<p>Fortune</a> 500 CEOs: Which Universities Did They Get Their Degress From?</p>
<p>Pretty impressive!</p>
<p>Although it is certainly cool, I would not say “impressive” 'novi. At the end of the day, becoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company, just like wining the Nobel Prize/Fields Medal/Rhodes scholarship or becoming a billionaire or president of the US etc…; it is such an outlier. However, it must be said that Havard does seem to turn all those outliers into common occurances!!! ;)</p>
<p>Still, Michigan is one of the few universities with undergraduate alums that have gone on to accomplish all of the above (become CEO, president of the US, billionaire, win major scholarships like Rhodes or Marshall and win major prizes, such as the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal). In fact, I think Michigan joins only Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale when it comes to having undergraduate alums accomplish each of the above. The air gets to be pretty thin up there!</p>
<p>Huffington Post is notoriously bad at compiling information so I wouldn’t put a lot of stock into its seemingly daily release of new surveys. At any rate, the list is pretty much what you would expect-a collection of some of the best private schools in the country along with a few of the best publics.</p>
<p>Alexandre, pretty much every elite university in the U.S. have alums that have accomplished all or most of the above-certainly not just the 6 you listed. I’m also not sure what the point of separating undergraduate alums from graduate alums is. They are all still representatives of the university. Also, winning the Fields Medal is not more impressive than winning the John Bates Clark medal in Economics for instance. Each are amongst the highest forms of recognition in one’s field.</p>
<p>[Where</a> the Fortune 500 CEOs Went to School - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/articles/2012/05/14/where-the-fortune-500-ceos-went-to-school]Where”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/articles/2012/05/14/where-the-fortune-500-ceos-went-to-school)</p>
<p>I guess we should forego Princeton and Yale to head to Rutgers. Also, what happened to Wisconsin? I swear that Madison was in the top 5 for CEOs on this list a couple of years back.</p>
<p>Tiny Dartmouth and academically weak Indiana are the real high performers on this list given their unique circumstances./</p>
<p>“Alexandre, pretty much every elite university in the U.S. have alums that have accomplished all or most of the above-certainly not just the 6 you listed.”</p>
<p>Winning the Fields Medal in Mathematics is equivallent to winning the Nobel Prize in Economics, not the John Bates Clark Medal. The Fields Medal is the utimate prize in Mathematics, bar none. </p>
<p>At any rate, I agree that alums from most elite universities have accomplished/won most of the above. Where the list gets thin is with the Fields Medal and US president. Not that it matters, since those award winners are outliers.</p>
<p>“I’m also not sure what the point of separating undergraduate alums from graduate alums is.”</p>
<p>I agree. As I have often said that there should be no distinction between undergraduate and graduate. Undergraduate and graduate programs are identical in quality within the same university, and as such, alums of both undergraduate and graduate programs should be treated as equals. </p>
<p>Not that it would change the list of universities that have had alums accomplish the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Become US president</li>
<li>Win the Nobel Prize </li>
<li>Win the Fields Medal </li>
<li>Become a Billionnaire</li>
<li>Become CEO of a Fortune 500 Company</li>
<li>Win the Rhodes Scholarship</li>
<li>Win the Marshall Scholarship</li>
</ol>
<p>Alexandre, no Fields Medal winner has ever stepped foot on Stanford’s campus.
I guess the Palo Alto school isn’t esteemed enough to join your exclusive list.</p>
<p>See here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/930650-nobel-prize-fields-medal.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/930650-nobel-prize-fields-medal.html</a></p>
<p>Not at all goldenboy. I am not sure I understand your point. Obviously, the schools that have had alums in all major categories are all elite, but like I said, those who win those awards/accomplishments are outliers and one cannot judge a university based on such criteria. Producing many billionnaires or CEOs or Rhodes Scholars does not speak to a university’s academic excellence. MIT and Stanford are clearly top 5 universities, just as Brown, Cal, Caltech, Chicago, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Penn are all arguably top 10 (definitely top 15) universities. </p>
<p>This thread, like many on the Michigan forum, is all in good fun. Since you are not able of enjoying yourself with any subject that protrays Michigan in a good light, you obviously do not belong here. I am not sure why you are even posting on this thread. Your contribution has not been instructional or helpful.</p>
<p>check out that HBS domination…</p>
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</p>
<p>A topic that was an irresistible gravitational pull for goldenboy. I didn’t have to open it to know his posts would be all over this one.</p>
<p>No kidding Bearcats. At Harvard, there are no outliers, regardless of the honor, award or accomplishment!</p>
<p>
I was merely pointing out an exception to the statement you made that all 6 of those universities fulfilled all of the criteria you laid out. Clearly one doesn’t but its not a big deal one day or another. We all know Stanford’s a great school.</p>
<p>
I completely agree (except for Cal being top 15 at the undergraduate level but no need to go there…).
I am enjoying this thread though overall; there were a few inaccuracies in your statement to rjkofnovi and I corrected them…no big deal really.</p>
<p>I think you should make the Rhodes and Marshall Scholar requirement a bit more stringent; hundreds of universities have either produced a Rhodes Scholar, a Marshall Scholar, or both. I will provide a list of the top producers of Rhodes Scholars and Marshall Scholars when I get some time; they are better indicators of undergraduate quality than Nobel Prize/Fields Medal/U.S. President/Billionare production since the latter metrics have very little to do with the effect of having attended a specific undergraduate institution and more to do with luck and individual brilliance.</p>
<p>The only correction you made was Stanford winning the Fields medal. That hardly counts as a correction.</p>
<p>Cal is not only a top 15 university at the undergraduate level (#1 or #2 at the graduate level), but it is actually one of the four non-HYPSM that is clearly and universally acknowledge universities to be among the top 10 at the undergraduate level (the other three being Caltech, Chicago and Columbia). So you have the Big 5 and the 4Cs!</p>
<p>Schools like Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, JHU, Michigan and Northwestern are all awesome undergraduate institutions and can make a claim at top 10 honors for undegraduate education, but it is debatable. One must leave out a bunch to make the top 10 list when you factor in the fact that there are 9 universities ahead of them to start with.</p>
<p>Rhodes is just as weak an indicator of academic excellence as most other awards and honors. Let us face it, 32 out of 50,000 students who graduate from elite universities and LACs annually win the award. That’s one in every 1,500 students enrolled at a highly selective university. Whether a university has produced 10-15 (like Northwern or Penn), 25-30 (like Arizona, Columbia, Cornell, Kansas, Montana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma or West Virginia) or 50 (like BYU, Brown, Chicago, Dartmouth) Rhodes scholars in its entire history does not signify much, so do not bother listing schools according to Rhodes scholars.</p>
<p>At any rate, none of those topics you raise is relevent to this thread. Bringing up any of those subjects again will result in my deleting the post. This thread is about how Michigan currently has more Fortune 500 CEO alums than all but 4 universities…in other words, Michigan is AWESOME!</p>
<p>Who are the Michigan CEOs?</p>
<p>
Wisconsin came in 4th last year with 17 overall and 11 undergrad alums. Michigan was 7th.
<a href=“http://benpolk.com/DOCS/F500_CEOS_USNEWS_20110301.pdf[/url]”>http://benpolk.com/DOCS/F500_CEOS_USNEWS_20110301.pdf</a></p>
<p>So, while Michigan’s tally stayed the same, Wisconsin somehow lost at least 8 CEOs within a year since MIT had 10 listed and that’s where the list stopped so Wisconsin must have 9 at most. Talk about a sharp turnaround! ;)</p>
<p>
I think one of them made a search engine or something. I don’t remember the name of it.</p>
<p>^^^^Try to google it. :-)</p>
<p>Some have pointed out that Wisconsin previously had a higher number. Knowing how flawed those surveys tend to be, I decided to actually look up the education credentials of all Fortune 500 CEOs myself. Approximately 90% of them have released their educational backgrounds. The end result is not too different from the one recently released.</p>
<p>I included only alums with actual degrees. I left out all dropouts and CEOs with “special program” certificates. </p>
<p>It turns out that Michigan currently has 11, not 14 Fortune 500 CEO alums. That is still good for 5th place. Below are some interesting findings:</p>
<ol>
<li>Michigan has 11 current Fortune 500 CEOs. They are:
-Larry Page (Google, #73)
-Thomas Wilson (Allstate, #93)
-John Faraci (International Paper, #111)
-Gerard Anderson (DTE Energy, #287)
-Greg Woodring (Reinsurance Group of America, #290)
-Donald Stebbins (Visteon, #321)
-Timothy Wadhams (Masco, #338)
-Ravichandra Saligram (Officemax, #354)
-Timothy Maganello (Borg Warner, #355)
-Gary Newsome (Health Management Associates, #423)
-Charles McClure (Meritor, #481)</li>
</ol>
<p>Overall, the universities with the most CEO alums were:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard (55)</li>
<li>Stanford (23)</li>
<li>Penn (21)</li>
<li>Columbia (14)</li>
<li>Cornell (11)</li>
<li>Dartmouth (11)</li>
<li>Michigan (11)</li>
<li>Notre Dame (10)</li>
<li>Princeton (10)</li>
<li>Texas-Austin (10)</li>
</ol>
<p>The Big 10 as a conference did very well:
- Michigan (11)
- Northwestern (8)
- Ohio State (8)
- Penn State (8)
- Wisconsin (8)
- Indiana (7)
- Purdue (4)
- Michigan State (3)
- Minnesota (3)
- Nebraska (3)
- Illinois (2)
- Iowa (2)</p>
<p>TOTAL: 67</p>
<p>As far as athletic conferences go, only the Ivy League did better. </p>
<p>Other elite universities that had 5 or more CEOs include:</p>
<p>MIT (9)
UVa (9)
UCLA (8)
US Military Academy-West Point (8)
Georgetown (7)
New York University (7)
Southern California (7)
Yale University (7)
Cal (5)
Duke (5)
Georgia Tech (5)
Tufts (5)</p>
<p>Among non-elites, 5 universities stood out:
Rutgers (9)
Baylor (5)
Lehigh (5)
Louisiana State (5)</p>