<p>"Hundreds of chief executives and chairmen, chosen from leading companies in 10 countries, were asked to select the top universities from which they recruited. Compiled by the surveying company Emerging, the list displays the top 150 universities most frequently selected."</p>
<p>Surprised not to see Waterloo on that list, though maybe that’s because Waterloo is mainly focused on engineering? Seems like every elite software company gets half their employees from Waterloo! Just anecdotes of course though.</p>
<p>Glad to see UCLA doing well. Our career fairs are pretty dang good. Rather, every company I’ve ever been interested in is represented.</p>
<p>Yeah some shockers and interesting placements.</p>
<p>My brief thoughts:</p>
<p>Princeton
Northwestern
Cal
UCSF - (Medical school)
U Mich - way too low
UCLA - probably too high
Penn - probably low because they graduate so few people (See LACs)
USC - probably indicative of its insular nature (SoCal Trojan network)
Oxbridge - high rankings given my personal experience with Oxbridge grads (relatively few are business minded.
LAC - lack of prominent LACs, probably because of their smaller graduating classes and leanings away from business/capitalism ;)</p>
<p>WhoFriend: I don’t understand what you mean by too high or too low. Are you saying that the people responding to the survey lied? These aren’t college rankings, these are where businesses say they recruit most.</p>
<p>Biology/Medicine heavy schools are disproportionately ranked higher. Perhaps the “surveying company Emerging” values execs from the medical industry more than others, like finance and auditing. </p>
<p>This would explain why Princeton is so low. But it doesn’t explain U Mich’s poor showing.</p>
<p>Using language like “too low” or “too high” was probably misleading/mistaken/incorrect of me. I mean to say that weighed against my personal opinion/experiences in corporate America/average person’s perspective/etc, those aforementioned rankings seem incorrect.</p>
<p>eeewwwwww, third post in a row… I know but,</p>
<p>Additionally, I don’t think these differ from rankings by very much. Yes, these are the opinions of corporate executives and human beings. But aren’t rankings just the amalgamated, weighted opinions of the people doing the ranking? It’s not as though rankings are any less subjective and opinion based.</p>
<p>“But it doesn’t explain U Mich’s poor showing.”</p>
<p>I looked at that list and it’s quite easy to spot why Michigan isn’t ranked higher. See if you can figure it out Whofriend. I’ll give you a hint; look what school is listed at the number 39 position. Once again the mass media screws up a survey simply by not correcting obvious errors in judgment.</p>
<p>The title of this thread is misleading. These aren’t the top colleges – they’re the top universities. You’ll notice that liberal arts colleges are poorly represented, although I’m sure no one would argue that Williams isn’t one of the top undergraduate colleges in the world.</p>
<p>There is a heavy tilt towards business schools. The article this chart comes from is about MBAs:</p>
<p>And of course, larger universities near areas with a lot of jobs will be favored, as these are the easiest and most convenient places to recruit. I suspect the reason UMich isn’t higher is primarily because of the troubles in Detroit.</p>
<p>Among the smaller universities with no business schools on the list, the ones that do best (Princeton, Cal Tech) are known for science and engineering. Brown also does well, considering that it has no business school. It might be a combination of their location, the quality of their students, and the fact that they’re Ivy League.</p>
<p>“I suspect the reason UMich isn’t higher is primarily because of the troubles in Detroit.”</p>
<p>Naww. Michigan isn’t rated higher because it’s name is very similar to another school within the state. Remember that these surveys have a lot of foreigners weighing in where English is not the primary language. Michigan State University is listed at number 39 and Michigan is listed at number 52. It’s obvious that name confusion and a splitting of the votes caused Michigan to be rated so low. I suspect the same thing might have happened to Penn too with PSU taking away some of it’s votes. What bothers me is that the NYT didn’t bother to check about this disparity. Let’s be honest, MSU is a complete outlier in the top 50, but it’s name would come up first in an alphabetical listing. The U-M, more times than not, is usually just listed as Michigan and is a state university.</p>
<p>Missing ivies can be explained by being too small for companies looking for a wide variety of employees. Princeton grads go to a small handful of companies. Survey banks and consulting firms and they’ll be near the top.</p>
<p>i’ve said time and time again that people underestimate UCLA. But if people want to put their fingers in their ears and yell “LALALALALA” that’s fine by me :)</p>
<p>I agree the title is misleading, and I partially agree with what LookingIn has to say about skewing towards institutions with business schools (although Cal and U Mich [probably even if you adjust for the MSU mistake] being ranked unfavorably makes me think this theory doesn’t quite hold water) but I think what the surveying company chose to do, is a bit revealing in itself.</p>
<p>Could it be that their disproportionate inclusion of bio/medical firms, which is my theory for the skew, reveals where they see the future global economy heading towards? Maybe away from the consulting/finance sector?</p>
<p>I’ve organized this list in terms of American schools since I have very little knowledge of foreign universities beyond Oxford and Cambridge and I don’t think anyone on this board is too concerned with them.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Princeton suffers for its lack of a business school while Northwestern and Chicago are boosted by Kellogg and Booth respectively since their MBAs are highly sought after globally.</p></li>
<li><p>Respondents may be mixing up MSU and U of M, Penn and Penn State as well as Texas A&M and UT-Austin but the bigger point is that if these chairmen don’t even know the exact name of these universities, then their name recognition isn’t as great as you think it is.:rolleyes:</p></li>
<li><p>All of the Ivies fall in the top 20 of the American universities listed confirming their high international prestige despite what all the naysayers might argue. State schools besides Berkeley and UCLA aren’t rated as high.</p></li>
<li><p>UCLA and Berkeley are prestigious not only in Asia but all over the world since mostly European CEOs were surveyed here.</p></li>
<li><p>Does anyone have an explanation for Purdue’s high rating? There’s no other university name these executives could possibly mix that up with but it seems to be placed too high.:D</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Purdue’s engineering is top-notch. On par with the kinds of schools that are given much more respect here on CC. </p>
<p>And although it is really in only 1 or 2 niche areas that you can say Purdue is leading the industry nearly all of Purdue’s engineering fields can be argued for top-20 standing.</p>
<p>EDIT:</p>
<p>I’m also standing by my theory of a bio/medical slant. Chicago isn’t necessarily boosted by having Booth. Chicago rightfully belongs in the top 10 of any academic ranking. For me, it carries prestige in all fields: social sciences, humanities, hard sciences etc.</p>
<p>A similar case can be made for Northwestern’s standing but that still doesn’t completely satisfy me.</p>
Dude, why do you think Cal and Michigan are ranked unfavorably? They both outpace their USNWR ranking on this survey (both by 6 spots) and are ranked among the top 25. You’re probably just overrating them if you expected them to crack the top 10 for American schools. UCLA’s performance is somewhat puzzling though…</p>
<p>Because the student body, i.e output, of Cal and Mich are large enough that they should be making larger impacts on surveys like these. Additionally, their heavy, influential research output has created for them tremendous name recognition as institutions of quality.</p>
<p>Lastly, they are strong in all the areas that should help them in these kinds of rankings. Engineering, bio/medical, business, economics, liberal arts.</p>