<p>There’s a difference in the students that go to these schools and also the locations and industries they work in, as others have pointed out. I don’t think the school itself really nets you a premium. For instance, at Michigan, all the high prestige companies you’d want to work for recruit here.</p>
<p>A school’s name will not, by itself, get you a substantially higher salary. I went to a state school, and I know quite a few students that went to work at Google and Wall Street firms. They made basically as much as their top-tier peers.</p>
<p>That said, I’m now a grad student at CMU, and I can say that the CS undergrad program here does a somewhat better job at preparing students. A lot of students from here receive offers from Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. That’s not because of the CMU name, but rather because CMU’s undergrad curriculum was more rigorous and demanding, and ended up preparing the students better.</p>
<p>One school or another might better prepare you for the interview, but the employer doesn’t really care where you went to school.</p>
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<p>Insanely naive. In fact the entering student body was ambitious to begin with. The curriculum is largely the same at every top 200 school.</p>
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<p>G[A]FAM and other big companies recruit widely. Where different schools differ in who comes to recruit is most noticeable with smaller companies (which may have a more limited budget to travel to recruit and may limit their travel recruiting to schools that they consider “good”) and local companies (who may prefer to target the local schools for convenience).</p>
<p>Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft
Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft
Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft
Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft
Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft</p>
<p>Are these the only 4 companies in the USA?
What are entry-level, mid-level and senior engineering salaries for these firms?</p>
<p>Good Grief</p>
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<p>No. There’s 6 companies in the US. You’re forgetting Amazon and Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>GLOBALTRAVELER: Entry-level for those firms is ~$100k (+ stock and bonus). I don’t know about mid-level or senior engineering salaries.</p>
<p>Here’s a thought: even if cost of living accounts for the salary difference between two jobs, isn’t it generally better to go for the one with the higher number (assuming that everything else is equal)? I was under the impression that whatever salary you get initially can often set the tone for what happens to you in the future.</p>
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<p>Not if one stays stagnant in acquired skills.</p>
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<p>Ooops…I forgot about those two companies :-)</p>
<p>@garggaurav Forgot the salary stuff between CS and EECS majors. If you work as a software engineer for a small startup your salary will be about 80k. If you work for an established startup or big company it will be closer to 95k.</p>
<p>GLOBALTRAVELER: Are you saying people are more likely to stagnate at higher-paying jobs? I’m not sure how much I buy this, especially when the higher pay we’re discussing here is more of a function of cost-of-living than anything else.</p>
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<p>The curriculum, and topics covered, may be the same, but do you feel the depth of knowledge required to obtain certain grades is the same at every top 200 school? Do you feel all of the required projects would be identical at every top 200 school?</p>
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<p>I think the differences are far less dramatic than people tend to believe. The curriculm, at least at the undergrad level, is going to be virtually the same between a Top 10 school and a #110 ranked school. If you don’t believe that, look for yourself… check out the curriculm at, say Arizona State vs Georgia Tech for Aerospace Engineering. You’ll widespread similarities (even the course outcomes specify the same depth between classes)… and in fact ASU trumps GT on math requirements! (something you wouldn’t think would be the case). </p>
<p>The curriculm depth and disparities between course offerings and requirements start to play a significant role at the graduate level… where each school has specific strengths and weaknesses in certain focus areas. This disparity isn’t as noticable at the undergrad level because of accreditation fulfillments.</p>
<p>MIT/Stanford/CMU grads definitely get paid more. Why does that surprise you?</p>
<p>You believe people who say which school you go to doesn’t matter? It sure does.</p>
<p>Where did you find this data?
This is UIUCs salary data for 2012: <a href=“http://engineering.illinois.edu/sites/engineering.illinois.edu/files/aboutus/COE%20Salary%20Sheet.13.pdf[/url]”>http://engineering.illinois.edu/sites/engineering.illinois.edu/files/aboutus/COE%20Salary%20Sheet.13.pdf</a>
Average: $81,118
Median : $90,000</p>
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<p>This is a hard question to answer, since most people only have experience at a very few Universities. Speaking anecdotally for myself, I attended a midwestern state flagship U (with a USNews National U ranking of ~100) in the 1980s for a BS in EE where I graduated 2nd in my EE class, and then went to an Ivy for grad school in EE. Most of my grad school classmates were international, but those few who had attended US undergrad schools were from higher ranked schools. Although I had been almost at the very top of my undergrad class, I really struggled in grad school and felt very under-prepared compared to the students who had attended more selective undergrad U’s. So clearly the education I got at the ~100 ranked school did not prepare me as well as students who attended more selective schools.</p>
<p>With a great deal of effort on my part, my grad school grades were OK, not great, but I failed the PhD qualifying exam, which the better prepared students passed. Rather than retaking the qualifying exam the next year, I chose to leave school with an MSEE degree and begin working. I’ve had a great career as an engineer and engineering manager, and the connections from my MSEE Ivy U have been quite helpful in that regard. </p>
<p>I don’t believe that all Universities offer the same quality of engineering education, although I think the variation would be much less than in some other disciplines. Engineering is tough even at unselective U’s, but won’t be as tough as at the best U’s, or very few of their students would be able to graduate. </p>
<p>Some of the difference in salaries is regional - the cost of living is different in different parts of the company. I used to work at a company with offices in NJ, CA, and the midwest. When employees would relocate from one location to another, there was a salary adjustment based on cost of living, with CA > NJ > midwest. However, the differences go beyond regional differences. The highest paying companies are more likely to recruit from the most selective U’s, and vice versa, the companies and government agencies who pay lower salaries tend to recruit at less selective U’s as they wouldn’t be very successful at the most selective U’s.</p>
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<p>Engineering as a whole tends to have a high attrition rate out of the major (around 40% of frosh engineering majors leave engineering after their frosh year). This is likely due to the minimum rigor level to meet ABET accreditation requirements. Attrition out of engineering is much lower at the more selective schools.</p>
<p>This does not mean that all engineering bachelor’s degree programs are the same or equal in rigor, although the difference between the most and least rigorous is likely much narrower than in many other majors, as others have noted. It is entirely possible that there are some low selectivity schools where the ABET accredited engineering majors are the only majors that would be considered “respectable”, if the other majors are “dumbed down”.</p>
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<p>Explain to me why MIT/Stanford/CMU nets a premium salary over Michigan. Is it because companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Goldman, etc only hire people from MIT/Stanford/CMU and not at Michigan? Is it because companies value MIT/Stanford/CMU grads so much more that they pay them higher starting salaries than they do for the people they hire from Michigan? Is it that even though they go to Michigan, they only take one or two people and everyone else is stuck finding whatever they can, whereas they take all the MIT/Stanford/CMU grads, even the worst applicants? Can you explain this to me?</p>
<p>Its because it is MUCH harder to get into MIT than Michigan, for undergraduate. Therefore, the students are more ambitious and will strive harder for the top jobs. Isn’t that obvious?</p>
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<p>That is obvious. Which implies that the MIT name doesn’t buy anything over the Michigan name.</p>
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Exactly. Correlation, not causation.</p>