Northwestern Prof: Columbia is Second-Tier

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>Mathacle's</a> Blog: Memo To Brown, Cornell And MIT Grads: You're Not Good Enough</p>

<p>Think your Brown, Cornell or MIT degree carries weight in the professional world? Think again.
According to a forthcoming paper written by Northwestern assistant professor Lauren Rivera, recruiters at top law firms, consulting agencies and investment banks are interested only in students who attended Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Columbia grads might make the cut, but some recruiters told Rivera that they consider the school to be "second-tier" or "just okay," the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
And MIT grads don't stand a chance. According to the Chronicle, one eminent consultant told Rivera:</p>

<pre><code>You will find it when you go to like career fairs or something and you know someone will show up and say, you know, "Hey, I didn't go to HBS [Harvard Business School] but, you know, I am an engineer at M.I.T. and I heard about this fair and I wanted to come meet you in New York." God bless him for the effort but, you know, it's just not going to work.
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<p>Rivera found that while recruiters don't particularly care about the quality of applicants' academic records, they do care about extracurricular activities -- but only as long as the applicant graduated from one of the select five schools. And from there, headhunters attempt to filter out "tool[s]" and "bookworm[s]" by targeting those with stellar recreational resumes (crew looks good, ping pong does not).
The Chronicle acknowledges that some firms might be forced to take on these tactics due to the high volume of applications they receive, and assuming that admissions officers have done the legwork in selecting promising individuals may be a defensible stance for recruiters. But the practice leaves most outsiders uncomfortable, and led the Chronicle to question its ethics efficacy and Business Insider to recommend that graduates start their own companies.</p>

<p>Memo</a> To Brown, Cornell And MIT Grads: You're Not Good Enough </p>

<hr>

<p>The title of the Business Insider's article is Want A Great Job? Don't Go To Second-Tier Schools Like Columbia And MIT</p>

<h2>Want</a> A Great Job? Don't Go To Second-Tier Schools Like Columbia And MIT</h2>

<p>Opinions?</p>

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<p>I think that the article is an elitist piece of rubbish that doesn’t even have the legitimacy for it to be analyzed</p>

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<p>This is the third thread I’ve seen about this article on CC</p>

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<p>i wouldn’t necessarily blame the study for how terrible it sounds. it may in fact be true that recruiters at top law firms are precisely that elitist and snobbish, to the point that they consider columbia second-tier, in which case the study would be accurate and the recruiters total idiots.</p>

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<p>As a law firm recruiter, I assure you that no one considers Columbia “second-tier.” I admit I know little of current views regarding recruiting at consulting and investment banking firms. (I do know, however, that from five to 30 years ago, Columbia was not “second-tier” in these industries either.)</p>

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<p>Master of the obvious.</p>

<p>Well, make the most of what you can get.</p>

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<p>i don’t like the headline ‘great job’ because it presumes somehow that being a consultant at deloitte isn’t a ‘great job,’ because you didn’t get into one of the big 3. its bollocks.</p>

<p>but in the end this is the truth of the present, though columbia is fastly moving to be part of that true first tier. kind of a compliment that it says columbia students sometimes make the cut. anyone was around here 5 years ago, and definitely 10 years ago, would know that columbia would not be in the same conversation as HYMPS.</p>

<p>but as i’ve said before the difference between columbia and HYMPS is not huge. columbia students have more in common with those schools than it does with the jhu, wustl and georgetowns of the world when it comes to job placement.</p>

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<p>I think the title is “Brown and MIT” are second tier… not columbia… while I agree HYPS are above Columbia, Columbia is not very far off from them…</p>

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<p>“Columbia grads might make the cut, but some recruiters told Rivera that they consider the school to be “second-tier” or “just okay,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.”</p>

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<p>“top law firms, consulting agencies and investment banks”</p>

<p>“engineering degree from MIT”</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>you’re doing it wrong. </p>

<p>I’m also an engineer, and I plan on actually contributing to society, so this doesn’t bother me.</p>

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<p>irony: it’s written by a northwestern professor.</p>

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<p>^she went to harvard and yale. nice try though.</p>

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<p>okay so I guess according to her, all us ED admits are failures for life when it comes to landing top jobs in law and business.</p>

<p>i lawl.</p>

<p>whatever</p>

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<p>

don’t shoot the massenger. if the recruiters of "top law firms, consulting agencies and investment banks are interested only in students who attended Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and the Wharton School … are pathetically shallow, outrageously parochial, and insufferably snobbish. " then it is the way it is. Just because your school is not mentioned in this short list, and snubbing the article, won’t change your ‘fate’. These shallow bunch of btards will sell their soul to bernard madoff.</p>

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<p>Finance and Lawyer types are ******bags?! This IS news!</p>

<p>Gotta go to crew brah, don’t want people to think I’m a bookworm or a tool, brah.</p>

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<p>^ lawl brah</p>

<p>@toughyear,
well I guess I’m just confused as to exactly the reason for the elitist attitude. Unless these top recruiters are going to brag about how many of their employees graduated from Harvard, which “good” college you go to should not matter, since each of these colleges have similar curriculums, and I do not thinks schools like Columbia, or Dartmouth and Duke, have subpar curriculums than Harvard (Harvard just sounds better…)
And at first I thought they don’t want MIT grads because maybe they would think the MIT grads would be too science/math oriented and not be a good match for business and law…but after reading it seems like they just look at MIT as an inferior institution as a whole, which is extremely arbitrary and untrue.</p>

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<p>But toughyear and Breezer, it would be much more useful to look at the actual hiring practices of elite law firms, Wall Street firms, and consulting firms. Whatever the ex-fratboy recruiters say, these firms will hire the MIT, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc. grads who have the best GPAs and accomplishments, even if they didn’t row crew. Some recruiters might wish they could run their firms like the Tribune Co. but that’s simply not how it works.</p>

<p>edit: The allusion to the frat culture at the Tribune Co. was a bit obscure. Here’s the New York expos</p>

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<p>i’m really surprised by what i read on the threads on CC. seriously!! would a 3.3-3.5 in operation research really not cut it for consulting firms and investment banks coming from a school like columbia? im not talking the super selective ones like GS or JP… but is it possible to even break into the field of consulting/Ibanking with a low 3.0ish gpa?</p>

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<p>You’re a pre-frosh, and you’re already intending on doing as little work as possible just to get by?</p>

<p>To answer your question, yes, it is possible, but your excuse for such a laughably low average should be that you spent the time you could have spent toward studying toward developing social skills, networking, and researching your field of interest.</p>

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<p>damnit. should’ve actually read the article…</p>