<p>I've read this on <a href="http://www.studentreview.com%5B/url%5D">www.studentreview.com</a>, can somebody( alum/ students/ parents) possibly tell me whether the job placement for Carleton grad is that bad?</p>
<p>Quote:
"lacement: Carleton gets an A- for graduate school placement and an D+ for job placement. I blame this latter fact on the fact that Carleton lives in the tradition of the aristocratic liberal-arts college, not the 21st century where even well-off students have the burden of self-establishment. Only 27 companies recruit at Carleton, while most similar schools enjoy ~300. You definitely <em>can</em> go to Carleton and get a good job, but you'll need to show a lot of personal initiative. Specific placement-hindering factors are the calendar (school gets out in June, conflicting with some internships), the lack of grade-inflation, and the relatively low profile of Carleton. Those who've heard of Carleton recognize it as a top-notch school, but most employers have not. Carleton's seeming inability to market its students to employers means that a large proportion of Carleton students end up ridiculously underemployed, some getting dumped into dead-end service jobs. But, I expect many of my classmates to be very successful 15 years post-graduation, because of the value of what they have learned."</p>
<p>That's ridiculous. Wall Street is certainly not littered with Carleton graduates, but it is not because Carleton is unknown or because it is difficult to find employment afterwards. More than anything else it is because most Carleton students primary goal is not to find a high-paying long hour corporate job. But in my experience, those who do want that experience do not have an unusually difficult time making it happen. Within six months of graduation, 65% of graduates are employed, 23% directly enter grad school, and 10% are studying and working abroad. Those are pretty good numbers. And just anecdotally, I do not know ANY Carleton grads who are not working or in crappy jobs because they have been unable to find good employment. And many, myself included, had employers and interviewers specifically mention that they have a very good impression of Carleton and its graduates.</p>
<p>In fact, a senior I knew at Carleton decided to turn down an 85k job offer in New York because he wanted to do Teach for America for a couple of years. Its not that Carleton grads can't get employed those places, its that most of them choose not to.</p>
<p>Thanks, LACalum! I'll have a freshman at Carleton this fall. Your words are comforting.</p>
<p>My Carleton daughter has had no trouble getting paid internships for the past two summers. In addition, she has already been told by professors at two universities that are top-tier in her field of study that she has a very strong chance of acceptance into their PhD programs after she graduates next year. They said this is due to the fact that both universities think so highly of the education/training she will have received at Carleton that they specifically seek out Carleton grads for their programs. They also said that grad schools know that Carleton doesn't inflate grades like so many other highly selective schools and therefore the schools factor that into the equation when making their selections. (As far as I can tell, few Carls graduate with anything approaching a 4.0 GPA.) In my opinion, Carleton's policy of only giving out "A"s for truly superior work is yet another example of how the school prepares its students for the hard-knocks that they will encounter in the "real world." One last point: I view it as a positive that Carleton doesn't hold its students' hands during their post-college search for employment. What could be a better result of four years of college than graduates who understand that they are the master of their future and that they will largely rise or fall on their own initiative?</p>
<p>I largely agree with this assessment of Carleton's job placement, but the way the person writes it, it makes it sound like they expect Carleton just to dump some awesome job in their lap, and that's just not how it works anywhere. Of course you have to take some initiative to get good work experience and get good jobs after college, this is obvious and not specific to Carleton. If employment after Carleton is at all on your mind and you start applying for summer internships early enough, you'll do just fine. If you're an English major or whatever who has been sitting at home every summer not doing much besides maybe cashiering part-time, yeah, you probably will have trouble landing a good job because you just don't have the experience regardless of where you are coming from. There are a fair number of said liberal arts major/no real work experience types at Carleton, though, because nobody forces you to actually deal with your employment prospects at any point, and a lot of Carleton students like being in an academic bubble where they can put on blinders and ignore the future. This is both refreshing and annoying.</p>
<p>Also, the Career Center has a new director next year, so you might see the recruiting situation change, more career planning resources, more hand-holding, who knows, nothing but good can come out of this and the changes could be quite substantial over the next 4-5 years.</p>
<p>My husband is temporarily working in Washington, DC. When he wears his Carleton Dad shirt he is stopped repeatedly by grads, students, or parents of students. Washington seems to have embraced Carleton. This will be the second summer my Carl will be working in DC.</p>