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<p>Not in the same sentence, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that the companies are not recruiting at UChicago, too. They may even be recruiting at colleges with lesser reputations (in general or in economics). In fact, I know they are – otherwise my kid who is an economics graduate from (horrors!) Cornell wouldn’t have gotten a job.</p>
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<p>There is nothing wrong with having high hopes…as long as you are realistic about the chances and that high hope is actually a fit.</p>
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<p>and amusingly enough some people who make these arguments comment that they would be so dispirited about attending a state flagship that they may even have dropped out. </p>
<p>Elite universities definitely track cross-admit data and want to know who they are losing out to. In 2010, Stanford Dean of Admissions presented cross-admit data for Stanford which showed that Stanford was only on the losing end of cross-admit data to Harvard (something in the 60:40 range). In 2010, Stanford:Yale cross-admits were 50:50. Otherwise Stanford came out significantly ahead with all other elite schools. Four years later, I’m sure the cross-admit data is even more in Stanford’s favor as its yield has risen significantly.</p>
<p>Every thread eventually turns into a commentary on why the top elites aren’t all that special. Funny that all those thousands of applicants didn’t get the memo. </p>
<p>Interestingly, S was a senior at a lower Ivy when the economy tanked. Some prominent companies that used to faithfully recruit there, decided to leave his school off their circuit that year. It could have been due to the school’s size, or perhaps due to their location farther from a major metropolitan area, or maybe even their relatively lower prestige. Regardless, some large companies somehow narrowed down their list of targets to save manpower and money. My point is that it’s safer to be at the schools companies never take off their list, or at the few schools where if a company is only going to recruit at a handful of institutions, your institution is likely to be one of those few. I think S has now become that sort of school, which is partly what statistics like this suggest.</p>
<p>My theory about Stanford winning out over peers for students has to do with the weather. This was a really tough winter in the NE and midwest.</p>
<p>The weather helps!</p>
<p>The weather definitely helps, as does the shift in the relative attractiveness of Silicon Valley versus Wall Street since the financial crisis. But I’m still in the camp of folks who thinks most of these distinctions are akin to determining how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. </p>
<p>While there are a small number of companies that focus their hiring on highly selective colleges, it’s far more common for companies to focus hiring on nearby colleges. This effect is noticeable when looking at the the colleges employees at companies new grads tend to think of as highly desirable attended. For example, Apple shows the largest number of employees on LinkedIn that are alumni from San Jose State, and Microsoft shows the largest number of alumni from University of Washington. Neither company has enough ivy league alumni for an ivy to appear anywhere in the LinkedIn list of most frequently attended colleges. San Jose State is located only ~10 miles from Apple headquarters, so it makes sense that SJS would have more opportunities for internships at Apple and more recruiting efforts than at elite colleges located thousands of miles away in the northeast, such as ivies. Similarly University of Washington is located near Microsoft headquarters, far closer than colleges in the northeast. I live in the SD area, where Qualcomm is the most well known tech company. As one would expect, Qualcomm employees on LinkedIn are most likely to be alumni from UCSD and SDSU. All the interns I’ve known at the small tech company where I currently work in the SD area also attended UCSD or SDSU. </p>
<p>I guess we are pretty close to the time when acceptance rates will be a good example in the ‘Intro to Calculus’ classes: Limits.</p>
<p>Data, your logic is only partially correct. If I’m GE-- corporate headquarters in Fairfield CT although many people would get that wrong on a multiple choice quiz- my recruiting strategy is very different from a company with a huge corporate HQ and just manufacturing facilities or sales offices in other locations. GE has elite training programs for new grads which can transfer these young employees anywhere. So hiring from Fairfield and Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac (three colleges practically in walking distance of headquarters) is the exact opposite of what they do. They need strong talent in finance, manufacturing, HR, marketing (to name just three of their much admired training programs) who will do a rotation and then get moved somewhere else in the world. So proximity to their headquarters is not even a tertiary concern when hiring new grads-- it’s barely relevant.</p>
<p>GFG, my point was not that “the rankings are silly,” nor that “H and S just aren’t that great.” This is not an argument over “why the top elites aren’t that special.” You need to read more carefully. </p>
<p>My point is that it is truly silly, reductive and foolish to try to determine which is The Best College, and that insisting that Stanford or Harvard are The Best Ever, for Everyone, and that attending any other school constitutes a huge reduction in opportunity and prestige, is counterproductive, overly simplistic, and just dumb. There is room for talking about the relative merits of schools; there is room for preferring one school over another; there is room for admitting that there are individual elements for choosing a school based on one’s interests and values, as well as one’s desired outcome. But to decree that one school is the only one that matters, and that every other school just doesn’t measure up, is nonsensical–especially when that decision is based merely on application rates! </p>
<p>So much defensiveness about Stanford. It doesn’t deserve that, not reducing the argument to cross-admits.
If you want to send your kid to the theoretical “best of the best,” I sure hope it’s a good fit in the ways that matter most.</p>
<p>Btw, a young friend I consider brilliant, highly motivated and entrepreneurial is at S. Owing to the very real academic challenges, he changed his STEM major at least 3 times. What works for him, at S, is the entrepreneurial influence and nearby opportunities. He and friends have started a company, etc. What drew him to S was very much that. Not all kids want Stanford’s “that.” Many want or need what H or Penn has as their flavor, their particular draw.</p>
<p>Period. All great schools. All surrounded by other schools that can empower kids. To me, that;s what is really is all about: where will your kid be empowered. Not where have other kids been.</p>
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GE was founded in Schenectady, NY and has a large division there. The college with the most GE employees on LinkedIn is RPI, which is located only 14 miles from GE Schenectady. If I search for employee titles containing the word “intern”, which I expect would be mostly newer grads, RPI is still listed as the most common college for GE interns on LinkedIn. I grew up in the Captial District, near RPI and GE. While living in the area, I’ve known many employees of GE. None went to highly selective colleges, but many went to area colleges such as SUNY-Albany, Union, and RPI. Sure there might be some programs where location is irrelevant, but this doesn’t describe the majority of employees.</p>
<p>marysidney: no one made the claims you’re protesting. People seem to believe it’s impossible to proclaim something as one of the best of its kind, without implying everything else is crap. Saying S is the most selective school in the US and offers tremendous opportunities, doesn’t mean marysidney’s kid’s school or all other schools are terrible. But they’re not all the same either. </p>
<p>Data- your point exactly is what? You claimed that colleges like to hire close to corporate HQ, which in GE’s case is demonstrably not true per your own data. GE has R&D, manufacturing and distribution centers around the world, and you will find in virtually every one of them, employees hired locally and employees transferred in from a global or national training program. I never said that GE only hires from “highly selective” colleges- merely that a recruiting strategy is built on many elements- and close proximity to corporate headquarters might be relevant for Qualcomm (your example) and not relevant for GE (out of curiosity, how many new grads from Sacred Heart university, the closest college to GE as far as I can tell, are employed at GE?)</p>
<p>Pick a big company- Pfizer, J P Morgan, United Technologies, Bank of America, Pepsico. Some of them will hire from “local universities” to headquarters and some won’t bother. It is a much more nuanced issue than your post made it out to be.</p>
<p>I think what these cross-admit statistics show is that when it come to certain schools like H and to a lesser degree S, students don’t care about fit as much when deciding on attendance. If they get in, they go and it doesn’t really matter if some other school had a better “that.” </p>
<p>Wonder, how much money colleges are making during admission season? Let’s say, $50 per application, 5,000 admitted, 10% admittance rate, 50,000 applicants, $2,500,000 - 2.5 million of free money.</p>
<p>Not a bad business model. </p>
<p>Well, that takes us right back to the number of applicants. Maybe the 42k includes many who don’t consider fit. Maybe it is an opportunity driven decision to apply (location, rep, and Common App ease.) Ie, not as meaningful as it could seem. Which points us right back to PG’s sentiments, eh?</p>
<p>@californiaaa: On a stand-alone basis, it’s a horrible “business model.” Stanford employs 25 regional admissions officers. Let’s assume for the moment that, like most adcoms, they’re young and underpaid, so that their average carrying cost for salaries and benefits is only $60,000. That still adds up to $1.5 million in staffing costs before factoring in support staff or management level positions. Then layer in the travel budget to keep 25 adcoms on the road during the fall recruiting season and marketing costs, and I think you would probably conclude, as I do, that the application fees don’t come close to covering all the costs of running the office. </p>
<p>In fact, the National Association of College and University Business Officers reports that the median cost of recruitment for each enrolled student at private four-year institutions is around $2,200. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/counselors/officers.html”>https://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/counselors/officers.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.nacubo.org/Research/Research_News/Cost_of_Undergraduate_Recruitment_at_Four-year_institutions_Has_Held_Steady_Since_2009.html”>Page not Found;
<p>If they want to do true selectivity, they should weight the ratio of admits per applicants by some index of their academic qualifications. Otherwise, it’s nothing to brag about other than they got a bunch of people to apply.</p>
<p>MIT improved its selectivity by convincing people you didn’t have to be a perfect student to get in. Does that make it more selective than it used to be? Not in a traditional sense.</p>