LAC Finding Jobs?

<p>I'm really falling in love with some LACs. The top ones all seem to be in small towns. How hard is it to find a good job (for MBA applicant) while studying at a LAC? I'm leaning towards schools like Dartmouth and UPenn (my top two choices), and similar schools for my lower choices, because I need to get a good job, preferably at a bank.</p>

<p>If you are a likely candidate for Dartmouth and Penn, you should look at Williams and Amherst. Both are well known on Wall Street and at big financial and consulting institutions. Location is not an issue as the key is to secure meaningful summer internships and to make connections with alumni/ae in the field. </p>

<p>Williams and Amherst have excellent career and graduate school advising as well as excellent access to internships in finance. They have excellent track records for getting their students into top graduate and professional schools. If you are reasonably motivated, attending an LAC will not hold you back from a great career in finance.</p>

<p>@momrath Thank you for your response. Wouldn’t Penn and Dartmouth have equally great connections with alumni? I still feel like the big universities would give me a better opportunity. I definitely love Williams, and I’ll look into Amherst though.</p>

<p>Colgate and Holy Cross have great alumni networks and are slightly easier than Williams and Amherst to get into.</p>

<p>Dartmouth and UPenn are not LACs. Dartmouth has a LAC feel but UPenn is like the opposite of an LAC. Williams and Amherst are true LACs. I think you’re confused on the meaning of a liberal arts school. </p>

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Yes, of course, Penn and Dartmouth are excellent entrees to business and finance careers and graduate schools, as are the rest of the Ivy League and several other highly selective universities. </p>

<p>However, if you prefer the ambiance and teaching style of a small LAC, you don’t have to sacrifice connections and career opportunities. As I mentioned above, LACs like Williams, Amherst and several others have excellent track records in job placement and in graduate school admissions – notably in MBA programs – and their graduates are well represented in Wall Street and the major financial and consulting firms. </p>

<p>You’ll do best at the type of school that fits you best in size, culture and environment, and doing well will lead to opportunities. Careers don’t suddenly happen upon graduation but are a cumulative process of internships, connections and recommendations over the course of your undergraduate years. In the areas that you’re interested LACs like Williams and Amherst offer the same level of opportunity as large universities,. Some could argue even better because of their active and accessible alumni/ae network, the extensive career and graduate school placement counseling and the personal recommendations that professors regularly provide.</p>

<p><a href=“http://careers.williams.edu/grad-school/business-school/”>http://careers.williams.edu/grad-school/business-school/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>@kei04086 I know Dartmouth and Penn aren’t LACs. Because I believed attending LACs would have less opportunities for jobs, I preferred the larger universities, Dartmouth and Penn. However, @momrath has convinced me that job placement should not be a concern because LACs have just as good opportunities. Thank you, @momrath!</p>

<p>@momrath is spot on, its not hard to find a good job after graduating from a top LAC. I’ve actually heard its impossible to be unemployed if you’ve graduated from Williams because a Williams alum will hire you to help maintain the schools rep.</p>

<p>@CHD2013 Thank you for your response. Do you know anything about undergrad internships? </p>

<p>A little. The top schools have many opportunities through on-campus recruiting. Its much more difficult if you’re not at a Target School. Opportunities also exist outside the normal recruiting channels through networking and cold-calling.</p>

<p>@CHD2013 Thanks. It looks like the top LACs are equal to top universities, but lower ones will require more effort to get a job/intern. Do you know if Carleton College can be counted as a target? It’s got a higher acceptance rate, but I like it as much as Williams.</p>

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<p>Well… that is BS. Here is the thing – you have to hustle hard these days to get a job out of any college, and that includes Penn, Dartmouth, Williams, Carleton, etc. The college doesn’t “get you a job”. You have to work on your resume with the career center, make a list of target companies and look for job postings or sign up for interview slots in the career center, develop your interview skills, hustle to get summer internships experience to build your resume for post-college job applications, look for meaningful work on or near campus that helps with your skills, build a network (LinkedIn is great for this) of older students you know who graduate and go out into the working world and also your internship contacts, get decent grades so you don’t get tossed out of the applicant pool due to that, be persistent and work on a lot of leads at once, and get a degree in an area that has decent employment prospects.</p>

<p>You can get a “good job” out of any of the colleges listed here if you do those things. And if you don’t, you can go to any college and not be happy with your employment situation at the end.</p>

<p>@intparent I’m sure all of that is implied and inherent. What my questions mean is how much easier, likelier, etc. to get a better job/internship at either LACs or universities in major cities. I am also more focused on the opportunities. For example, I thought going to a large university would be better because of the city environment, whereas rural towns don’t provide as great an opportunity. I have since learned that the strong alumni network and career counseling in smaller LACs make them equally great. </p>

<p>Of course, I must do my part to get a good job, and I don’t expect to be handed a job because I went to Williams or Dartmouth. </p>

<p>P.S No need to use semi-harsh language with @CHD2013. He was probably exaggerating a little to emphasize the strong alumni network. </p>

<p>^Thanks for having my back. I wasn’t exaggerating but I did slightly misspeak. </p>

<p>To clarify, I have actually heard someone (it was a senior hedge fund professional) say that its impossible to be unemployed if you’ve graduated from Williams because a Williams alum will hire you to help maintain the schools rep. I do agree though with intparent that “The college doesn’t “get you a job”.” Nevertheless, the fact that financial executives make such strong (if erroneous) comments about Williams is a good indicator of the strength of Williams’ alumni network.</p>

<p>Williams does not have a stronger alumni network than any other top LAC. That is why his comment doesn’t make sense. Except maybe in art history… but that is not your field of interest.</p>

<p>I am having trouble with your logic. The pure reason of being located in a city vs. outside a city isn’t very relevant in this electronic age of job applications. Do you think you will get a walk-in interview at Morgan Stanley because you are in the same city? </p>

<p>One of my kids went to an LAC (2nd tier) and interned at the Department of State and in a US Senator’s office (which are decent internship in the poli sci world, which is her interest). She and her boyfriend both got really good jobs at consulting firms after graduation. My second kid goes to an LAC that regularly places interns with Google, Microsoft, and SpaceX, and also is a significant feeder to Silicon Valley firms post-graduation.</p>

<p>I often think the “alumni network” is overrated. The alumni you actually know are helpful (and my kid did get her job partly because a student a couple years ahead of her that she knew said they were hiring and my kid got the job). But the “general” alumni pool, not as much for any school. </p>

<p>What I am saying is that if you do the things I listed in my previous post, you can go to schools well down the rankings from Williams or Penn or Dartmouth and do very, very well in life. Many students asking this question somehow think the job is just going to come to them if they go to the right school. Honestly, after getting your first job, it isn’t about where your degree is from anyway. It is about what you learned and what you can do for the company every day to add value. So pick the school that offers the degree and coursework you want that doesn’t bust your budget. Don’t worry about the “name” or “alumni network” as much.</p>

<p>@intparent Contrary to your comment, I have heard others say to make sure the college I go to is in a city with many opportunities for jobs. Although there may not be a huge advantage, I still do think there’s a little advantage in having a large office in the same city you are in school at. Could there be some sort of relationship between the office a</p>

<p>Regarding Williams, I like it primarily because of the Williams-Exeter program, its Justice and Law concentration (minor), and its campus. I was worried about jobs, because of its relatively rural location. Obviously, as you said, there’s not much to worry about. </p>

<p>I think the biggest difference between going to a school in a city vs. going to a school not in a city is the fact that if you are at school in a large city, you can do internships during the school year to gain skills, burnish your resume, and grow your connections.</p>

<p>Based purely on personal anecdotal information, my son who went to college in DC had a much easier time finding a wonderful post-graduation job than his friends who chose to go to equally wonderful schools but in less urban locations.</p>

<p>His resume was just much different than theirs. He had offers both from internship employers and from others that he had not interned for. And the people he listed as his recommenders were able to testify to his workplace skills as well as him being an all around smart, nice kid with a good work ethic.</p>

<p>@boysx3 Yes, that’s also been on my mind. I would ideally like to intern while in school, but that would be next to impossible in small towns. Dartmouth remains my sole first choice. I suppose I should go visit each of the towns/cities to actually see what it’s like, though. </p>

<p>Can anyone comment on the workload of college life? How likely am I to maintain an internship while studying?</p>

<p>Yes, I think you have hit on one of the issues. Can you find a part time internship during the school year that you can fit in around your academic schedule (and also around work study or a part time job if you have to work during the school year and if the internship is unpaid)? One of my kids did an internship from her LAC at a local organization part time during a semester – unpaid, and it was challenging to work a decent number of hours at the internship while in class. Plus transportation time to the internship took a bite out of her week. The internships she did during summers and one semester when her college had an internship program where she could get college credit were much more valuable for her long term. There are a few schools that sort of sell the “during the year” internship opportunities and the workload supports being able to do that (American and GW come to mind). But most top schools are pretty tough academically without adding 15 hours or more a week for travel/internship time.</p>

<p>Kid #2 is honestly working too hard at a top school to have time to intern during the school year. It depends on the school, but at most top schools you are going to struggle to do both and maintain good grades.</p>

<p>You say you need to visit the cities/towns – have you been to the colleges yet? If not, that is far, far more important than the town around them. You spend 95%+ of your time on the college campus, you need to be focused on the feel of the campus, majors and classes, social vibe, etc. in addition to whether you can get an internship during the school year. I don’t think you are wrong to be considering the post-graduation employment picture, but every college you listed is going to serve you well in getting a good job post-graduation.</p>

<p>I will say that it is generally easier to get a job in the same geographic region of the country as your college location, especially for students who are not “go getters” in their job search (which many college students aren’t). But there are a lot of national companies who will interview you for locations at other offices – I am thinking of the big consulting companies who interview, look for good candidates, and then give some weight to your preference for what office you want to work out of, for example.</p>

<p>@intparent Thank you for all your comments so far. What’s drawn me to Dartmouth (other than some academic programs I’m really interested in) is their D-Plan. Basically I get to move my summer vacation to another part of the year, to get an internship, instead of working with every other intern during the summer.</p>

<p>If I do choose an LAC, I will, as you said, rely on the summer.</p>

<p>Could you please also comment on this thread about LACs and Universities?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1641394-academics-lac-vs-university.html?new=1”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1641394-academics-lac-vs-university.html?new=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;