<p>I’m sorry to say but rankings do matter, and they matter more for employment than for grad school. (and I am a college graduate by the way, not a high school kid). </p>
<p>You go to UM Ross and you have companies literally lining up to interview you. They send you personal emails asking you out to dinner so they can persuade you to interview with them the following week. For people with higher GPAs than mine, this includes companies such as McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Google. For people with just modest GPAs like me, this includes Fortune 100 companies like General Mills, GE, P&G, and Microsoft. </p>
<p>I have friends at universities like Michigan State, Virginia Tech, and Oregon State who talk about how hard it is to get a job and how little the career services center does to help them. Rankings do matter. They get you in the door at your first job, and they give you great networking connections for future managerial level jobs. </p>
<p>As to grad school, I’ve heard that unless you go to an Ivy League school, schools don’t really care where you went as long as its a top 100 school because they recognize that not everyone can go to the best school they could have gotten into for money and family reasons. </p>
<p>I’m not saying you can’t make it from a not top school, you can. And your work experience and the networks you create at your job can propel you right to the top. But be honest, going to a prestigious school helps tremendously both immediately and down the line in this world where its no just what you know, but who you know.</p>