<p>Would a degree, say from Ohio State, be less valuable to employers outside of the Midwest? To what extent? Do employers really care that much about what college you went to, as compared to GPA, knowledge & skills, internships, etc. </p>
<p>Think about engineering, mathematics, and computer science and please tell me why you think what you do on the subject</p>
<p>Thanks to anyone who replies! (:</p>
<p>I would be inclined to assume that the managers of companies which are not-regional who interview you and ultimately make a decision to hire are reasonably savvy about universities. They would know of Ohio State University Columbus and equate it to other flagship state universities. For companies that are inherently regional (as for example a small business) located in one city far away from Ohio, Ohio State University can be viewed as exotic. And of course residents (not hiring managers) of that far off City may know little about Ohio State University, but that shouldn’t matter.</p>
<p>So the short answer to your question is that you’re likely to work for a National/International company post graduation it doesn’t matter if you got your degree from Ohio State University Columbus, University of Washington Seattle, or University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.</p>
<p>What however if you get your degree in a truly regional State university – one or two rungs removed from the state’s flagship? Then it matters.</p>
<p>@fogcity</p>
<p>“What however if you get your degree in a truly regional State university – one or two rungs removed from the state’s flagship? Then it matters.”</p>
<p>What are you talking about?</p>
<p>A “lesser” state university, one that is not really considered a state flagship/major or a directional state U. IE. In Missouri we have Mizzou, MST, UMSL, UMKC: part of the University of Missouri system, most are known in some way or another throughout the country for particular programs. Missouri State University, SEMO, Northwest Missouri State, etc. are more only regionally known</p>
<p>@Ctesiphon</p>
<p>Oh, ok, thanks for explaining. I think the wording and sentence structure had me confused. </p>
<p>What about flagship states vs. the most selective schools in the country? Not necessarily Ivies. Obviously it can’t hurt to come from a really good school, but how much weight is actually placed on that? I know there are statistics that say Harvard, etc, produce the most employable people, but obviously the best students go to those schools, which in turn are the smartest and most ambitious individuals, so there are other factors at play. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Thoughts? </p>
<p>It’s not where you go to college (unless you’re aiming for Wall Street) but what you do there. Don’t expect the institution’s name to earn you much of anything. Expect what YOU do to make the difference. Bust your butt in college and take advantage of every opportunity for research, internships, new languages (computer or otherwise), quality education. Most students will not have the drive that successful people need before and after college; demonstrate by your resumé that you have it. If you have it, and if you develop the skills that employers in your field crave you, will find work and have a successful career. If you go to grad school, it is the grad school they will remember (if at all) and not your alma mater.</p>
<p>Well you use a weird example because OSU is a nationally known tier one university and you aren’t going to have a name recognition issue (for employers who care about name recognition.)</p>
<p>There is also a large study that shows that student who got into elite colleges but couldn’t go, for affordability or whatever reasons, did just as well. </p>
<p>There is no way to tell you ‘how much’ it matters. So some employers it doesn’t matter at all. To some, OSU is impressive. To some they only target a few schools.</p>
<p>Region can matter, since many smaller employers with lesser recruiting needs and resources recruit mostly locally or regionally, rather than making a lot of long trips like the bigger employers that recruit everywhere. For example, Silicon Valley computer companies are more likely to recruit at San Jose State than at a distant university with similar selectivity and reputation in CS.</p>
<p>Most employers value most similar degrees the same, with some getting a boost for various reasons such as regional reputation, alumni connection, company history with a school, etc. Even Ivy League degrees are treated as just another degree at many/most employers, and they certainly aren’t more valued than a state flagship degree across most of the country. Often times, it’s who’s available at the lowest cost that really makes a difference, which acceptable candidate can we get for the lowest total price the fastest. </p>
<p>A particular school might get you a second look if the hiring manager is also from that school, and that’s more likely to occur the closer you are to that school, but don’t think for one minute that a Purdue grade in Podunk, Indiana is sitting there pining away for applicants from MIT. They want a qualified candidate within their budget who can solve their problems yesterday, and if they are from Purdue, Ohio State, or Wisconsin, they don’t particularly care.</p>
<p>Region is only relevant for your first job hiring. When you are talking about math and engineering, you will (most likely) have internships and other experiences before you graduate and will likely start working for a regional firm. From there it is more about your work experience and where your degree is from holds less weight.</p>
<p>Ohio State is not a regional school. That would be like asking if people on the west coast will recognize MIT or people on the east coast would respect UCLA. </p>
<p>Eh. tOSU isn’t MIT, though. Or UCLA.</p>
<p>I guess I’m gonna agree with the OP’s hypothesis, because to this Midwesterner transplanted to the East Coast, Ohio State is equivalent to UCLA. So I guess I would value a UCLA degree a lot less than @PurpleTitan does.</p>
<p>^ That depends on the major, the job and the location. My national company does not pay MIT grads more to do the same job as an OSU grad in the same location. </p>
<p>“I guess I’m gonna agree with the OP’s hypothesis, because to this Midwesterner transplanted to the East Coast, Ohio State is equivalent to UCLA”</p>
<p>This midwesterner disagrees. The public peers of UCLA are Berkeley, Virginia, North Carolina, and that school up north…Michigan. :-)</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>@"Erin’s Dad" : Sure, that’s true within the same company, but do the same companies recruit at MIT, UCLA, and OSU?</p>
<p>I spent a few years working in New York, and find it very believable that people there would rate Ohio State and UCLA on the same level. Ohio State is better known because it’s closer, and most people don’t pay attention to the various rankings.</p>
<p>For the most part, there were two tiers. Ivy League, and everyone else.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan since my company does there is at least one. :)</p>
<p>Ohio State (which is the same as Ohio, right?) and UCLA are two very big schools, one on the left coast and one in the middle of the country. </p>
<p>That’s about all 90% of us right coast people know about them.</p>
<p>Other schools we have usually heard of:
-Harvard.
-Yale (we all remember Thurston Howell III saying, “Good heavens! A Yale man!” on GI).
-Princeton, mainly because of Einstein.
-Our state flagship, because the sports broadcast usually refers to it.
-One school named for each state, for most states (Texas, Florida, Kentucky, etc. We’re not sure if all states have eponymous schools or not, but we think most do.)
-Whatever is the next most famous school, in our home city (NYC = Columbia, Boston = MIT, Baltimore = Johns Hopkins, Washington = Georgetown, Philadelphia = Penn, Raleigh-Durham = Duke, Atlanta = Georgia Tech, etc.)
-Stanford (that’s in the Ivy League, right?).
-Berkeley (that’s another small private Ivy League school out west, right?).</p>
<p>If we’re really worldly, we may have heard of Oxbridge University, which is apparently where they send their kids to college in England.</p>
<p>We know there are a lot of other colleges out there; just don’t know what they are. We have a vague sense that other countries might have colleges, too.</p>
<p>That’s about it for most of us.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[The</a> Ohio State University](<a href=“http://www.osu.edu%5DThe”>http://www.osu.edu) and [Ohio</a> University](<a href=“http://www.ohio.edu%5DOhio”>http://www.ohio.edu) are different schools.</p>
<p>As are Arizona and Arizona State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, Iowa and Iowa State…</p>