Employers for the most part are not focusing on USNWR ranking. However, things like location can have more influence. Using your example, I’d expect recruiters and career fair participants at University of Arkansas are far more likely to be represent Arkansas companies than recruiters and career fair participants at University of Oregon. U Arkansas is also likely to have stronger networking and past employment history at Arkansas companies, more/easier opportunities for internships that lead to jobs at Arkansas companies, etc. In general, if you want to work in Arkansas after graduating, University of Arkansas is going to provide a good number of advantages over University of Oregon.
There are also likely variations across specific majors and career fields. Continuing with the example, it’s my understanding that University of Oregon does not offer much in engineering, including no ABET accredited engineering majors, which also no doubt influences opportunities and which employers choose to be involved in the colleges. If you are interested in engineering, Arkansas or Oregon State is likely to be a better choice than Oregon in spite of both being ranked much lower in USNWR.
If you ignore location bias, recruiting, career fair, past hires, in company networking and similar; and instead ask whether an out of state employers, such as Qualcomm San Diego, who was looking at only a resume would prefer an Oregon State electrical engineering major vs a University of Arkansas electrical engineering engineering major, I expect that the school name or USNWR ranking would have relatively little influence on the decision. Instead Qualcomm would likely focus on other factors such as whether the candidate had relevant work experience doing something similar to the desired position, appeared to have the desired skill sets to be successful on the job, etc. In the survey at https://chronicle-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/5/items/biz/pdf/Employers%20Survey.pdf employers marked college reputation as the least influential factor when evaluation resumes of new grads for hiring purposes. Internships and employment during college were marked as the most influential factors.
I also suspect many employers would have a small bias toward Arkansas or Oregon State over Grassy Quad LAC or Cutting Edge Selective Tech University from a far off state, even if the latter institutions are highly ranked by US News, because I think employers think they know what they are getting with a public university and an unfamiliar smaller school could be more of a question mark.
Edited to add: I say this as a proud grad of a Grassy Quad LAC, btw.
Awesome, all. Thanks.
Daughter was accepted to a bunch of those schools but she’s totally pumped on Arkansas. Just didn’t want her to feel like she’s “settling” for something less.
Name recognition for me as an employer plays a role. I will sort through resumes and give preference to specific colleges giving the least credence to less selective private colleges.
I don’t hire nationally, but I would give a lot of credit to attending in-state flagships. I have interviewed Rutgers graduates, our in-state flagship who have been accepted into the top 25 schools but chose Rutgers. because it is the best education for the money.
Also, I will almost always look at resumes from less-selective public schools. My last hire got into several more selective schools but went because she could live at home and take the bus.
If you reread, I wrote less-selective public colleges. We have a less selective private college and a less selective public college local that we draw from. In my experience, I have had more success with the state school than the private one. A majority of the local public college students work and go to school. Overall I find a better work ethic from the candidates at the public school. Admittedly I have developed a built-in bias.
Are you talking about less selective private colleges that you’re familiar with? What would you do with an applicant from a private school you’d never heard of? It sounds like there is one particular school that you’ve had a subpar experience with, but what about ones out of your region?
If somebody attended a less selective public school but did not work simultaneously or live from home, would that impact your assessment of their candidacy for a position?
I have been doing this for a long time. When it has an employer’s market, there would be situations I would be culling through dozens and dozens of resumes. For entry- and second-level hiring, the college played a big part. It’s a hard question for me to answer. If I were not familiar with a school, I would most likely put it down on the pile and look at schools I was more familiar with first.
With all things being equal, I was looking at two less selective schools that I was not familiar with; one public and one private. I probably would look at the state school candidate first. When it comes to more selective schools, public or private would not be a factor.
I find your biases fascinating and wonder which field you are in. Most of our better students will go private if they get one at roughly an equal cost (finances count a lot where I work). Most of our better students get private schools down to at least the cost of a public.
The majority of our students go to the “lesser” public colleges, no doubt (meaning PASSHE schools, not Penn St, Pitt, or Temple). Just not most of our better students (work ethic and grade wise). Engineering majors are an exception due to the nature of the major, but our local commute from home or “have a full time job while getting an education” students are not engineering majors. There are no such schools within a commute from us.
For our area you’d have to be in a field where you are looking for average college students (SAT approx 1000, generally not very inclined to do HW or put extra effort into an assignment, only want to study - maybe - what’s on the test though also content to not study, but just accept the grade based upon what they picked up in class) vs our better students who truly try and put effort in.
I haven’t thought it through to such an extent. It is only part of a prioritizing process that I used back when there was an abundance of candidates. Hiring is like a puzzle, and I try to find the right fit for the particular job.
I mostly hire sales, marketing, and process, and project management. teams. Like I mentioned earlier, college plays a more significant role for entry and second-level jobs. However, when higher-level hiring, work experience becomes the most critical factor.
No. I only use looking at colleges as a way to prioritize resumes. As I responded earlier, hiring for me is like a puzzle, you try to find the right fit for the right job.
When interviewing, one of the questions I will ask is why they chose a particular school. I remember one situation where a candidate had told me they earned almost a totally free ride to the state flagship but stayed home and went to Brooklyn College because family responsibility took priority.
An equal important question is the opportunity cost of the tuition-what would you do with the money if you don’t use it for higher education? Cars? Vacations? A second home? My husband and I value educational experiences, so we paid more for the colleges the kids wanted to attend, rather than take the very good and free options available to them. They could have received a fine education and likely a good outcome at the other options, but they preferred and benefitted from their experience at their top choices. And that is what we think our money should be used for.
There is no cut and dry answer to this question. In my field name recognition is not important at all. Certification is important.
One of my kids attended a college with zero name recognition. None at all nationally, and some in our state really have not heard of it. She got into an excellent graduate school in her field (a school that is very well known nationally).
My other child graduated from a school with very strong name recognition. I do believe it helped - she was recruited for her gap year program. This organization does not recruit at her sibling’s school.
Name recognition does not matter where I work. Experience matters…and your resume will be looked at in detail. Nobody cares where you went to school….even if you attended one with strong name recognition.
I think what gets lost on most in this calculus is that you don’t have to spend the money. It can be invested. Opportunity cost is the value over the full career that the education provided.
This is in no way always advocating the cheapest route. We certainly didn’t. It is to say that the cost differential is far more than most realize. It can amount to multiple millions if accounted for properly.
Very true, but then I can say that about everything on which one spends money, like the things @roycroftmom listed. If they had saved every penny they spent on vacations, nicer cars, etc., that money could have been invested and represent some compelling dollar amount now.
But like she said, she and her husband valued education. I would take it further and say it doesn’t necessarily need to be a top school. If you think your kid will flourish and get a lot out of the University of Puget Sound, a good but hardly elite LAC, and a person wants to spend the money for that, then that’s good enough for me.
There is a cohort here (and in society in general) that takes a purely utilitarian view of higher ed. I don’t, and I’m not alone. I wanted my kids to be educated for its own sake, and I trusted (and was right) that the career part would take care of itself. Of course, my kids are lucky in that they have parents who have enough money to incubate if they need a little more time after undergrad to figure out the next move. I understand and needn’t be told that there are people who aren’t in that situation. Many boyfriends have come through my doors, more than a few of which were in the other situation. I counseled them accordingly.
But back to the main point: even if I had less money and my kids’ educations were my top priority, then I think it’s ok to spend the money there and prioritize it over other things. People spend money on things all the time that make me scratch my head. Education for their children isn’t one of them.
I’m not in any way saying that the cheapest way should be the de facto choice. I am saying that real cost differences are bigger than what most realize. You can’t look at earnings potential differences between schools across a career, without also amortization of the cost difference over the same period. Cost though should be just another piece of data, not the thing (for most) that rules all.
I found it not so much fascinating as curious. So it sounds like it goes, if selective, ignore public/private distinction. Ok, that’s fair. If not selective, prioritize public over private.
Of course, we all know that all institutions produce kids who will go on to be very successful. That’s a given. But if we’re going to get right to the heart of the matter and not dance around it, there are also a lot of kids at lower selectivity institutions that are going to school as merely a checking-the-box exercise. I personally know a lot of them. Those kids are to be found at both less selective public and private schools, though it’s not clear to me where you will find more of them. In my area at least, $65,000 / yr. tends to cull the herd a little bit. Breaking it down simply, there are kids whose families can afford it and most who can’t. Of those who can’t, I expect fewer box checkers in the population who are trying to figure out financial aid, merit, savings, etc. And even amongst the more wealthy, it feels like a different slice of the demographic. I know a lot of people who can write the check for their kid, but they tend to do it for the kid who is at least somewhat serious about school, and not so much for the kid in their family who is “still trying to figure out what they want to do.” Of course, those are anecdotally-based points of view and not meant to be conveyed as categorical truths.
IDK, this sounds more like a personal philosophy rather than a utilitarian thought process. St. Martin’s College in Olympia is not super selective. Nor is Central Washington University. I can’t imagine on what basis I would slide one of those resumes under the other knowing only the school.
