<p>How would you rank the top universities (not restricted to undergrad) in terms of the strength of their alumni networks?</p>
<p>In government and business:</p>
<p>Harvard
Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT
Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Berkeley, UChicago, Northwestern, Duke
Brown, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, etc.</p>
<p>USC has amazing alumni networking for sure</p>
<p>From coast to coast and around the globe, THE Ohio State University - Columbus!! +1</p>
<p>University of Michigan probably has one of the strongest networks among public universities</p>
<p>Just look at the annual giving percentages</p>
<p>According to USNWR ([Alumni’s</a> Top 10 Most Loved Schools - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/09/15/alumnis-top-10-most-loved-schools]Alumni’s”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/09/15/alumnis-top-10-most-loved-schools)), 61% of Princeton University’s alumni made a donation to their alma mater in the average of 2 reference years. 56.1% of Judson College alumni donated. Does this mean Judson’s alumni network is about 90% as strong as Princeton’s?</p>
<p>What is amazing about USC’s alumni networking? How is Ohio State’s network measurably stronger than any other school’s? I see that neither school is among USNWR’s top 10 for alumni giving. If not by annual giving rates, how else would one measure the strength of an alumni network?</p>
<p>Here are tables showing alumni giving rates for national universities (based on 2011 USNWR data):
<a href=“http://www.moredonors.com/2011USNWR.pdf[/url]”>http://www.moredonors.com/2011USNWR.pdf</a>
USC (with a 43% giving rate) ranked 4th; University of Michigan (16%) ranked 79th; Ohio State (15% ) ranked 92nd.</p>
<p>Alumni giving rates on their own are not that telling if one does not consider several other factors, such as how much alums give on average, the size of the alumni network or how aggressively a university pursues alums to donate money. Large public universities with no tradition in soliciting alums for donations will generally not have a high alumni donation rate while several tiny LACs with long histories of dependence on alumni donations will have very high alumni donation rates.</p>
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<p>tk21769,</p>
<p>Ohio State Global Gateway Offices</p>
<ul>
<li>China - Shanghai 2010</li>
<li>India - Mumbai 2012</li>
<li>Brazil - Sao Paulo 2013</li>
<li>England - London 2015</li>
<li>Belgium 2015</li>
<li>Turkey 2017</li>
<li>Uganda 2018</li>
<li>Russia 2020</li>
</ul>
<p>[Office</a> of International Affairs - China Gateway](<a href=“http://oia.osu.edu/china.html]Office”>China Gateway | Office of International Affairs | The Ohio State University)</p>
<p>Also, how about our over 520,000 living alumni across the globe?! TOSU certainly has one of the most if not the most spirited alumni base in the country! O-H! :)</p>
<p>In my experience, Notre Dame belongs on this sort of list – its alumni are deeply loyal to one another.</p>
<p>In my experience this varies region to region. When I lived in Tampa (and worked in schools) everyone was clamoring to get into UF. When I looked around the hierarchy of the city of Tampa (judges, politicians, etc.) I realized that nearly everybody in a position of power had graduated from UF (or FSU.) A degree from UF means a lot more, in that state, than a degree from say, Georgetown or Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>All the usual suspects: Princeton, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, USC, and Duke</p>
<p>Those who say it varies by region is right on the mark.</p>
<p>The alum network is often strongest right near the campus. With few exceptions, such as Harvard and PYS, which have a worldwide presence, the network is strong only in the region the school is in. </p>
<p>Overall “strongest” networks by a few selected regions</p>
<p>Worldwide
Harvard has the strongest overall network. No other school can claim this title.</p>
<p>West
USC and Stanford. </p>
<p>South
Vandy, Emory, Rice are the main ones. All have strong regional networks, greatly weakening as geographical distance increases.</p>
<p>East
All the ivies have strong regional networks. However, outside of the East, HYP stand out.</p>
<p>Any of the schools on your list have excellent alumni networks, so it seems like splitting hairs to debate how they rank. Why are you asking?
If you are thinking of this as a criteria for choosing a college, then any of these are great.
Your first job out of college most often comes from the on-campus recruiting anyway at schools like those on your list. Yes, the alumni network *can *come into play, but all those schools have good networks. They **invest **in maintaining those networks.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if ‘strength’ of alumni network can be measured in numbers alone. For example, if we measure strength in terms of prominent positions (judges, CEOs, etc.) Then a smaller alumni base like Princeton (80k living alumni) might be much stronger than the alumni base of UCLA (390k alumni) or tOSU (mentioned above)</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean the alumni of the latter two schools aren’t featured in prestigious positions e.g.:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“404: This page could not be found”>Obama nominates UCLA alumna to U.S District Court - Daily Bruin]The</a> Daily Bruin :: Obama nominates UCLA alumna to U.S District Court<a href=“sparkeye%20can%20probably%20cite%20some%20sources%20for%20tOSU”>/url</a></p>
<p>but just that per-capita they’re probably less than a school like Princeton. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Princeton is more well connected or does a better job of getting its alumni into prominent positions (although i think it is and it does.) It’s important to remember that Pinceton’s alumni have among the strongest students in the country. It isn’t surprising that they’re well represented among top positions.</p>
<p>How much do graduate schools contribute to the strength of a university’s alumni network? I can see elite professional schools such as Harvard Law, Stanford GSB, HBS, YLS, Wharton, etc. contributing a lot to a university’s alumni network, but what about other professional and graduate programs?</p>
<p>USC’s claim is a suspect. Their alumni are amongst the lowest paid, amongst the top 35 elite schools. </p>
<p>I’d say HYPSM + Caltech and Dartmouth
then
Duke, Notre Dame, Columbia, Penn, Berkeley, Brown, Northwestern, Michigan, Chicago, Georgetown and Cornell
then
UCLA, Virginia, NYU, Rice, Vanderbilt, CMU and Emory.</p>
<p>In my expierience, numbers are a very poor indicator of alumni network. </p>
<p>For instance, Penn State claims to have the largest, and just like other well respected flag ship state universities, they have a very large number of living alumni. But, with that said, they also claim the graduates of satelite campuses and they also have a lot of alumni that are not successful academically or successfully. The Big Ten conference schools talk about their alumni support in the same manner they talk about their fans and branding. Yes, these schools sports teams sell tickets and everyone recognizes the school’s name but the real test of an alumni network is not how many people make the minimum alumni donation needed to get football tickets. The real test of an alumni group is how often do people get hired by other alums for no other reason than being a graduate of the same school? The schools with the largest alumni giving and alumni networking at not the large schools with a lot of alumni and fans but are the schools where simply being a grad is respected.</p>
<p>In the world of business, people do not hire for charity, they hire because they need people that can get them and their business where they want to be. They look for the people that add value. Will an Ohio State alum hire an Ohio State grad? Yes. But they know of many alums they would never hire and so they vet them with all the other applicants.</p>
<p>I have observed some schools having very strong alumni networks. In these circles, just having that name behind you means they respect your ability to be successful. Alumni giving is a great metric since people put their money in things they value. But look at total givers, not total dollars. Oklahoma State may have T. Boone Pickens but he isn’t hiring alums like crazy.</p>
<p>Cornell has a very strong network on ‘the street’ and in addition to the Ivy leage schools, Davidson, Middlebury, Amherst, Wheaton, Clarkson, Jusdon, Lehigh, Williams and others have shown to have very strong networks.</p>
<p>Pinnum. </p>
<p>All students who graduate from Penn State have a Penn State diploma including those at satelite colleges. Penn State alumni are very active. Penn State has mentoring programs set up for undergrads to hook up with employed Penn State alumni. </p>
<p>Penn State has been named as the #1 school businesses go to to recruit for jobs. Why do businesses come to Penn State to hire? I would think the sheer # of alum have at least a bit to do with this.</p>
<p>Heres a great view of alumni career services</p>
<p>[Alumni</a> Career Services —](<a href=“http://alumni.psu.edu/career/career-services]Alumni”>http://alumni.psu.edu/career/career-services)</p>
<p>Sax, I know all about that! I have worked with and recruited Penn State alums and Penn State has produced some great people.</p>
<p>What I am saying is that a Penn State diploma does not mean that a person is one of these great hires. The satelite campuses, and main campus, produce both great and poor quality alums. And while this, no doubt, happens at every school, it is my observation that the larger schools result in more low quality falling through the cracks. At a Davidson, Duke, or Judson, their is a much greater accountability and as a result there are a lot less poor quality students that end up graduating. </p>
<p>In my experience, the Penn State satelites have provided a great connection to the campus that has resulted in larger financial giving and support of the main campus but it has also deluted the prestigue of the degree. Yes, Penn State Behrend is a fine school and their Plastics Engineering program is solid, but hiring a Penn State Harrisburg grad his hit or miss and Penn State Dubois or New Kensington is not often solid. Yes, the top half of State College grads are great but there as a lot of people hanging theiir PSU degrees that you probably wish were better vetted.</p>