<p>Who in the hell wants to compete for jobs that require an Ivy-league degree, a 3.99999 GPA, 1,002 extra-curricular activities and 20 written recommendations…just to get to the 2nd stage of interviews??</p>
<p>10,000 grads trying to get 125 jobs.</p>
<p>Nah…</p>
<p>I rather specialize in some hot I.T./C.S. area where there are 10,000 jobs for 125 grads…where all I have to do is E-MAIL a resume (without a cover letter) and wait for the phone to ring. With the right skill area and years of experience, companies will pay you $100,000 to $175,000 as an employee or you can bill as an independent $90-$115/hour. You can pretty much leave a company JUST BECAUSE they don’t have a Starbucks or the Admin Assistant is not pretty enough.</p>
<p>…with a degree from University of <fill in=“” the=“” state=“”> or <fill in=“” the=“” state=“”> University.</fill></fill></p>
<p>If you want to work for google, don’t go to an ivy across the country that gets a bunch of recruiters from google… just go to a school located near google. Just go to a top 75 (mine is something like #78 this year :/) located near a whole bunch of businesses in the industry and you’ll get a job regardless</p>
<p>Ivies have the best recruiting in the country, both from engineering and finance. It is obvious that Ivy League engineers earn more than engineers from other schools on average. A major reason is because a lot of them don’t stay in engineering. Average starting salary at for UPenn SEAS grads is higher than Carnegie Mellon’s (and schools of similar stature).</p>
<p>Do you really think that an highly-ranked engineering school like Georgia Tech or even UCLA will look better to an employer over an Ivy? Obviously not. People who go to Ivies tend to be smarter and I think the educational experience one receives there surpasses other engineering schools (except for MIT, Stanford and Harvey Mudd).</p>
<p>An Ivy-league engineer will not be paid much more to make up that difference in tuition. That is the point of this thread. If a EE major from a Top-50 school is offered say $60,000 right out of commencement, the Ivy-league engineer will be offered no more than $70,000. Take into account that the perceived “difference between schools” will be smaller as the number of years of experience increases, so it is very possible that an Ivy-league engineer and the State-U grad will make the same income after 5-7 years of experience.</p>
<p>Yeah except the major difference is that Ivy League engineers are much more likely to get other opportunities. They can go into finance or management easily, and Ivy League schools have much better placement into grad schools. If you look at the 10 year surveys, the average salaries shoot up for engineers. A lot get their Masters and MBAs from top 10 universities. The same does not hold for state engineering schools, though it is possible (but less likely) that an individual can go on the same route.</p>
<p>I primarily meant business school, but plenty end up in top engineering programs too (like phd comp sci at Carnegie Mellon, look at the same UPenn survey you linked).</p>
<p>Regardless of my age, I know plenty of Ivy League grads and state school grades. It wouldn’t be surprising to hear that the UMichigan engineering grad I know isn’t earning as much about the Princeton engineering grad. </p>
<p>Being highly ranked in a particular program really doesn’t matter as much for undergraduate as it does for postgraduate because the resources available at any school are more than sufficient for an undergrad education (unless you want to engage in undergrad research, which in any case won’t really work out well because research is typically reserved for postgraduate students). So the Gates Center at CMU probably isn’t going to enrich my undergrad experience as much as the contacts (or opportunities) from an Ivy League school. It really comes down to cost though, it is worth if if you can afford it (might not be worth going into debt for).</p>
So schools like Columbia, Princeton, and Cornell, won’t help me get into an engineering grad program with a stipend at say Stanford? What kind of schools do have better placement into grad schools for engineering? Other schools on my list are Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Michigan, and Rice.</p>
<p>LOL, this is why actual corporate experience and “real life witnessing” counts so much. Experienced engineers (from State schools) can get into some Top-10 programs based on the ACTUAL experience and the type of Masters program they select. Some of those same top schools will weigh actual experience more than the GRE, GMAT, grades and school as far as admission. That is why programs like “Master of Engineering”, “MS Engineering-Non Thesis” and “Executive MBA” programs exists.</p>
<p>My guess is you haven’t actually done a CS degree at CMU. I didn’t know anyone in the program there that didn’t engage in research as an undergrad. It’s pretty much an expected part of the curriculum there.</p>
<p>We should require each poster to identify his or her situation in life: high school student who knows everything, college student who knows a lot, or experienced engineer who obviously don’t know a thing! LOL.</p>
<p>The thread is an old one but worth discussing. I am an engineer and has been in this profession for a while. Has hired engineers before. So my observation is based on not only on my professional experience, but also a personal one as my DS is now trying to get into one of these schools for an engineering degree. Here are some of things we have discussed before with him .</p>
<p>1) Never accumulate 200K loan for an undergraduate degree. I dont care what that degree is and where it is from. But when you are 22 years old, with 200K loan you are pretty much going to be paying this loan off rest of your life. With an UG degree.
2) Always optimize the name brand of the college and the financial scholarship (no strings attached) money they offer. In other words, if your cost of attending the college (out of you and your parents pocket) is greater than 15K, say no. Unless of course you are rich and you can afford it.
3) In a tight job market, Brand name recognition may set you apart for a job you are interviewing. For example, if there are two very similar candidates, with identical qualifications, and all things considered equal, you may be preferred over the other for that name brand recognition. But mind you only in this situation. In other words, if same GPA, same experiences, same interview outcome, then … I have seen this several times.</p>
<p>4) If they really want you for that brand name, typically they offer you an initial package that is higher than the normal package say by 5K, why not make it 10K. That is it. After you join the firm/company, its really the results of the person that get them where they go! Not the name brand the UG college name!</p>
<p>5) They say the networking of their alums that makes the difference. I truly think this is a ploy of these schools to stay in business, to get the kids to these schools and to pay these big money.</p>
<p>6) I think the UG tuition in our country is bloated, that needs a big correction. I dont think we can justify 50K/yr for any of these colleges.</p>
<p>^Re: #5. I know the networking of alums at the University of Texas for engineering is really strong. And just think - since it’s a big school, there are LOTS of Texas Exes out there who would give preference to a qualified UT grad. So big, public schools have an advantage in that respect.</p>
<p>Idk. Does that include all of the Penn people who are going into ph.D. programs? It looks like with lots of grads at places like Goldman Sachs, their salaries should be a lot higher. </p>
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<p>Yes, it does make the difference in a lot of industries. Being targeted for OCR matters. If your schools is not targeted, you either have to network with alums or cold call/email. The latter is close to worthless unless the field is very uncompetitive.</p>
<p>I imagine it doesn’t, since schools typically separate out students that are going to grad school or doing stuff like Teach for America since it’ll drag down their salary numbers. I haven’t looked at the others, but if they’re including grad schools you should see their lowest salary numbers being anywhere from $17k to $25k.</p>
<p>Which is exactly my point. Why go into something that is super-competitive but not going to pay much more when you can find a high-demand niche and don’t have to be concerned about networks, alums and targeted schools?</p>