Stevens high ranking for salary is because it’s almost entirely engineering grads (the highest paid majors) in the NYC area (among the highest cost/salaries). If Stevens was located in a cheaper area (like, say, Rose-Hulman), it would be significantly lower ranked. Stevens is a good school, but nowhere near as good as so-called rankings would have you believe.
I don’t see any evidence supporting the claims of the Princeton Review’s numbers coming from 2015 and the 38% number coming from the Stevens’ admissions office. The 38% number raises red flags for me because that’s the number Google gives and that information is outdated. Incidentally, Stevens’ own website says their acceptance rate for 2015 was 41%. And above all else, acceptance rates aren’t always a measure quality. Like I said before, acceptance rates are impacted by the amount of applicants and the quality of the applicants. Brooklyn College has a 37% acceptance rating according to the Princeton Review and most people here probably wouldn’t argue Brooklyn College is better than Stevens, Rutgers, and TCNJ.
I can’t comment too much on credit requirements because I can’t find that much information on the subject. However, I will say that work experience is more important than college experience. No matter how well-rounded the graduates are supposed to be, employers prioritize actual work experience over the college education the graduate has. They do not assume an applicant is of a certain pedigree just because the applicant has a degree from a certain college. They want to know what the applicant can actually do in a professional environment. Additionally, while more time in college can better prepare students for the professional world, it also consumes more money and more time. It’s easy to miss out on job openings because you were still working your degree while graduates were applying for it.
As I said before, Stevens ranks highly in salary and ROI on Payscale simply because STEM jobs pay well. Caltech and MIT rank even higher for the same reason. Stevens degrees aren’t valuable simply because they’re from Stevens, they’re valued because they’re engineering degrees. They indicate to engineering employers that the applicants should at least have an idea of what they’re doing. Rutgers and TCNJ are not STEM schools, which is why they rank lower. But not everybody is a STEM student and Rutgers and TCNJ appeal to students whose strengths lie in different fields. Success after college is not determined by having the biggest salary, it’s determined by being able to make a living out of what you do best. And since it’s the students who ultimately determine their success, having a non-STEM degree does not prevent them from finding financial success. On average, STEM students make more (hence the Payscale results), but students are individuals, not statistics.
When it comes to a college’s curriculum and assistance in helping students graduate after a certain timespan, graduation rates are based in quality. Not entirely, but they’re not to be dismissed either. Retaining students, however, can also relate a college’s quality because students usually aren’t going to leave colleges they consider to be beneficial to themselves. Good programs lead to satisfied students, and satisfied students lead to high graduation and retention rates.
As a non-STEM student, I wouldn’t know what STEM programs require. What I do know is even if other programs offer more flexibility, that does not take away from their students’ work ethic and what is required of them. It’s also likely that not all students are able to complete STEM programs simply because their skillset doesn’t lie in STEM. Not everyone has that skillset. But any dedicated student can be successful, regardless of what they studied. They don’t even have to work in the field they studied for. I know a guy who majored in advertising copywriting at Temple. He’s now working on an HBO show he co-created (it’s called Animals).
I forgot to add that virtually every college has applicants with future potential. But as I constantly like to point out in this thread, the college they attend doesn’t determine their future. They determine their own future.
Actually Stevens students are 64% engineering. While that’s a majority it’s not the 85% or so as was the case 30 years ago. Payscale also did a survey of salary/ROI of engineering schools only, which removes the effect of a preponderance of engineering majors from skewing the statistics. In that survey Stevens comes in at fifth in the nation, so, that disproves your assertion that “engineering heavy” skews the results (since only engineering majors were included). All the other figures of merit I cited earlier validate what I asserted.
Mr./ms Expert on Mistakes, please look at the page on Stevens’ website whose link I pasted above. The entering fall 2016 freshman class had a selectivity of 38-39% and an average SAT score of 1342 (1600 math/verbal scale). The number from Princeton Review was for last year’s entering class, not this year’s. PR is a year behind, I would expect to see next year’s edition to reflect the 2016 number.
mr./Ms Expert: “Stevens degrees aren’t valuable simply because they’re from Stevens, they’re valued because they’re engineering degrees.”.
Only 64% of Stevens degrees are engineering degrees. The science graduates had starting salaries comparable to those of the engineering graduates. The business/quantitative finance/financial engineering graduates had starting salaries even higher than the engineering graduates. So your assertion is wrong, they are valuable because of the rigor of Stevens and the quality of the students not because they’re all engineering. Please take a look at the 2015 career placement report which I will supply the link to below.
Dude, give it a rest. You honestly sound really pretentious.
The facts and statistics page on Stevens’ website says the Fall 2015 acceptance rate was 41%. The page about the incoming class of 2020 says the Fall 2015 acceptance rate was 44%. I could be misreading this, but right now, that apparent inconsistency on Stevens’ website makes me distrustful of the information they’re providing. And the acceptance rate is not a key indicator of quality when schools with an average reputation like Brooklyn College have lower acceptance rates. The SAT scores of applicants says more about a college’s reputation than what it provides to its students. Freshman applicants obviously did well on the SAT prior to becoming college students.
Putting aside that 64% is a majority, I’ll rephrase my statement - the degrees are valued not because of the college they came from, but because of what subject the degrees are in. Science, business, quantitative finance, and financial engineering are all majors that lead to occupations with high salaries. STEM degrees lead to occupations with high salaries, and of course, science - along with engineering - is part of STEM. According to Payscale, 84% of Stevens students are STEM students. Being STEM students, not simply Stevens students, gives them a better opportunity at obtaining a well-paying STEM job. The STEM degree gives an applicant more appeal because it tells STEM employers that the applicant should at least have an understanding of what the profession requires. The college where the STEM degree came from is less important because it was ultimately the applicant who proved himself/herself to have knowledge in STEM. Caltech and MIT rank highly on Payscale for the very same reason. Employers want to know what applicants can do, not what their school did for them.
Again, please read the page from Stevens’ website I quoted. The 39% applies to the most recent accepted class (who just started their first semester this month). Degrees from MIT, Stevens, Caltech, et al are valuable not only because they are largely in STEM but because employers know that those schools have high standards of admission thus the students have higher capabilities than the norm for all colleges, and that their curricula are rigorous and challenging. That confers superior problem solving capabilities upon the graduates and that is well known in industry, academia, and government.
Lol. Comparing Stevens to MIT and Caltech makes zero sense. Stevens isn’t even better than UNC Wilmington hahahahahaha
I did read the page. I said I’m distrustful of the information from Stevens’ website because of an apparent inconsistency. That page says the fall 2015 acceptance rate was 44%, but the facts and statistics page also on Steven’s website says the fall 2015 acceptance rate was 41%. I still consider the acceptance rate to be a minor factor when Brooklyn College has a 37% acceptance rate.
The college an applicant graduated from is among the more minor factors when it comes to employment and for applicants who have lengthy work experience, it’s practically a non-factor. Graduating from a well-ranked school can be seen as a mark of intelligence, but employers want to know what the applicants are really capable of. A degree alone does not inform employers of what skills an applicant has. Employers cannot assume anything about the applicants, they want the best individual for the job, and they want to be confident in the abilities of the new employee. Saying that an applicant has certain capabilities because of where his or her degree is from is an assumption. It’s not concrete evidence of the applicant knowing what to do in a work environment because a work environment simply isn’t the same as college. What the degree was in tells employers what the applicant has at least some understanding of. Note that Payscale points out how many of a school’s graduates are STEM students. Actual work experience is concrete evidence that the applicant knows what he or she is doing. It’s not the college that’s fulfilling the task an employer wants done, it’s applicant who does that.
This has turned into a two way conversation/argument that no longer has much of anything to do with the question the OP posed months ago. Can everyone please let this go???
The question the OP posed is where the New Jersey colleges should rank and the ongoing conversation is about the ranking of a New Jersey college. There is relevance to the topic at hand - but that being said, I’m all for shifting gears to another ranking-based discussion if others wish to discuss it.
Agreed. How do I close the thread?
You can flag your last post and ask the moderator to close it (and hope for the best).
Thanks!
As stated above, thread has run its course. Closed.