<p>It covers 7 years so I don't see it as very useful as it's not split by major. The PDF is a list of organizations but no indication of what % of students are covered.</p>
<p>Most schools publish by major: %employed-in-for-profit-in-major, %emp-in-non-profit-gov, %in-FT-grad-program, %still-looking, %in-employment-outside-major, etc. Anything on employment 5-years post-grad?</p>
<p>2011 data would be great or 2012 as it stands now.</p>
<p>The message is that is what Swat publishes. It represents the variety of jobs and grad schools Swat grads have entered from the various departments. Sorry if it doesn’t meet your “standards.” Are you a current student or a prospective student? If this is crucial information for you, perhaps you should contact the Career Center directly.</p>
<p>And the Career Center told you what?
And again I ask if you are a current student or a prospective student? Or, are you a parent?
What is your concern? That you/your child won’t be employable upon graduating from Sawrthmore?</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal did a study of placement into top business, law and medical schools a few years ago. That link is now dead, but Swarthmore was in the top 10 in that ranking as well. In fact, only two schols were in the top 10 in the two doctoral rankings above and the WSJ ranking: MIT and Swarthmore. Of course, students may be going on to graduate school not because they got such a good education at Swarthmore or because they have a passion for learning but because they cannot get jobs. :)</p>
<p>By “the 3rd degree.” I assume you are referring to me, LakeClouds. Apologies if you took offense at my questions, but I think I am allowed to ask if you are a parent or a student as well as what your concerns are. I would probably answer a question of a parent somewhat differently than I would a student. I am a parent and I have one son who has graduated from Swat and one who will be a junior in the fall.</p>
<p>The documents you were originally looking at from the placement office are not “whole,” in the sense that the exiting seniors are not required to list their post-grad plans. For example, my procrastinator grad never sent in his information, and I am sure that a decent percentage of the graduates never do, simply because they didn’t get “aroundtuit.”</p>
<p>My sense is that Swarthmore has outstanding graduate school placement as well as “professional” school placement. I know less about students who go directly into the job market.</p>
<p>Daughter just graduated from Swarthmore. Based on anecdotal reporting from her circle of friends, everyone she knows has a job or acceptance into graduate school. I am a university professor and my experience with Swarthmore students is that they are exceptionally mature compared with many of their peers and have their eye on the post-graduation scene early on. They came to Swat as self-starters and they leave as self-starters with a solid foundation for just about anything they want to do. They are ready when the moment comes to take the next step. They also have a passion for something and don’t go to graduate school just because they can’t think of anything else to do. They go to graduate school because they have demonstrated their passion over four years (often with honors research) and they get snatched up by the top graduate schools with full rides. The placement record into medical school (this year’s students are typically taking a bridge year for research or medical-related experience) is outstanding and the pre-med adviser is the best in the business. Students usually do sophomore and/or junior year summer internships or research and the internships often lead to that first job. The placement center/career services assists in this area and does a very solid job, again, from anecdotal evidence. In my estimation, a Swarthmore graduate is among the least likely of graduates anywhere to end up living in their parents’ basement!</p>
<p>For the class of 2012, the data I have from the school is:</p>
<p>Grad School - 15% for both Masters and Ph.D
In med school- 4 students or~1%
Professional employment (includes para-legals, research assistants)- ~16%
Other employment (e.g, intern, volunteer, student teacher, etc.) - ~25%
Travel - 4%
Other/don’t know - 11%
No response (probably still searching) - 28%</p>
<p>This doesn’t match your daughter’s report at all. Is she an Econ major as they seem to do the best?</p>
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<p>2/3 have done an internship before graduating. Half were unpaid internships for non-profits. </p>
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<p>That may be but from the data above it seems they are very likely to be basement residents for some time and with the double-sip recession on the horizon it may get worse before it gets better.</p>
<p>This seems to me to be a weak showing for graduates. What am I missing?</p>
<p>You’re making inferences that aren’t allowed by the data. For instance, you can’t presume that no response = still looking. </p>
<p>So since the stat evidence isn’t very reliable, anecdotes should be considered. For instance, graduates who’d majored in econ / math are doing very well. It’s difficult to appreciate that a recession is going on. Fundamentally here you should be interested in relative performance of Swatties v. peers and not overall performance.</p>
<p>Since students were offered a prize for simply responding to an email survey I would assume they are not happy with whatever plans they may have. Are students really that lazy/indifferent that they wouldn’t respond if that landed that dream job at McKinsey or spot at Harvard Medical School? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>Are you aware of other DATA about what students are doing? </p>
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<p>What are you referring to here? Who are you viewing as “peers”?</p>
<p>LakeClouds - it sounds like you’ve made up your mind are are looking for evidence to support what you think already!!</p>
<p>A chance at a small prize is not strong incentive. Even if it were, supposing as such is not rigorous. Indeed, you likely observe most who are working at top jobs. But it’s silly to suppose that those who didn’t respond aren’t working or don’t have jobs.</p>
<p>By peers I mean graduates from other schools. </p>
<p>Most importantly, it’s nearly impossible to remove the endogeneity from this problem. Suppose a now-Swarthmore student was admitted to both Swat and Princeton, among others, but chose to attend Swarthmore. We want to understand how this Swattie would have done had she gone to Princeton. But what does that mean? Does it mean, take all the same classes, or are we just interested in the reputation of the school? Even if we decide that, it’s not obvious how to sort out this endogeneity issue: Did Swarthmore affect this performance, or would the student have proceeded similarly had she not gone to Swarthmore?</p>
<p>My friends, who did Econ / Math / Stat / CS / Physics are all employed. Indeed, anecdotal evidence, but I actually don’t have one friend who isn’t employed or in grad school. Graduating classes are small ~300, so supposing I know well about 50, then that’s not too bad of an anecdote.</p>
<p>LakeClouds,
You are free to read into the numbers you say you received from the Career Center, but you are apparently not willing to listen to alums and parents of alums who are trying to answer any concerns you have.</p>
<p>As I told you previously, not all of the seniors respond to the request for post-grad info.
My Swat graduate went straight into one of the top Ph.D. programs in his specialty. He did not report this info to the Career Center because he is a world-class procrastinator and didn’t fill out their survey form before he left school. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t fill out the form,</p>
<p>For med school, it is unusual in this day and age for students to go straight to med school from undergrad. My current Swat student eventually plans to go into an MD/Ph.D program, but he has already told us emphatically that he will not go without taking a year or two to work. He has already spent 3 summers working in a major medical center, and yes, he was paid.</p>
<p>Made up my mind about what? I want to understand what the actual placement success of Swarthmore is and I’m getting a lot of defensive/evasive responses. The anecdotes and the data don’t match (that’s why we have clinical trials and don’t rely on anecdotes as all those hopeful med students will know). I’m feeling like people are trying to hide something. In the internet age, how hard can it be to ask people what they are doing? Doesn’t the alumni office track this as well?</p>
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<p>I don’t get why people who are all employed are not accounted for in the placement stats? Over half the econ grads have not reported anything as plans. Being too lazy/indifferent to respond really does everyone a disserve. Can’t someone pick up the phone and call them?</p>
<p>Are the honors program students getting all the jobs? Does that explain your experience?</p>
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<p>Amherst? Williams? NYU? What do people see as peers?</p>
<p>Peers = Amherst, Williams, and the top Ivies. </p>
<p>There’s nothing to hide. Moreover, this endogeneity problem I cite is real: Even if you had the data you want, you couldn’t really conclude much about the effect of Swarthmore on employment prospects vis a vis the effect of other schools. Bottom line: If you want to go to Swarthmore, work hard, learn a lot, and make good friends, then go. If you don’t like the LAC atmosphere, don’t go. If you’re thinking of going to grad school, take a look at the PhD numbers, which have fewer data reporting issues. Swarthmore is up there with MIT, and Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>I think this is a silly topic, and you’re giving us attitude: “Made up my mind about what?”</p>
<p>With Swat’s assistance, my freshman D secured a paid summer internship in her hometown, working in one of her major areas of interest at a local medical university. As a parent, this is exactly the kind of opportunity I was hoping for from Swat. Swat’s large endowment funds a variety of programs and internships even for 1st years, so the students certainly have early opportunities to make their mark in the world, whether in furtherance of employment or grad/med/law school options. Not much more can be expected from any top tier school.</p>