Name recognition of LACs/ LAC without grad school

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hi all, now is the time when we parents are all hunting for colleges and doing intensive research that will play such important roles in our Ss and Ds lives in years to come. There has been a lot of debate about the value of an LAC education and now I've come to sort of a dilemma myself. </p>

<p>There are many very highly selective LACs that cost a bomb to attend and they all boast of high-quality education (which I do believe in), but from what I've been hearing, many of these LACs aren't really heard of outside of their immediate region. My S really wants to attend a top LAC in the midwest region - namely Macalester, Bowdoin, Haverford. But to send him there would entail a bomb in loans. </p>

<p>I would really want to gather some feedback from all other parents out there who have had Ss and Ds (or yourselves) graduating from an LAC. If one graduates from a big name LAC without going to grad school, is it easy to find employment in big private corporations? Or is it such that if one goes to an LAC (no matter the name-recognition), it's tacitly agreed on that he HAS TO attend grad school in order to become marketable? If we send him to an LAC, we would not have enough for him to attend grad school. </p>

<p>Lastly, does anyone have any general opinions about Macalester, Bowdoin and Haverford? I know all are big names, but does a BA in Econ from either college promise him more-than-average gainful employment?</p>

2

<p>alaricng,
I’m not going to tackle your whole question, but I just wanted to point out that you said that your S wants to attend a top LAC in the midwest region. Bowdoin is in Maine, and Haverford is located just outside Philadelphia. My oldest S graduated from a top LAC, but did go to grad school for a Ph.D. because he wants to teach on the university level. His grad school at one of the top universities in the country is fully funded by the university. </p>

<p>When a student is going for a Ph.D., it will be fully funded by the university if the university really wants your student to attend. Med school and law school are different, but many people do take out loans for those programs.</p>

3

<p>Don’t go by big names- go by the school that best fits. Is going deeply into debt worth it just to say you went to xyz college? No. Is it worth it if you get a better education in the field of interest as well as overall than elsewhere? Yes. It it probable that an expensive school’s education is worth a huge debt? No, especially when grad programs, medical schools and law schools usually include many students who went to their state flagship public U for their undergrad education. </p>

<p>This means looking at how many of those who apply from each LAC of interest end up in medical and law school after graduation if that is a likely option. It means figuring out if the courses and research opportunities are there for the field your child is likely to major in and want to continue with grad school. Some LACs send many of their physics majors to grad schools- but find out which ones (top tiers or not). Much will be dependent on the major and what your child wants out of it. Far too many variable to make blanket statements about any of the smaller LACs. </p>

<p>Also be sure the LAC offers majors your child may choose. Top LAC x is of no use if they don’t have what s/he wants. Most students do change/decide their major as they discover fields they may have known nothing about in HS.</p>

<p>Finally, going to college is about getting an eduacation. Does your child think they will run out of courses in fields/majors that interest them before 4 years are up?</p>

4

<p>If your student is not planning on grad school right after undergrad then in general the colleges have more awareness by companies headquartered or operating within the region. My excellent LAC is not well known outside the region by business and industry however as I travelled visiting colleges across the country with my sons my undergrad always elicited a nod of recognition, a smile and an ahhh as it produces a high number of students that stay in academia. The colleges and unis know each other so where you go for undergrad will most likely be known no matter where you go for grad school or if you stay in the educational system. </p>

<p>As far as potential salaries, while those are also calibrated regionally the actual starting salary ranges for most positions within an industry are not as vast as most people want to imagine. For instance the 25th percentile for Econ might be 43,000 and the 75th percentile might be 60,000 but again the variances can be by industry or by region or by sector eg manufacturing pays more than service sector for an econ major.</p>

<p>Some kids attend an undergrad, find a job in the region or back at home base or in a totally different area of the country and “let” their new employer contribute to the graduate degree in the form of tuition reimbursement. </p>

<p>Finally it depends on the student. What motivates them, where will they do well, how many times will they change their mind about what they want to major in. Some will blossom and thrive in a smaller educational community others will blossom and thrive in a bustling big university. </p>

<p>Another thing you might want to look at is the geographic disbursement of the current classes at the LAC. A student might feel good or not so good to discover that 90% of the student body is from within a 3 hour drive and they are from the other side of the country. Or they might find that the college is really a true destination school and they will meet people from all over the country. Lots to parse.</p>

<p>If a student has a particular area of interest then of course the strength of that major can be a factor in the choice. </p>

<p>If a job is the primary consideration the large publics are recruited more and on a broader regional basis than the smaller schools typically because companies look for bang for buck…there are simply more kids to in one spot in a large university.</p>

5

<p>In my view, if you are primarily interested in the short-term employment prospects of the recent graduate, then the graduate’s major will have at least as much or more importance than their alma mater. I think an engineering graduate of Swarthmore would have better job prospects than a medieval studies graduate from the University of Wisconsin, for example.</p>

<p>The best short-term job prospects are probably for accounting, engineering and perhaps nursing. The premise of the liberal arts education is not that it prepares you for a specific employment position, but that it teaches you how to learn, how to communicate well, and requires you to have a broad understanding of a variety of fields. LACs argue that this will be at least as valuable in the long run as a specific set of job related skills.</p>

<p>So I think it all depends on what the student (and perhaps whoever is funding the student) wants out of a college education. “Name recognition” may get some warm nods of approval at cocktail parties, but after the first hire it is job performance, in my experience, that has the greatest impact on a long-term career.</p>

<p>Of course with this terrible economy, that first hire is more problematical than it has been in a long time. So it is understandable that students (and their parents) will be concerned about whatever can be done to improve the chances of getting a good job upon graduation. It is a very personal decision.</p>

<p>Full disclosure - I graduated from an LAC and all 3 of my kids either have graduated or currently attend LACs. So I am quite possibly biased.</p>

6

<p>OP- I think you’re confusing apples and oranges.</p>

<p>In general, recruiters for large multinational corporations (if that’s what you mean by private companies) have three buckets-- the primary source schools (the dozen or maybe 20 schools that represent the core of their hiring); the secondary schools (which may be used for specialized hires or for under-served regions or hard-to-staff geographies) and then everyone else. </p>

<p>The best way to calibrate if a college is on recruiter’s radars is to go to the websites of a bunch of companies (pick 15?) and go to what they call the Recruiting Calendar for undergrad hiring. You will see the schools where they make presentations (that’s sort of the “get to know us” reception) and then come back for on-campus interviews. You can cross-check your findings by then looking at the Career Development portion of the college’s website, where you will see both a list of “where are graduates ended up over the last few years” which will be a long list, as well as the dates of presentations and interviews for this coming year (will be a shorter list given the economy).</p>

<p>Since it’s hard to predict what any given Freshman is going to do 4 years out, I wouldn’t use this research necessarily to pick a school. But if you don’t see the names of any companies you recognize at any schools your kid is interested in, that’s probably evidence that the hiring is mostly local or in some cases regional. Not a bad thing in and of itself- certainly a data point.</p>

<p>I have recruited for big companies for over 25 years and can tell you that Bowdoin, Haverford and Macalester are very highly regarded LAC’s, although only Macalester is in the midwest. And given the size of the student bodies, and given how long it takes to get to Bowdoin from outside the region, I would not predict a lot of West Coast or Midwest companies shlepping to Maine. That doesn’t mean that kids from Bowdoin can’t get great jobs in Chicago or St. Louis; it just means that big companies are less likely to send a recruiting team up there to spend a day interviewing dozens of kids given that the class size is small and the college is hard to get to.</p>

<p>There are always exceptions to every rule. If the CEO of a company graduated from Bowdoin it is likely that the team recruits there every year, regardless of the yield. If a company is staffing up overseas locations quickly and needs US Nationals who are fluent in some strategic languages then regardless of where company headquarters are located, you are going to see recruiters at Middlebury or BYU and other schools known to have strong language programs and/or kids with quality overseas experiences. (Recruiters love schools with large LDS populations since the kids have usually spent two years on an overseas mission by the time they graduate. And they’re fine going to Peru or Singapore or Malaysia on a corporate rotation.)</p>

<p>So I would do some research just to satisfy myself that the schools are on the target recruiting lists of more than just the local employers, but wouldn’t make a decision based solely on that.</p>

<p>As to your other question- do we take on debt- that’s a different question in my mind. How many other kids do you have, how old are you, are you in good health, do you have disability insurance… etc. All the big questions around your current and future financial situation. But I don’t know that I’d make a decision about how much debt to take on based on the hiring schedules of some random corporations 5 years hence.</p>

7

<p>I agree with blossom. If you’re primarily interested in large corporations as a hiring option, visit their websites and find out where they recruit and what they’re looking for. But as blossom noted, it’s going to be hard to know 4 years ahead of time if that’s what your kid will want to end up doing, and it will depend on how they perform in college to see if they are even eligible for these competitive corporate jobs. </p>

<p>I think that in many cases, people with undergraduate degrees are pursuing graduate school at some point, but it’s by no means required immediately after undergrad just because you went to an LAC. How “marketable” an LAC grad is depends on a lot of things. It depends on their grades (for the first job, GPA is going to matter at least a little), it depends a lot on their major, and it depends on their experience: what internships they have had or volunteer experiences that may have developed marketable skills. One of the great things about LACs is that 1) they tend to have very tight alum networks that are easier to plug into than at a large public school (there are fewer students competing for the attention of alums, and alums tend to be more tied to their alma mater), which creates a lot of good contacts that are key to finding a good job and 2) they tend to push interning and support students who want to do internships, sometimes through school provided internship stipends. Again, this is key to getting a good job after graduation. </p>

<p>A graduate from any school, whether an LAC or not, who has access to a good career network and has had good internship experiences is going to be marketable. So really its up to the choices the student makes. If they don’t really take the time to accrue any skills or work experience, they may indeed need to go to graduate school right away in order to compete for some jobs. But there’s no reason why that should be or is a requirement.</p>

<p>Whether you want to incur the debt or not is really up to you personally, based on your own financial situation. As for graduate school, remember that grad school funding tends to be more generous than undergrad funding, as you have the option to do things like be a TA or get a government fellowship or even sometimes have your employer reimburse you for tuition. Student loan repayment is also a nice perk that some employers offer. When evalluating how to allocate your money, you should think about that.</p>

8

<p>dadx3 wrote:

</p>

<p>I agree 100% with these remarks. If your top concern is how marketable your son or daughter will be immediately after his or her undergraduate education, you should focus on vocational programs for careers that are in high demand.</p>

<p>Most community colleges offer training programs for nurses that can lead to RN certification. Most regional state colleges offer accounting programs that prepare students for good jobs. Engineering is a bit more complex, but many flagship state universities offer excellent engineering programs. The quickest route to an entry-level job in engineering is through a BS in engineering, not through a liberal arts education.</p>

<p>If you are willing to take a longer view, I believe that a liberal arts education will provide a valuable foundation for your son’s or daughter’s life. Communication skills and broad knowledge are essential to anybody who wants to move beyond that first job.</p>

<p>Both of my children attended liberal arts colleges. They matured remarkably during their four years in college, improving their reading, writing, and computation skills, gaining confidence in their abilities, and discovering new interests. While both decided to go to graduate programs (fully funded by TA’s, RA’s, and fellowships), I believe that their liberal arts colleges enabled them to find the wonderful opportunities they now have.</p>