If grads of these schools get jobs at the same firms as MIT and GA Tech grads, they’ll be paid the same. There is no question that MIT and GA Tech host many job fairs with the top firms and often beat out those from the other schools for the job. No question schools can create better opportunities for their grads than other engineering schools, even peer schools.
I think students at these schools have just as good of a chance at jobs at NASA, with government agencies, with companies that hire tons of engineers every year, and if hired, they’ll make the same (if the title of the job is the same). My daughter went to Florida Tech and her friends have jobs at NASA, Northrup, at SpaceX, and a lot of them had internships and co-ops all through school too. There is a benefit to being on the Space Coast. Daughter works for a mid-sized engineering firm (3000 engineers) and she started at the same salary as other first years (there may have been a COL adjustment for those in California or other high COL areas). Where there could be a difference is in their bonuses.
Big companies are not going to mess with paying those doing the same job different base salaries. Don’t pay men more, don’t pay URM more, don’t pay the children of the owners more. The government certainly has a set pay scale. Law firms used to pay new associates different amounts, but stopped that a long time ago.
This is correct, but the resume from an MIT will be picked more often or more reliably than a school with lower reputation.
And it is not about job fairs. It is just about reputation. In this day and age, when companies are not coming to campus due to covid, resumes from less well regarded schools still need to clear a higher bar than a resume from MIT to get called for an interview.
But many (most?) high school kids (and their parents) who look into these things are probably going to stop at the College Scorecard salary data and see the 10-20% premium for Ivy (or other “elite”) grads. They are not going to control for locational choices, try to disentangle causation from correlation, etc.
So, even if the same firm pays grads the same regardless of what college they attended, and even if firms are increasingly recruiting from beyond the top X schools, I think there is still a perception that where you go matters for career outcomes.
And I think this perception explains much of the angst seen in this thread and others. I don’t think anyone believes its top X or bust, but many believe that top X can help with outcomes, and this belief, on its face, does not seem unreasonable.
MIT doesn’t accept by major. It also doesn’t want only CS majors. Realizing that a basic understanding of programming isn’t a bad idea isn’t surprising.
It depends what’s on the resume. Most employers focus on other things on the resume besides the school name. In other threads, I’ve linked to surveys of employers showing that employers as a whole rated college reputation as the least influential factor in evaluating resumes of new grads for hiring decisions. Employers as a whole rated criteria related to relevant work experience as most influential.
For example, does the resume show that the applicant has done something similar to the job position in a work environment? Does the applicant list a skillset on the resume that fits well with the requirements to be successful at the position? What field(s) did the applicant study and what was the highest degree level? Does the applicant list especially desirable ECs, awards, activities, or similar on the resume?
This type of experience and skill set criteria can vary among applicants, which contributes to why some employers pay different hires different salaries for the same job title and/or have different packages for different hires. For example, Facebook was known to give 6-figure sign-on bonuses to some applicants who received a “rockstar” rating during their internship at one time. I don’t know if they still do this. Salary negotiations and competing offers also can be influential.
Let me offer you a counter example. My son’s roommate doesn’t have a linkedin, and didn’t have a resume until before he interviewed for a company (shall we say, the hottest firm in a particular sector that has nothing to do with the kid’s major). He did not intern anywhere before. He went from a first time resume to a junior internship offer in 3 weeks flat. There is nothing on his resume except the university, major and gpa, and what he did (in his field) in the university the prior summer. This happens a lot.
I was talking about being hired for a full time position after college rather than a junior internship. In general, as students gain more work experience, that work experience becomes increasingly more influential in hiring decisions. Full time hires after college tend to have more relevant work experience than junior interns.
That said, how do you know that he would not have received a comparable internship offer at a similar company in 3 weeks flat had he attended a different college? There may be other factors that were considered besides college reputation.
At this firm the odds of the resume getting picked up are extremely low if you come from outside of 5-6 schools for some kinds of roles. Incidentally this firms hires people into permanent roles almost always only from their junior summer.
Incidentally 10-15% of the class gets a sophomore FAANG internship with no prior internship during freshman summer. More get it in the junior summer. Those numbers are difficult if you go to a typical flagship state school.
Perhaps the other college would have a different group of companies that recruited for interns. For example, upthread another user mentioned NASA recruiting at Florida Tech. I’ve seen NASA listed as an especially desirable internship and hire on the forums. The colleges with most alumni on LinkedIn working in an engineering position at NASA’s Florida location are as follows. Interns followed a similar type of pattern, but had a small sample size. A student who attends Florida Tech might be more likely to intern/work NASA, and a student who attends San Jose State might be more likely to intern/work at Apple. It’s hard to know what would have happened if a particular student attended a different college. Even if the specific outcome may differ, the alternative outcome can still be similarly positive.
Colleges with Most Engineers at NASA’s Florida Location
1 . University of Central Florida
2. Florida Tech
3. University of Florida
4. GoergiaTech
It is good that kids from University of Central Florida have access to NASA jobs.
Many MIT grads can work for NASA if they choose to. If more MIT people are not at NASA it is likely a choice. If I have to guess, I’d say NASA pays less than some of the other opportunities that MIT kids may have access to. Opportunities that University of Central Florida kids may not have access to. This is just reality.
Maybe at Princeton or in very niche fields…with a very specific major/skillset that is rare.
My son struggled last year to get call backs. Fortunately, one landed.
This year - he got a lot more calls.
I think relevant work experience, for the masses, is a key factor. After all, most schools aren’t the top echelon - so how does a company decide between Wichita State vs. iowa vs. Montclair State…or the other 98% of colleges?
I am only saying that to say that college doesn’t matter is incorrect, as has been claimed. It is one among several factors. The college likely matters more for some firms and less for others. We choose to not to go to a community college, if possible, because we think there is some quality difference. There is a spectrum.
In many fields, the difference between “top” colleges and “less top” colleges seems to be a difference in rigor and theoretical foundations.
It definitely has an impact at some places. This is why companies have target schools. That may be based on rank/reputation, on a specific major, on a tie in to a professor (maybe a prof is a consultant for them), or even the CEO graduated. There are other reason of course. I’ve seen Cat jobs just for Bradley or some job in Michigan just for a Michigan Tech grad, etc.
So - there’s no question that a Princeton is going to get opportunities that the kid from Clemson never dreams of.
I would say that college matters less in fields where the degree is accredited, such as mechanical engineering or civil engineering, and matters more in areas like Math or Economics where there is no external guarantor of quality of skills being taught.
I’d argue that Olympiads are not largely merit-based. Of course, they are, in many ways. I don’t want to devalue that. But also, Olympiads reward students who A. have the time to spend on these competitions (which cannot be said of a lot of students who have to pursue other commitments), B. the resources and support to prepare for these competitions, and C. the interest to spend hours a day on a test. I highly respect students who are able to put the time and energy in, sure, but they aren’t this completely unbiased meritorious system. As @Eeyore123 said, the large majority of high schoolers do not know they exist. Students at low-income high schools are often not told of the opportunities in competition academics—how can we evaluate the “top mathematicians and scientists” if only a small portion is being sampled?
I wonder the average income and parental education of Olympiad competitors…? Because I’m sure there’s a skew.
I think it is more often the case that they have parents that have significant prior background in the field or an adjacent field, and may even be educators’ kids. I don’t think money is a serious issue. I am sure they are not getting tutored if that is what you are thinking. Eventually if they get to MOP training, there is a dedicated camp at CMU, but that is much later in the process.
That’s a massive, massive advantage, having parents with even just education in a certain field. I think money is a serious issue—income correlates heavily to resources presented to students, like math camps starting at a young age, prep books, etc.
I think @hebegebe is more familiar with this space. My kids did not go down this path, so I don’t know. But kids are into serious summer math camp only for a couple of years in high school. A lot of the resources are free or inexpensive. I don’t think Math is like Chess which became very expensive to train. I could be wrong about the money aspect. But these days there are tons of resources on the internet.