p>Will someone please explain?</p>
<p>No, prestige will not carry you. If you were not willing to do the work in school to get good grades a company would not hire you. On the flip side, on a school that isn’t known for engineering, a company might not even recruit it. But to get back to the original question, prestige will not carry you.</p>
<p>I am implying that I like Pineapple-Caramel ice cream.</p>
<p>All right, so what is the answer for this: is it better to graduate with Cs and Bs at Georgia Tech or As and Bs at a lower-tier school such as UF? </p>
<p>I assume, based on chaos’s answer, that it’s better to get As and Bs at UF than Bs and Cs at Georgia Tech? What about straight Bs and Georgia Tech vs Straight As at UF?</p>
<p>Depends on you.</p>
<p>Very often however, there is a 3.0 GPA cutoff for companies. Anything lower than that, and they will not even look at your resume.</p>
<p>In general, prestige won’t carry you. It’s secondary. </p>
<p>What you’ve learned, what you know and what your capabilities are will carry you. </p>
<p>You can learn a lot more trying to keep up with really smart people than you can if you don’t face that pressure. Think about it. However, if you will “crack” under the pressure, maybe you’re better off not facing it. </p>
<p>Forget this grade is better than that grade. That’s not really the right way to think about it. </p>
<p>UF is a pretty good school too, so I don’t think it’s going to be a walk in the park either.</p>
<p>Prestige matters in graduate school if you are looking to have a career as an academic. Otherwise, it is much less important for engineering than for other professions. That being said, it is still important to attend a school that has a solid recuiting base and reputation in industry.</p>
<p>^Does Georgia Tech have a “solid recruiting base and reputation in industry”? I hear a lot of MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and Cornell thrown around but not Georgia Tech. So I’m wondering.</p>
<p>Is there are prestige-flavored ice cream?</p>
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<p>Yes. Absolutely.</p>
<p>“Brightest minds” imo is a misnomer for undergraduate schools. Undergrad admissions are made based on the “well-roundedness (volunteering, sports, clubs,etc… things that have nothing to do with engineering)” of the applicant, not his ability to become an engineer. Graduate school admissions actually focuses on engineering related ****.</p>
<p>I believe there are top tier engineering schools that do not grade on a true bell curve. If grades influence employment possibilities you may want to consider other schools that do not grade on a curve but that might be more highly regarded than UF. I am not an engineer but I went to a professional school and the grading was on a curve for many classes. It didn’t matter for my career path. The thing about being graded on a curve is that you can do the work and do well and wind up with grades that don’t reflect that. It can of course work in your favor but if you are in a competitive class and you don’t see yourself as being at the top of that class it can be disappointing. Again I am writing based on my experience with being graded on a curve not based on any real knowledge of how this plays into engineering.</p>
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<p>Georgia Tech has a 3.1 average GPA. The OP doesn’t know what he’s talking about.</p>
<p>We’ve argued the importance of prestige to death, so there’s no need to continue. However, I will say that there are many, many high paying jobs that you’ll only have a chance at if you go to a top tier school, and lower GPA students have a better chance at graduating with employment from a top tier school.</p>
<p><<georgia tech="" has="" a="" 3.1="" average="" gpa.="" the="" op="" doesn’t="" know="" what="" he’s="" talking="" about.="">></georgia></p>
<p>I read from FISKE Guide to Colleges 2012 that Georgia Tech grades classes on a curve. </p>
<p><<…lower GPA students have a better chance at graduating with employment from a top tier school.>> Do you mean that lower students have a better chance at getting the high paying jobs by graduating from a top tier school or do you mean that lower students have better chance at getting jobs in general by graduating from a top tier school? I don’t see how a 3.0 guy from Georgia Tech is gonna get shots at high paying jobs when there are so many out there who have higher GPAs than that.</p>
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<p>Every college in the country grades on a curve - you just have to. Even in classes where an A is set at a hard 90%, the professor curves by moving the average grade he awards on assignments.</p>
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<p>If you have a 3.5 to 4.0 GPA from Florida, you don’t have a shot at the very top positions. Why? Those companies don’t go to UF to hire. If you’re a Rhodes Scholar you’ll probably get recruited through that program, but other than a situation like that, you’ll be locked out of those positions because of your school. That’s not the case for 3.5 to 4.0 students from GT. They have the opportunity to interview for the very high paying, high prestige positions.</p>
<p>Similarly, if you look at the hiring statistics, a 2.5 to 3.0 student from UF have a very hard time finding employment, where as from the top schools, such as GT, this is not nearly as big of an issue. We’re not talking about the very high paying positions, but the near-average salary positions in your engineering field.</p>
<p>The 3.0 to 3.5 students from both schools seem to graduate in similar positions. The higher tier schools will pull more recruiters nationally leading to more interviews, but the salaries tend to be similar and both tier schools tend to lead to employment. Similarly, the 2.0 to 2.5 students struggle similarly from both schools.</p>
<p>If you’re argument is “I would be a 2.5 student at GT but a 3.5 student at UF”, then you’ll probably be better off at UF. Although I would highly, highly doubt the GPA difference would be that different attending the two different schools. It would probably be closer to a 0.2 difference.</p>
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Interesting tactic. First you state that there’s no need to debate the importance of school prestige, then make a declaratory statement about the importance of school prestige.</p>
<p>That said, I have no real opinion (or empirical knowledge) on this but am always interested in actual data. Anecdotally, I graduated from fairly well regarded UCs, but work with people from schools with higher and lower prestige. This has been true my entire 25-year-plus career.
So -</p>
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<p>Can you point me to those specific hiring statistics? And, out of curiosity, what field do you work in and are your conclusions based on your anecdotal experience as well?</p>
<p>Often, hiring is geopgraphical in nature, and a lot of it depends on whether the person hiring recognizes the school. THat is why it can help to go to a more well known school, but it can also help to go to a local school. However, ironically, although I am well aware of the reputation of Georgia Tech, working on the west coast, first in aerospace, then semiconductor capital equipment, and now in the energy sector, I’ve probably come across far more Cal State grads than GT grads, at all levels. Again, just my personal experience, no claim that it proves anything. And no claim that times have not changed.</p>
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Much like your attempt at appeal to authority.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html</a></p>
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<p>I would argue that depends on the level of the hiring firm. A Bain, BCG, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Google, Microsoft, Blue Origin, Skunk Works, etc. do not restrict themselves by region. A firm trying to fill a standard process engineering position probably will look locally in addition to a few schools with a national base.</p>
<p>And even then, you’ll often see the regional hires treated differently than the national hires. I hired for one international company that had plants in rural and urban areas. The urban areas were easy to staff, but the rural areas were always a challenge. I couldn’t hire a Georgia Tech student then send him to Palatka, Florida, for instance - students would take other offers instead. So, I recruited at UF to staff the Palatka location and the GT students went to the headquarters (in a major US city). Because of proximity to the leadership and the type of work they did, the GT students had a much better chance to prove themselves and tended to move up the corporate ladder very fast. The UF students usually spent their career in Palatka because there was no one willing to rotate in if they rotated out. It was a similar story for the Iowa State grads who remained in rural Iowa and the Illinois grads who went to major urban areas.</p>
<p>I personally believe Banjo is overstating the advantage of a GaTech degree versus one obtained at U Florida. At my aerospace company, for undergraduate work, we actually do not distinguish between these two schools, nor do we give preferential treatment to any of the other 25 key-schools on our recruitment list. It will come down to the student and his accomplishments. For thesis-oriented graduate work, it will come down to the student and his publications and quality and alignment of his research. This much is a fact in my area of expertise, but in other areas of engineering, of which Banjo appears to be an expert, YMMV.</p>