<p>After reviewing another thread, Im curious </p>
<p>D1 graduated her Ivy League school with a degree in Applied Math & Economics in May after accepting a great job with a major bank. The bank only interviewed students from 3 universities. And she had multiple job offers.</p>
<p>Two options were available when she graduated from High School. She had a full scholarship to the in-state flagship (TCNJ which is a terrific school) or could attend a private school at full tuition. She chose the private school. (And please note that college costs are not the subject here.)</p>
<p>Shes currently in Europe for 5 weeks before she begins work in August and sent me a link (go figure) to a WSJ article about ROI for various colleges earlier this week.</p>
<p>So, for any parents of 2010 or other recent years out there, how much do you attribute you son or daughters ability to find high caliber employment or any employment to his/her school name and/or degree? And if theyve deferred employment to attend graduate school because the job market seemed dismal, thats of interest as well </p>
<p>And bear in mind, Im familiar with studies that seem to indicate that years after graduation, it all evens out. But Im curious about your perspective given the current economy. Do you think her choice of school made a huge difference?</p>
<p>I think it’s less about school “name” and more about school networks. Some businesses prefer to higher within certain school networks, because it’s tradition for them, or because the person in charge of the hiring is an alum of a certain school, or because they’ve had good experiences with new hires from that school in the past. Attending the same college as the person hiring, or attending a college where big name businesses and banks come to recruit, or attending a college that can get you a person to person connection with people at hte top of a particular business really can make a difference. It’s not the only thing, you have to have the goods to back it up, so to speak. You have to be able to do the work, and your resume needs to be strong. But having a strong school network to rely on can help you get your foot in the door, and for new graduates that’s probably the hardest step. I know for a fact that without Smith’s strong alum network of dedicated women willing to help a new grad get started, introduce her to available opportunities, and advocate for her with business acquaintances, I would not be holding down the job I have. I feel I earned this job, I interviewed well, my resume was strong, and I work damn hard at it every day, but in order to get that interview, get my resume looked at, get the opportunity to show what a hard worker I was, I needed Smith’s network.</p>
<p>I agree with S&P - D ('09) landed her job after networking with an alum who was in the field. It also helped that she knew other folks in the field for whom she had worked in the past (distant past - as in babysitting their kids in HS) who served as references. S ('05) freelances and gets many of his jobs through word-of-mouth via former classmates.</p>
<p>Totally agree with this. My youngest brother (who is 25) went to what is basically a tier 2 or 3 school in a large city and got a great job (computer-related) with one of the largest banks in the country (it is headquartered in his college’s city). The job was offered before he even graduated. This bank could have obviously recruited from any school but they don’t see a need when they get good results with kids graduating from this college.</p>
<p>He had a friend at the same school land a job on Wall Street (against the odds).</p>
<p>OTOH, a friend of mine’s daughter just graduated from Duke with an economics/finance major and hasn’t found a job yet. School name is never a guarantee.</p>
<p>Well, there are companies that only interview at the Ivies – I know an Ivy humanities grad who got an excellent job right after graduating for a company that held interview only at H, Y, P and C. Company president felt that Ivy grads offered additional cachet/legitimacy to his business, which works with educational institutions.</p>
<p>My older son is in computer science at Carnegie Mellon. I think he’s been able to get internships because of the great reputation of the school in this field and through connections. (Last summer his first internship was canceled but friends new about opportunities at another company - he got a new internship in May that year, even though usually internships get lined up in February in his business.)</p>
<p>My undergrad college (Harvard) got me one summer job and one job overseas, sort of amusing since I didn’t major in architecture there, and the jobs were in architecture. I know the H degree helped because in both cases my boss told me so.</p>
<p>At several of the places I have worked before as well as where I work today, the college matters a lot. They only take interns from a select few institutions. </p>
<p>What one does after that first job is upto oneself. But yes, a good college with a great reputation will certainly get you in the door.</p>
<p>A number of companies only recruit at particular colleges, perhaps giving those attending those colleges an advantage because of convenience and because of the recruiters’ and hiring managers’ knowledge of the specific programs at those campuses, but they’ll often be willing to hire those from other campuses even if they don’t recruit there. It might mean less convenience to the student and even the hiring company but it’s done.</p>
<p>I recently hired a CS grad and only posted the opening at a few colleges (4 of the UCs) - colleges where I was familiar with the programs and generally have a lot of respect for the grads from those programs. I probably would have posted at more locations if I’d have been looking for more people and I was open to applicants from other colleges (and did receive some) but I’d say the ‘knowns’ of the colleges I posted at were easier to deal with than the ‘unknowns’ of the prgrams at colleges I have no familiarity with and whose selectivity of students are much lower.</p>
<p>I recently began an analysis of campus recruitment by 15 to 20 employers in fields that interest me (~35% consulting, 25% engineering, 25% accounting, and 15% finance). I found that schools with top programs are recruited more, as are those with very strong alumni communities and those in locations with large industry presences.</p>
<p>My son (Ivy) got his job with a major company who does NOT interview at any Ivy schools by finding information on another university’s job board. He contacted the recruiter, since the company was in a city that appealed to my son, and largely due to the “name” of his school, he was granted an interview. He made the 2nd round of interviews and was flown to the city for a recruiting weekend and got an offer. He starts work in Denver in August. He has good credentials and good work experience, but the name of his school got him in the door. No question about it.</p>
<p>NACE recently completed a survey asking employer college recruiters the top three reasons why they recruit at the schools where they recruit. The three reasons were successful experience with former graduates of the college, location and academic majors offered. Location of college moved from 9th most important factor to third last year behind former experience and academic majors most likely due to budget cuts in recruiting and specifically travel expenses.</p>
<p>Clearly employers find students and students find employers in many different ways of which formal college recruiting by companies is only one method. Networking is very important right now and that is where alumni and the student’s ability to connect outside the campus will be very important.</p>
<p>^^What is a soft major? And what job is the student interviewing for? The determining factor is the job skills and qualifications needed and if the student matches those skills and qualifications first before any other consideration including what school you went to. Your question cannot be answered because there is not enough information.</p>
<p>As far as a “good job”…a good job is one you are willing to go to most days because you like what you are doing, you don’t mind the commute, you like most of the people you work with, and you have regular reviews and the job pays a salary that is comparable to other similar positions in that industry in that region.</p>
<p>Ones major counts more than ones alma mater. I know of several local, recent, soft major HYP grads who are working min-wage retail jobs, while their HS friends who went to state schools for engineering or science are now lucratively employed within their field. And those HYP grads are predictably both bitter and bewildered.</p>
<p>“The determining factor is…” demand for the job skills the student has (or may not have) developed during the college years. A “soft major” is one that is less well defined relative to the job market. A BA degree in humanities may be as difficult to achieve as a degree in chemical engineering, but applying it to that first job has always taken longer to find and resulted in lower salaries. And this difference maybe continues for quite some time along the career path. In today’s (and likely future) economy, there are fewer opportunities overall, so the definition of a “good job” may not include some of the luxuries listed by momofthree…</p>
<p>Agree that many of the anecdotal success stories here are probably for folks who majored in biz, CS, engr, and the like.</p>
<p>But we have 3 top-notch ivy grads in our neighborhood (2 2009s and a 2010) – soft majors, all 3 – unemployed, though actively looking and networking with their universities.</p>
<p>Major is a huge factor…I think probably more so than Ivy vs.
1-2 tiers down.</p>
<p>If you plan on grad school like I do, attending a full price private makes absolutely no sense. That said the law school I attend likely will be hugely important in determining my career.</p>