<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, most college graduates with bachelor’s degrees do not attain a post-bachelor’s graduate or professional degree, although they can certainly do either self-education or attend classroom education later.</p>
<p>(Or do you mean to say that most college graduates have degrees other than Bachelor of Science, e.g. Bachelor of Arts or various associates degrees?)</p>
<p>californiaa - I went to a university rated below the top 100 national universities according to USNWR.</p>
<p>When I graduated I had no problem getting a job with one of the Big 4 accounting firms, and I know work for a manufacturer ranked in fortune 150s. The vast majority of students who graduated with me went to work for the Big 4 firms as well.</p>
<p>Can you explain how I was able to do that with my worthless degree?</p>
<p>Also, if you look up the top universities (I did) and see who they claim to be their top employers in my field it also happens to be the Big 4.</p>
<p>**<strong><em>6. 18-25 - are the golden years of creativity. It would be really sad to waste this time for a major with little value.</em></strong></p>
<p>whoa, what a mindset…</p>
<p>to FinanceGrad,</p>
<p>Thank you for your post. I would really appreciate if you could, please, name your alma mater. I am very interested in a college, that is below top 100, yet “The vast majority of students who graduated with me went to work for the Big 4 firms as well.”</p>
<p>Name, please!</p>
<p>to Miller514 ,</p>
<p>Yes, typical 18-25 are very creative and energetic. Most people, who are creative and full of energy at 40+, were the same (or better) at 20+.</p>
<p>"to FinanceGrad,</p>
<p>Thank you for your post. I would really appreciate if you could, please, name your alma mater. I am very interested in a college, that is below top 100, yet “The vast majority of students who graduated with me went to work for the Big 4 firms as well.”</p>
<p>Name, please!"</p>
<p>How about answering my questions first?</p>
<p>to FinanceGrad ,</p>
<p>I looked through your post again. The only question that you ask is “Can you explain how I was able to do that with my worthless degree?”. Honestly, I thought it is a rhetorical question. Obviously, you are the only person, who knows how you managed to do it.</p>
<p>My only possible explanation is that you underestimate your college. I can’t believe that most students from a low-level college get jobs in Big4 immediately after graduation.</p>
<p>You don’t have to <em>believe</em> anything I am saying. You need go and do some actual research to see where many companies are doing their hiring. Look up where CEO’s of major companies recieved their degrees you will see plenty of no-name Us and state flagships. </p>
<p>I also think you are greatly understimating how hard it will be to find a job with just a high school diploma outside food/service. Most kids who get good jobs straight out of high school get them through their parents’ connections.</p>
<p>to FinanceGrad,</p>
<p>Where do companies make their hiring? How can I do this research? I know that McKinsey, for example, hires directly at several top colleges. … but I don’t know any website, where I can check others.</p>
<p>CEO’s resume won’t help me. My D is not planning to apply for CEO position right after college. Steve Jobs was a dropout … it doesn’t mean that any dropout will become as successful as Steve.</p>
<p>Big 4 recruit from many schools including those outside the top 100. (I think due to the fact that so many people leave the Big 4 every year).</p>
<p>FinanceGrad is not saying that one or two kids from his college went to Big4. He writes that "“The vast majority of students who graduated with me went to work for the Big 4 firms as well.”</p>
<p>Do you believe that <em>the vast majority of students</em> from low-level college went to work for the Big 4 firms right after college?</p>
<p>For his major, accounting, it’s entirely believable. At my second tier school about half of the graduates in the petroleum engineering department go off to work for many of the “big” oil companies. There are plenty of firms which gladly recruit at schools that are rarely mentioned on this forum.</p>
<p>Also, you sound as though you’re setting your daughter up for some hard-core rebellion in college.</p>
<p>whenhen , Petroleum Engineering is a very unique field. Naturally, even second-tier school graduates are valued by oil companies.</p>
<p>Accounting is abundant. All top colleges have finance and accounting. There is no shortage of great students from top schools with degree in accounting.</p>
<p>I’m reading this because this scenario is my situation, but when I read the article the parents were not like my parents. OK maybe they were like 10 percent like my parents, only because whose parents make them take SAT prep twice in sophomore year AND junior year? My parents did, but otherwise my parents are not like this. </p>
<p>I like my parents a lot more now.</p>
<p>First, I apologize for the disconnect that many of you have pointed out - I did refer to Ivy League Grads while the article I referenced focuses on the rich, and I neglected to mention Ivy-equivalent schools as well (eg, UChicago, Stanford, MIT, etc.). Perhaps this is remedied by including each of those groups into the larger group of “parents who need their child to go to a trophy school.”</p>
<p>In my view, there are always two somewhat conflicting purposes of going to college - to get an education and/or to build a resume that will open doors in the future.</p>
<p>For those who (naively?) believe exclusively in the first purpose (ie, that the purpose of college is to get an education), I suggest that the education that a child gets at college is far more dependent on the child (maturity, motivation, passion, interest, etc.) than the school he/she attends. A truly impassioned and interested student can get an excellent education at almost any college. For these children, it is indeed ‘more important that they go to college than where they go to college.’ But is that enough? Can potential employers (or other “door openers”) really evaluate whether a particular child comes out of college “educated”? Do they even want to?</p>
<p>This bring us to the second purpose of college, the validity of which my original post calls into question ( ie, to build a resume that will open future doors). To those who discount this purpose, I point to you Charles Murray, who so eloquently recognized that:</p>
<p>"[H]igher education has now become a proxy for higher IQ, as elite colleges become sorting mechanisms for finding, training and introducing to each other the most intellectually gifted young people." </p>
<p>Whether this is fair is debatable, but that it is true is undisputable.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>
A Finance degree won’t land you a big 4 accounting job, you need to have a certain # of accounting hours to become a CPA.</p>
<p>Also, the Big 4 don’t even recruit (For Audit or Tax, they may recruit for their consulting divisions) at many top schools because:
<p>Alloutforivy, you may think it’s naive to think that college is for education but, frankly, that’s exactly what it’s for and that’s all it promises. It doesn’t promise to improve a particular person’s earnings and, for the careers that it does, it may not matter as much as some think where they attended. (It may help, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying don’t go to Harvard if they accept you but there is definitely value to a degree from SUNY-Buffalo and a doctor may just as easily have graduated from either.) </p>
<p>In fact, one fallacy I often see is the idea that attending a top school leads to fabulous connections that open doors. My kids attended top schools and, in general, many of the kids who were rich had their fabulous connections before they ever walked into the school. </p>
<p>Also, the superstar at less ranked schools will often have a professor who allow him/ her to work on a major project and writes an amazing recommendation for him/ her. And, in fact, many of the professors at lower-ranked schools graduated from top-name schools so that’s where their connections are. </p>
<p>Californiaa, Pace University, ranked #174, has quite a good business program and I know of grads from there working at top New York City accounting firms. </p>
<p>Rutgers is ranked 115; here’s a list of some of its alum [Rutgers</a> University - Rutgers Notable Alumni](<a href=“http://www.alumni.rutgers.edu/s/896/index.aspx?pgid=430]Rutgers”>http://www.alumni.rutgers.edu/s/896/index.aspx?pgid=430)</p>
<p>University of Kansas, ranked #106 [List</a> of University of Kansas people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Kansas_people]List”>List of University of Kansas people - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Howard Univ, ranked #120 [List</a> of Howard University people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Howard_University_people]List”>List of Howard University people - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>As far as getting a job in journalism with just an internship-- good luck. In today’s world, journalism is very competitive and many people at major market jobs have graduate degrees. Most artists did not just ‘intern’ with a local artist; they studied at universities and conservatories.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wonder how differently people would read it if you wrote “top 17 school for petroleum engineering” instead of “second tier school”? :)</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with accounting/finance, but in engineering, less than top-tier colleges located nearby the most desirable companies are usually extremely overrepresented at those companies. For example, the 2nd most represented college among Apple engineers on LinkedIn is San Jose State. San Jose State is not even ranked as a national university at USNWR. Instead it gets a lot of hires because it’s located ~10 miles from Apple headquarters. At Microsoft, Washington is the most represented college, which is again located near headquarters. None of the ivies appear anywhere towards top at either company since they are both centered thousands of miles from the northeast (and many ivies are not strong in engineering). If you look at high revenue engineering companies that are not quite as desirable, then there appears to be little relationship between employment and college selectivity. For example, the top 5 for HP are OSU, CSU, Houston, Texas A&M, and San Jose State. University of Phoenix is top for AT&T. I’ve known some engineering hiring managers who focus on desired experience/skills + a degree from an accredited college, with almost no consideration towards what tier the college is.</p>
<p>I just want to clarify that yes I was an accounting major with a financial analytics focus, just the username “AccountingGrad” didn’t appeal :).</p>
<p>Also, somebody up thread mentioned the Big 4 don’t hire in finance. It may be true for undergrads, but they do hire MBAs with a finance focus.</p>
<p>The most important thing to the Big 4 is:
<p>The Big 4 recognize that the two can be found at all schools with accredited accounting programs and thus recruit at many universities including below the top 100.</p>