How important is name recognition of a college/university? I am not referring to “prestige” with respect to HYP or Ivy League, but whether employers/communities have heard of a particular university, so really, name recognition. Where I live, I doubt most people have heard of Swarthmore or Harvey Mudd, even though they’re filled with excellent students. Many (most?) job recruiters probably have, however. Most people have heard of the state flagships as well, so there’s name recognition there.
When people start digging in to find colleges that are a good fit for students and going beyond the “name brand” schools, what impact does that name recognition have after college? Directional State University at least gives a clue as to location, and most would make the assumption that it’s probably a publicly funded institution. Is that better or worse than going to a private, nonprofit university that nobody has ever heard of? And I’m not speaking of a T50 or even a T100 school that individuals who dig through USNWR are very familiar with. I’m thinking about schools that could be T200-400 nationally (university or liberal arts) or as a T100 Regional college or university.
Also, what are some ways to determine the name recognition in a different part of the country? For instance, after our child finishes college, we are likely to move to a different part of the country. Thus, one possibility would be for our child to attend college in that different area of the country with the intention of building a social network up there. So how can one tell if a college is unknown nationally but well thought of locally, or if it also has little name recognition in its home state or in states that neighbor it?
Lastly, is name recognition important with respect to getting internships or that first job or two? I acknowledge that after the first couple of jobs, one’s alma mater has little impact on employment.
And for the purposes of this post, let us assume that a student is not interested in working in investment banking or at a FANG company as those fields are heavily dependent on probably not just name recognition, but prestige as well.
Studies have been done on this issue. As I recall, the strongest “brand names” had football teams whose games attract national attention, West Point/Naval Academy and Air force Academy, and Notre Dame.
After that- recognition by “lay people” falls off pretty quickly. My takeaway? I wouldn’t worry about it. People know the colleges in their own region or where they grew up. Even people in Pennsylvania don’t always understand the difference between U Penn (private, in Philadelphia) and Penn State (the public flagship). Even people who pay taxes in Virginia don’t recognize the names of some of the VA public schools!
Unless you are looking at a very obscure, poorly funded college, this seems to me to be a tertiary consideration AFTER things like academic fit, overall environment, etc.
This thread is more for philosophy on college selection rather than in developing an immediate college list. But for discussion’s sake, one can say it’s an undecided major.
But let’s take something like University of Mary Washington. It’s a publicly funded Virginia college…have most people in Virginia heard of it? What about in NC, WV, MD, or D.C.? Or are there any negative local associations? For instance, there’s a regional college that a certain segment of the population calls Slow Learners University to match the college’s initials, rather than the official name.
So my main question really is about name recognition. But it’s also in part about trying to figure out whether a college diploma is worth the paper it’s written on. There are high schools where students have graduated who have to take a number of remedial classes when they arrive at a post-secondary campus and their SAT/ACT scores are poor. One doesn’t need to have a USNWR ranking to figure out that the high school may not be the greatest place for an education. I guess I wish there was something similar for colleges. Like average MCAT, LSAT, and GRE scores (or other certifications, whether for nursing, nutrition, architecture, etc) to see whether students are learning what they’re supposed to learn, and percentage of students employed in a job that requires a college diploma (percentage of graduates employees without specifying a minimum requirement always makes me question the value of the statistic). Actually, the latter could be percentage employed in a field related to the major (particularly for something like fashion merchandising or journalism) and then percentage employed requiring a Bachelor’s.
So since something like part of my dream methodology doesn’t exist (that I’m aware of), I guess I’m trying to see whether local name recognition might provide some indications of this type of data (if employers are usually disappointed with a university’s grads, then that might affect the value of that college’s degrees, but if they’re pleased and regularly return for recruitment, then the college seems as though it’s doing what it should).
I’ve worked in corporate recruiting and talent management for over 35 years (mostly big corporations) and so from my perspective “local name recognition” is pretty irrelevant to the way we think about hiring, developing recruiting targets, etc. If I’m staffing up a two year rotational management training program which will include one or two stints overseas, I’m looking at BYU. The seniors (used to be just the men, now the women are increasingly going on missions) have worked overseas already and understand that working in Lima doesn’t mean hanging out on the Champs Elysee every night; most seniors are fluent in one or two languages besides English, and for the most part, they see an overseas stint as a perk and not a pain. I don’t care what the locals think of it, it goes on the list!
The same dynamic works in reverse- when I recruited in aerospace, we loved Missouri M&T. Locals have heard of it, it has VERY low name recognition in the “general public” outside the region, but who cares? It turns out exceptionally trained engineers (chem and mechanical) and if you need to rotate your talent between a facility in Cedar Rapids and one in Duluth, you’re going to have better retention with your hires from M&T than from Lehigh or any of the UC’s.
I’d be more concerned with actual academic rigor- how hard is it to graduate, how substantive are the particular disciplines, what are the academic resources like-- and less concerned with what lay people think about a particular college. Lay people don’t know that Cal Tech is a private university and is not a community college which focuses on computer programming; Lay people don’t know where Rice is (or what it is for that matter).
So still trying to figure out why you would care about “local” name recognition. I’m sure the “locals” think that College of the Atlantic is the best college in Maine. It provides jobs in a high cost of living/low employment opportunity part of the state- so from that perspective it IS the best! But I promise you that most people across the country have no clue about what it is, where it is, or what makes it special.
I appreciate the feedback. I don’t know if I care as much about “lay” people, but do local & state accounting firms recruit students (or even just hire students/interns) from the university? Or does a local insurance agency hire a liberal arts grad from those universities? So it’s less lay people in general vs the local employers. But you’ve inspired me to start another thread… (which is here)
And it seems this post may have been posted in the wrong forum. I consider this a subject of interest for College Search & Selection, but is this forum just for finding a list of colleges or choosing from amongst colleges? If so, which forum should this be under?
I appreciate what you’re trying to gather with this post. I have a high stat student but we are full pay so we are agonizing over value and ROI. Can I really justify almost $80,000 per year (and digging into retirement funds or home equity) for a Cornell or Washington and Lee? What about $55k/year out of pocket for Santa Clara? Amazing school but she’s likely headed back to the southeast, where no one has heard of it, after graduation. Such a tough call.
I am not an expert on local employment trends so defer to someone else who might be.
But (for example) Stonehill (you might not have heard of it) has a strong accounting program which “punches above its weight” among employers in New England. University of New Haven (not a public U- it’s private) has a couple of niche programs considered top notch- public/fire safety, labor relations to name two. I doubt anyone outside of the New Haven region knows anything about the college (and most people think it’s a branch of U Conn which it’s not) but if you are in the public safety or labor relations field, you know the school and think highly of the program. U Maine has an exceptional program in pulp and paper and supplies a lot of the paper industry (outside of New England). Temple has a fantastic program in actuary science; I doubt most people could find it or have heard of it.
Is this the type of information you are looking for?
Then there’s another cut entirely- which is “Universities that people have heard of but have surprises”. U Mass- one of the top linguistics programs in the country. Or “I didn’t know that”- Lawrence and Classics.
But all of this is driven by rigor (see my earlier post). Regional accounting firms are going to be hiring new grads who will then sit for the CPA. They don’t want kids on the payroll who can’t pass the test. Insurance firms will hire new grads who will not yet have completed all of the sections for the actuarial exams-- again, why hire kids who are going to flame out? It’s like hiring a lawyer who was at the top of his/her class in law school but can’t pass the bar! (yes, it happens).
Is this helpful???
What would help me be more helpful to you would be knowing which colleges you’re concerned about and at least I can share my own perspective.
If it’s George Mason, Beloit, Ithaca college- places like that which might not have a strong national presence- I can reassure you, people who hire and graduate programs know these schools. If it’s Liberty U- that gets shaky. The college has attracted a lot of attention in the last few years and NOT for being an intellectual powerhouse. TU (in Tulsa- again, private U, not a branch of the public flagship)- folks who need to know have heard of it. Very strong program in Cybersecurity btw… drop that name at the FBI or CIA and trust me, they know the school even if most people can’t locate it…
IMO the decision makers (future employers, grad school admission departments) know the top colleges…even ones the general public may not have heard of.
I’m very much with @blossom. People doing the hiring for jobs where there might be a difference in institutions, know the institutions they trust. And, they are frequently not the ones the mass market and CC posters may think of. For other jobs where it just doesn’t matter, like healthcare, accounting, etc. it’s a matter of getting over the licensing hurdles, that’s it. There are a rare few where institution matters, say say quantitative analytics, where MIT stands (rightly or wrongly) head and shoulders above the rest. Otherwise, it makes little to no difference.
Okay, it can be hard to have a purely philosophical discussion with no specifics. So for the purpose of the discussion, here are a variety of southern colleges and universities. Nothing tippy-top or super elite, but schools that the majority of kids planning to go to college could probably be accepted into.
Private Universities
• Berry College
• Birmingham-Southern College
• Loyola University New Orleans
• Mercer University
• Millsaps College
• Presbyterian College
• Samford University
• Shenandoah University
Lower tier Private Universities than the above (at least vis a vis grad rates)
• Catawba College
• Centenary College of Louisiana
• Lenoir-Rhyne University
• Oglethorpe University
• Queens University of Charlotte
• Spring Hill College
• Wingate University
Public Universities
• Appalachian State University
• Louisiana Tech University
• Nicholls State University
• Radford University
• University of Louisiana – Lafayette
• University of Mary Washington
• University of Montevallo
• University of North Carolina – Charlotte
• University of Southern Mississippi
For an undecided student, would any of these be fine? Would any of these raise a red flag? And more importantly, how would this be determined if one wasn’t going to jump on CC to ask?
What would you think of a BYU grad who wasn’t doing a rotational training program in Peru? Or a Missouri M&T grad who wasn’t in aerospace? Or a Stonehill grad who didn’t major in accounting, or a University of New Haven grad who wasn’t in public/fire safety or labor relations? BYU also has name recognition (again, football helps), but I hadn’t heard of the other universities you mentioned (apart from Temple & U. Mass). But if one wasn’t in a a specialty/niche program for which a college is well-known (within the relevant circles), then what about them?
I’m in NC. I am not in a hiring position, but I would not encourage my kid to go to Catawba, or Wingate for sure. Not very thrilled with Lenoir-Rhyne, but it could be okay. I’m a little biased politically against Catawba (McCrory) and Wingate (Helms).
App State and UNC-C are really excellent mid-tier schools. I think very favorably of them and think they do well with employers regionally for sure, but wider than that also. I think they are a little more selective than other schools on your list.
I think Radford is a little meh, but that is based on having a friend who attended and was not favorably impressed when she took her daughter for a college visit last year.
I recognize the names of some of the others, but don’t have an opinion on them.
I have heard of most of these (even visited a few) but mostly because many of them are in the same sport division my daughter played in and she either played the school or I knew them from the rankings.
Honestly, most other people won’t have heard of them or know what type of schools they are. But then again, hardly anyone knew my daughter’s school, Florida Tech. Even those from Florida hadn’t heard of it, and we lived only 2 hours from the school. The only one who knew it was our dentist because it is a science school.
Also, Florida Tech (like MIT, Cal Tech, Illinois Tech) is a private school while GA Tech, Virginia Tech and Texas Tech are public schools. You can’t always tell by the name.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Pick a school that you like. Some pretty famous people have graduated from some small schools. However, if the student is undecided, make sure the school is big enough to offer classes in several subjects until student decides. Presbyterian has 1200 students. When we looked at it, there were 5 professors in the physics department. It was just too small for my daughter (and IMO, for any science major).
But those schools don’t play in the same league for name recognition at all!
I agree most people don’t know very much at all about schools and what they are really good at. But I’m sure it does help if people can at least associate something with a name; if that something is vaguely positive, all the better. Cue football or basketball reputations which really don’t have anything to do with academic quality or professional reputation with recruiters at all.
So, App State and UNC-Charlotte most people will be able to associate with a state whose public college system they respect, even though they may know very little about the actual schools.
The Louisiana schools people will be able to at least associate with the state; how much they respect that state’s system is probably a very individual matter. But they will know “state flagship” and “state tech school” and have a vague picture in their heads of what these schools and their respective student bodies are like. Other state schools on the list are either not recognisable as state schools at all (University of Mary Washington) or no one who hasn’t heard of them could place them.
Some schools they will associate with “brand names” or lists. Loyola NO they will associate vaguely with Jesuit schools and at least be a vague idea that they are respected for their education, whatever they think of Catholic orders. Musicians and their parents may remember seeing it, and Shenandoah, on a list of schools recommended for music, so vaguely associate them with “good for something”.
Birmingham Southern, I think, is on the list of Colleges That Change Lives. Something one can reference, and people will have vaguely positive associations about it, even if they have no idea what CTCL schools are actually known for and focus on.
Berry College regularly features on “most beautiful campus” lists.
Heck, Samford turns up on lists of “colleges that tend to get confused with other schools”. At least you’ve read about it!
I’d think graduates from those colleges who draw a more regional student body will meet mostly regional recruiters, who may need a little positive association.
