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<p>Claim without supporting facts.</p>
<p>I used to think the US has the fastest internet access and better cell phone service than other countries. It turned out I was deadly wrong.</p>
<p>My apologizes, @blossom. Since you mentioned engineering, I thought you were interviewing for an engineering position, where other folks may have a better background to judge than you. A poor assumption on my part.</p>
<p>Someone who got in to Fudan is certain to be extremely smart (and good at standardized tests). Some of them also have the other attributes required to do well in a job. Some of them do not. It really depends on the individual (same is true for UofI engineering grads; some I know have done extremely well; one other I know is jobless and living with parents over a decade after graduation).</p>
<p>Someone graduating in the top 3% of her class in Fudan may or may not be extremely smart. But for an American corporate middle manager to decide that it’s no big deal because he happens NOT to have heard of Fudan is not very smart. The world is getting increasingly flat and I try hard NOT to be arrogant when faced with candidates who present with something other than “Eagle Scout and Valedictorian by 18; Magna Cum Laude from Big 10 U by 22”. There are many markers of success out there in the real world. And at the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum- the random factoids that show that Google doesn’t care where you go to college (or fill in the blank on the name of the employer) are kind of a waste of time for the otherwise intelligent folks on CC to be arguing about.</p>
<p>A- because it’s not true. Google may frequently hire from colleges that we may not consider top schools, but they also hire (in droves) graduates of the top schools usually mentioned here. Do you think they accidentally show up at Stanford every year for a dog and pony?</p>
<p>B- because it’s not helpful for parents wondering how best to help their kids. If your child is a senior at Random Directional State U and NOT at Stanford or MIT, wondering how to go back in time is a useless exercise. Far more helpful is to encourage your kid to do what works in finding a job and launching. And if your senior happens to be at one of the “usually mentioned on CC as prestigious” colleges, it’s STILL not helpful. Loads of those kids (as purple titan points out) are still living in the basement and playing Candy Crush.</p>
<p>Going to Cal Tech or Stanford or UIUC or Wharton guarantees you nothing, absolutely nothing when it comes time to interview for a job. But that doesn’t mean that where you go to college doesn’t matter. If your kid is at “easy in, easy out” college he or she will need a story to tell- something that signals to an employer that this is someone who works hard, pushes him/herself, can go both deep and wide intellectually, can work at a discipline that doesn’t come easily and somehow survive, etc. I don’t need the kids who are fantastic at math telling me how easy they found a course in managerial accounting (which requires arithmetic, not math). I need the kids who are terrible at math describing how they survived a tough statistics class, or took the psych sequence which required manipulating large data-sets as a final project and not some fluff “Buyer Behavior for non-business majors” class in the Leisure Studies/Recreation department.</p>
<p>But passing on information that where you go doesn’t matter seems to me to be unfair and unkind to the non-corporate parents on the board. Believe me- my parents (schoolteachers) didn’t have a clue how you went about getting a job in the Fortune 100. And the idea that you’d have to lead with your strengths and tell a story during an interview was completely foreign to them as well. You sent in a CV with a job application, you went in and had 20 minutes with the principal to make sure you didn’t seem to be a raving lunatic, you got a job. That doesn’t work at Google, Cisco, Pfizer, GE, Bank of America, Progressive Insurance, Marriott, Caterpillar, Siemens, etc.</p>
<p>And if it turns out, back in our parents hiring day. that someone was a raving lunatic, it was far easier to get rid of you. Not in today’s world. With the challenges befalling the employer, it makes sense to vet potential candidates as carefully as possible. then bring them on on a trial basis.</p>
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No one is suggesting that. It is important to note that Harvard’s 75%tile range for the SAT(M+CR)for 2010-2011 was 1590, but her 25%tile range was only 1390. Caltech, in comparison was 1580 and 1470 respectively. In short, 1390 would not make Manzi’s first cut. Those kids are good, but they are not really what most people would think of as “Harvard good”. </p>
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The Manzi article is the best response I came across. Are there other good responses out there? Love to see it. Most people I met who do well in life earn their money through rent seeking, not from entrepreneurship, new inventions or the like. This is not the usual official narrative, unfortunately. </p>
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More often than not, I find people do what they do because that is the best they can do, and not what they really wanted to do. I came across a lot of frustrated biology majors and lab technicians who really wanted to be doctors, given a choice.</p>
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If they are good enough, it seems like they don’t need college at all. Is this what Google is really saying? This is not only true in the West, but in China as well. I am surprised.
<a href=“Why Are Some People So Smart? The Answer Could Spawn a Generation of Superbabies | WIRED”>http://www.wired.com/2013/07/genetics-of-iq/</a></p>
<p>Canuck- if you are good enough you don’t need college. I don’t know if that’s what Google is saying because I don’t recruit for Google.</p>
<p>But to most people, this statement is a distraction and not very helpful. We’re talking about such a tiny percentage of the folks in the 99th percentile- not your typical smart kid with a bunch of awards.</p>
<p>I’ve interviewed slews of Rhodes and Fulbrights in my years (where do they end up after all their degrees? At some point they enter the workforce). Most of them you think, “Wow, really accomplished person.” Occasionally you think, “what a stunning example of the best of human achievement” and you almost don’t want to offer them a job because you think they should be working to rid the world of polio (finally) or to fix climate change, or to persuade North Korea and Iran to voluntarily give up their arsenals.</p>
<p>For everyone else- go to college. Or don’t- if you’re interested in a career that doesn’t require college, which is certainly a valid choice as well. But don’t look at the vast majority of jobs which do require a degree and think you’re so smart that you can bypass that route because the numbers are overwhelmingly against you.</p>
<p>“I don’t think linkedin is a reliable source. The information is not verifiable. To me it’s just a social network. Everyone can say he/she works at company A on linkedin regardless of the position (important, unimportant,…).”</p>
<p>I think it’s weird to think people would just make up stuff that has no relationship on LinkedIn just to do so. Who would they impress? Who’s trolling LinkedIn to be impressed by?</p>
<p>"And with something like 50K employees (around 20K or so are at headquarters IIRC) it seems hard to generalize about the arrogance of the employees. Maybe a person had had an experience with a few, but do they represent the complete corporate culture? "</p>
<p>IIRC, the impression was based off negotiations. I expect any company to either put forth or hire someone who is assertive, possibly aggressive, and pulls no punches. I don’t know that one can then generalize about the corporate culture being that way. The lawyer who represents the company may or may not be plugged into or be a good barometer of corporate culture in the trenches. </p>
<p>“No one is suggesting that. It is important to note that Harvard’s 75%tile range for the SAT(M+CR)for 2010-2011 was 1590, but her 25%tile range was only 1390. Caltech, in comparison was 1580 and 1470 respectively. In short, 1390 would not make Manzi’s first cut. Those kids are good, but they are not really what most people would think of as “Harvard good”.”</p>
<p>No, it’s really not that important to note, because only someone who is extremely linear and a one-dimensional thinker really thinks that 1390 isn’t a great score in the absolute, in the entire picture of 18-year-old American students. It’s like saying someone made the Olympic team, but they didn’t get a gold medal, so they’re “merely good.” No. They’re still great. </p>
<p>Then again, some people like to put other people in boxes based on descending order of SAT scores, and think that that’s how you identify talent. Laughable, really.</p>
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<p>Kids coming from ANY college need a story to tell. Simply attending a college that’s hard to get into and graduating in four years is not necessarily impressive either, especially when you factor in grade inflation. As for going “deep and wide intellectually,” I might expect to see that more in LAC grads than in candidates from highly competitive research universities. </p>
<p>“As for going “deep and wide intellectually,” I might expect to see that more in LAC grads than in candidates from highly competitive research universities.”</p>
<p>I don’t know. I have a kid at each, and the extent to which each kid has gone “deep and wide intellectually” is really a function of that particular kid. After all, I don’t really see much difference, frankly, between being an economics major at a top research uni and a top LAC, with the same general distribution requirements. My kids’ general courses look much the same to one another and they cover much the same material. Microeconomics 101 is Microeconomics 101 whether you’re at a research uni or an LAC. IOW, what’s the real difference between the arts and sciences college of a research uni and a LAC? I seriously don’t see much difference at all, except the person at the arts and sciences college is situated in a larger place. </p>
<p>With regard to Blossom’s post 316, internships are becoming so common now, and unfortunately many high school students regard them as a major tip in admissions. I even know a company which specializes in locating internships for that purpose. And even before “every” student was doing it, I did not observe any significant edge it gave them in elite admissions (i.e., results). The edge has always been to those who are intellectually vital, demonstrably and easily so.</p>
<p>As to the comment that people don’t really “need” college (hopefully I didn’t misinterpret the thought), if you are very tech-capable and your goal is to work in that industry, no, you do not need college. Many students in the SV do not want to go to college; they just want to work in the industry. The only reason that those same students apply to college is that their parents make them. Period.</p>
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More snide remarks. My comment @JHS was this:</p>
<p>“2) What we do know is that standardized testing correlates higher with job performance than any other measure. The only other measure that is even close is one of the Big Fives-conscientiousness. Since intelligence and conscientiousness are not highly correlated, combining the two will give the best result.”</p>
<p>I also said @blossom that Manzi’s hiring practice is the best I have ever seen. (Screening by a combination of SAT, GPA, demanding quantitative courses and 3 layers of interview will most certainly separate the truly able from the pretenders).</p>
<p>You should really get out of the business of misrepresenting people. It is tiresome.</p>
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I agree with you. That is why I said Bock is too slick for my liking and why I do not drink the Kool-Aid. I am much more interested in what we can do for the typical smart kid with a bunch of awards. The sliver of humanity at the very top will do just fine. For some reason, however, I always get dragged into talking about them. </p>
<p>Canuck- we agree! The tiny sliver at the top doesn’t need our help.</p>
<p>And just in case you think I’m making it up or exaggerating,
<a href=“After Starting 4 Businesses, College Entrepreneur Decides on Degree - The New York Times”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/business/smallbusiness/daniel-fine-of-glass-u-decides-that-the-degree-matters.html</a>
(A reference therein to how cool it’s perceived to be not to get/“need” a degree.)</p>
<p>^ The business student in your article and the one mentioned by @blossom up thread is like day and night.</p>
<p>There is not much more I can add. One wave that I failed to mention is described by Manzi as “the increasing migration of value from soft to hard; basically, to math, technology and analytics-intensive work.” As parents and students, this is something we need to be aware of, and plan accordingly. I don’t expect things to change in the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>Until the economy improves and generates more jobs, preparing our “typical smart kids” for a tough job market looks more and more like an arms race…the spoil will go to the best prepared, and the most determined.</p>
I’m from north of Silicon Valley and have met lots of Googlers. My friends brother has been working their for years too.
Just last week I was invited to a meeting with a Sr. Software Engineer at Google along with other people (although I was the only High Schooler). We worked on Artificial Intelligence with Machine Learning of course and Weka. But we also talked about other things.
Basically they only care about what you can build, not some numbers. That’s where a lot of people get confused. If you’re familiar with B-trees, red-black trees, your algorithms, experienced in OOP, Dynamic programming, Super recursion, you will do good in the coding interviews.
Then it comes down to Googleyness. Which they let everyone find out what that means by themselves. 
@itshydro Take a look at the top 20 schools google hires from. The top five are Stanford,MIT,CMU, Berkeley and UCLA. If you dont think a top school matters to Google you are gravely mistaken unless you dont think Stanford and MIT are top schools
Google is known to recruit widely among college campuses, rather than restricting is recruiting to a few colleges. However, it is likely that a greater percentage of students at more selective colleges (or CS majors) will do well enough in technical interviews than students at less selective colleges.
“The goal is to get a job with an opportunity to advance and do interesting work in differing areas”.
I hear what you’re saying, but I also have to say that that is not everyone’s goal, and it’s ok.
Is it bad that someone wants to be an elementary school teacher? Isn’t it ok that they enjoy working with young children in the classroom setting, would like to retire after 40 years of changing young lives and have no desire to advance to principal, administrator, etc?
Is it bad that someone wants to be a geriatric nurse? Isn’t it ok that they found their love for that atmosphere while doing their clinical rotation in nursing school and would love nothing more than to spend their days enriching the last years of someone’s life? Is is bad the they have no desire to be the head nurse or nursing director, but find that their passion is at the bedside?
There are so many people with good “regular” jobs that make the world go round. There are thousands of companies that have employees that are probably happy with what they are doing and have no desire to move up, over or out to another job.
When I read threads on CC, it appears as if many (not all and maybe not most) people feel that it’s obvious that a young person would want the best school that can lead to the best internship that can lead to the best job with a top company so that they can advance up the ladder to a better position, possibly in leadership and retire at the top! But that is not everyone’s desire…and that’s ok.
if you are not a white or asian male from a top school your chances of getting a job are pretty slim That is the reality of the situation no matter what type of spin is placed out there The working conditions for women are also pretty bad. There was an article a few days ago from the LA times I believe on this subject