[Silicon Valley hires the most alumni from these 10 universities](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/05/01/top-universities-apple-google-silicon-valley-jobs.html?ana=e_me_set1&s=newsletter&ed=2017-05-02&u=MUlH5Don5uAM71UbbZJs4g08514e1d&t=1493738001&j=78075151)
Top 10:
UC Berkeley
Stanford
Carnegie Mellon
University of Southern California
UT-Austin
Georgia Tech
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
San Jose State University
UC San Diego
Arizona State
Looks like if you click through to the actual study it gives a longer list of schools:
https://html2-f.scribdassets.com/3851m4othc5ugm5a/images/7-2ec9683e2e.jpg
It would be interesting to see how much (or not) this list changes when using a percentage of graduates from a school instead of straight numbers. Or even better as a percentage of STEM graduates from a school.
Strawman argument…
STEM graduates is not all that useful a comparison, since the proportions of different majors (e.g. biology, computer science) can vary considerably (and note that biology is typically the largest STEM major category).
Or click bait headline.
It really is not that surprising that most of those schools are large overall, large in number of majors of interest to major-specific jobs, and/or local (note that Berkeley has all of these).
What I found most interesting was how high up the list San Jose State is. I knew that tech companies hire a lot of students from there but I didn’t know how high the percentage was.
@ClaremontMom, I would think the schools’ own career office numbers would be the best source of info for that. They could probably break it down by major as well. This study is obviously looking at it from the employers’ perspective, not the schools’.
It would also be interesting to know how this breaks down by employer – maybe Apple favors one school while Google favors another. And where do they have recruiting programs, etc.
Or even adjusted for the graduating class size, which can range from ~200 to >10,000.
than UC-SB, UC-Davis, Penn State… 8-}
That list includes promotions and hires at any level (hence the University of Phoenix,likely middle career folks).
They also have a list of the most wanted New-Grad Alumni. It’s very similar to the first list, but drop, Penn State, University of Phoenix, UC-SB, and UC-Davis and add Northeastern University, RIT, University of Central Florida and UT-Dallas.
Not surprising to see regional hires. People need to want to work and live there.
There is plenty of life west of the Appalachians, folks!
All software engineering jobs are not equal. I represent two large hitech companies based in San Jose. Yes, they do hire a lot of folks from San Jose State and Santa Clara Univs. And they do treat the ones from UCB and Stanford differently… much more selective hires and superior inhouse gigs. This is Silicon Valley… the best ones from the top univs demand and get what they want!
The majority of the job titles in that article are non-technical roles. There is a huge range of jobs at these tech companies, many of which just need an average smart person with an average college degree.
@Ynotgo - Having two kids at small schools, graduation class size was my first point when I said …
I simply followed it up with the suggestion of an even further refinement of STEM only grads.
@dustypig - Well, sure, but who is going to call all those schools or check websites to create the comparison list…not me! My point was simply that an article that created a similar list but took into account school size would be interesting to see…especially in how much it does (or doesn’t) change from this list. Since the opening statement is directed to a potential student stating where they go to school if they want to end up in the Silicon Valley, it is a little misleading. But then again, others have already pointed out other problems with the list (such as including non-technical roles). Of course, no list is perfect.
@io12575 As a recruiter, the students getting hired in Silicon Valley from any of those schools have the potential to be offered stellar positions, salaries, and benefits. I don’t think two firms is a good sample size to determine overall outcome, but creating another line of distinction is such a bay area kind of thing to do though. We just placed two individuals at the same firm, one from the top and one from bottom of that list, and the student from the lower listed school got the better job and package. It is the person, not just the place of education that matters. And in the big picture, generalizations are rarely reliable.
I don’t know anyone who thinks they need an Ivy league degree to get a job in silicon Valley. Does that line of thought really exist?
I agree it is more the personal qualities that get one hired, but to add to Claremontmom’s point, I know lots of graduating CS students from Pomona are heading to Silicon Valley (and probably some from Harvey Mudd also).
There are posters who seem to believe that Silicon Valley computer companies are school-elitist in the way that investment banks and consulting companies are. Sometimes, there will be comments like “[school name] must be an elite school for CS, since [GAAM] recruits there” (even though GAAM recruit widely).
A friend working in Silicon Valley although in a smaller company, told us this story. They were interviewing 3 candidates for a position: all 3 are fresh EE graduates from Berkeley, Stanford and SJState.
The Stanford graduate was perfect - background, practical knowlege, deep understanding - unfortunately the company couldn’t match his salary expectations.
The Berkeley graduate - he was so theoretical and deep, but there was zero practical knowledge and skills, he didn’t make the cut.
The SJState graduate - it’s possible he didn’t have such a background as the guy from Stanford, but he knew what they needed him to know and had the skills to do the work. He was hired.
On the same note, I once interviewed a EECS Berkeley graduate who didn’t know a thing about CS and my BIL (researcher in Google) begged my S to not apply to CMU because he had seen so many poorly educated kids from there.
Of course, it doesn’t make Berkeley or CMU any less respectable (one can find bad students everywhere) but it just shows - just like everyone here is saying - you don’t need a fancy college to get a good job and what matters is what you know and what skills you have (although a name of a school does help to get notices and provides extra points with everything else being equal).
Not to mention the fact that a lot of these hires will not be STEM majors at all. These companies also hire tons of people for sales, marketing, HR, operations, management, tech writing, customer service, usability etc etc
Based on this thread, then parents should not send their kids to any elite Engg colleges since apparently the grads they produce are all overrated and/or clueless? (not worldly wise? or “political” and somehow San Jose State seems to equip them with both skills).
Since every kid has “everything inside them”, why do we need elite institutions of learning?
I am truly baffled…
And really not too many kids can even afford to live in “silicon valley” the 80s are gone, gone, gone. I wouldn’t want my kids to try and hit NYC or Silicon Valley right out of college, they simply can’t afford to live there. But I would have never guessed it was a destination for “ivy league students” anyway. It’s too entrepreneurial and the kids are the out of the box thinkers whether in sales, marketing or computer science people, not exactly what the vast majority of Ivy League bound students are by nature.
