Annual return on degree vs admission rate

[idnib]

Here's an article from The Economist a couple of years ago, ranking ROI on various fields of study vs admissions rate (selectivity). I thought someone might find it useful.

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/03/daily-chart-2

[Ann.without.an.e]

"Courses in arts or the humanities may pay intellectual dividends but provide more mixed economic returns. Students concerned about their financial outlook should worry less about their school's rank and spend more time brushing up on maths."

 

​Basically, they are saying not to worry about selectivity/rankings but to worry about your major instead.  Better to go to a less selective school and be an engineer than a highly selective school and be an English major.  I don't know though, if you want to be a humanities major (not everyone wants to be an engineer), wouldn't it help the situation to graduate from a higher ranked school, if possible?  DD could be an engineer.  She is incredible with math and science, has a very high aptitude for anything that involves critical thinking.  She simply has zero desire to go into engineering.  

Edited April 11, 2017 by Attolia

[idnib]

I suppose they're saying that, but what I took away was that within a particular field of study, the rankings don't mean nearly as much as many people perceive them to mean, and that many students get a good/equivalent ROI despite going to less selective schools.

[Ann.without.an.e]

I suppose they're saying that, but what I took away was that within a particular field of study, the rankings don't mean nearly as much as many people perceive them to mean, and that many students get a good/equivalent ROI despite going to less selective schools.

 

 

I have felt like the rankings aren't as important for higher demand majors.  DS wants to be a computer science major.  If he does well in his studies, I think he can go to a state school that isn't super selective and be fine.  I wouldn't want my dd going to a state school that is meh and being an English major.  Maybe my thinking is off somewhere.

[Bootsie]

I went to the PayScale link to try to determine the methodology used, and I cannot find a description.  I do not see how they have a large, accurate data set to determine this.  How do they really know the salaries of engineering majors from XYZ school over the past 20 years?  How do they control for the fact that students from certain schools tend to go on and receive graduate degrees or other advanced education?  How do they account for people who work in an area far outside their degree specialization? 

[idnib]

I went to the PayScale link to try to determine the methodology used, and I cannot find a description.  I do not see how they have a large, accurate data set to determine this.  How do they really know the salaries of engineering majors from XYZ school over the past 20 years?  How do they control for the fact that students from certain schools tend to go on and receive graduate degrees or other advanced education?  How do they account for people who work in an area far outside their degree specialization? 

 

 

All good questions. They certainly seem to have collected a lot of data on pay scales and compensation and it seems it's their business to see this info to companies. No idea where they get the data, but if I had to guess it's a combination of purchasing databases and doing their own surveys and research.

[8filltheheart]

While Payscale's methodology might be questionable, the findings in the article match our irl outcomes. I think the majority of the time outcomes are far more individual ability based than any other factor.

 

Here is an example of a student who attended a very avg U majoring in English, excelled there in every way, had professors as mentors, focused her energy on pursuing writing, etc. She was recently 1 of 4 accepted into JHU's creative writing mfa. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/admissions-hindsight-lessons-learned/1660745-where-you-go-for-undergrad-does-not-matter-p1.html

 

The comments on that thread are interesting. If you are a reader of CC, you will recognize a couple of the dissenting voices as posters who have posted financial threads about affording tippy tops and are financially invested in that route.

[G5052]

Studies like that are mildly interesting IMHO, but there are too many variables. 

 

I went to state schools that were merely in the top 20% in my field and ended up in the same positions at the same salaries in a STEM field as those who had degrees from Cal Tech and MIT. My first employer after college was considered a real "catch." I was hired there because I was a summer intern and handled a number of technical issues on projects that the full-time staffers had given up on. I had a Silicon Valley offer lined up after graduation that was withdrawn because they were laying off, so my summer job offered to bring me on as a graduate intern and then wrote a position for me.

 

DS is transferring from community college to a top-20 business school. Thankfully in-state tuition, and he'll commute from home.

 

DD will start at the same community college and then transfer to the same 4-year, which has an employment-oriented liberal arts degree that she wants.

 

Both will do co-ops/internships in their field, and I suspect that they will do just fine in the end.

 

[idnib]

Studies like that are mildly interesting IMHO, but there are too many variables. 

 

I went to state schools that were merely in the top 20% in my field and ended up in the same positions at the same salaries in a STEM field as those who had degrees from Cal Tech and MIT. My first employer after college was considered a real "catch." I was hired there because I was a summer intern and handled a number of technical issues on projects that the full-time staffers had given up on. I had a Silicon Valley offer lined up after graduation that was withdrawn because they were laying off, so my summer job offered to bring me on as a graduate intern and then wrote a position for me.

 

DS is transferring from community college to a top-20 business school. Thankfully in-state tuition, and he'll commute from home.

 

DD will start at the same community college and then transfer to the same 4-year, which has an employment-oriented liberal arts degree that she wants.

 

Both will do co-ops/internships in their field, and I suspect that they will do just fine in the end.

 

I read somewhere about 10 years ago(?) in a print publication that controlling for many large variables, the ability to participate in unpaid or low paid internships and co-ops after college was a very large factor in long-term success, and of course that's more easily done if the student does not have loans payments due. 

[G5052]

I read somewhere about 10 years ago(?) in a print publication that controlling for many large variables, the ability to participate in unpaid or low paid internships and co-ops after college was a very large factor in long-term success, and of course that's more easily done if the student does not have loans payments due. 

 

During college is even better because many employers get some of their permanent hires from the pool of students who have already worked for them, or they want references from other employers in the field. Waiting until after college can be too late.

 

Of course loans make that hard. DS has a friend who did a local unpaid internship last summer, but he was waiting tables in the evening and weekends because he's trying not to up his loan balance too far. So basically he was home for the summer, but his parents rarely saw him.

[madteaparty]

I'm a broken record but again, it depends what field you go into. In certain fields, it matters and it doesn't stop mattering regardless of what amazing career you proceed to have.

Edited April 13, 2017 by madteaparty

[8filltheheart]

I'm a broken record but again, it depends what field you go into. In certain fields, it matters and it doesn't stop mattering regardless of what amazing career you proceed to have.

So if you have an amazing career but don't have a degree from an elite school, somehow it is a black mark against you bc you don't have that elite degree even though your career demonstrates otherwise? At that point, it matters to whom?

[madteaparty]

So if you have an amazing career but don't have a degree from an elite school, somehow it is a black mark against you bc you don't have that elite degree even though your career demonstrates otherwise? At that point, it matters to whom?

That is not what I said. There are employers, in several industries, that hire from approx 5 schools. This is just the way it is.

If you are doing amazing in career track Xa, but really want to move to career track Xb, you might get told, in the same interview, that you're both overqualified and undereducated.

You and I are clearly of different views on this, and throwing down anecdotes back and forth benefits no one. I post this view so it's not one of those "I didn't know one had to study for the SAT" things. What one does with the info is their business. It's not changing the way I guide my own child, for one. But I thought more information was a good thing.

Edited April 13, 2017 by madteaparty

[8filltheheart]

That is not what I said. There are employers, in several industries, that hire from approx 5 schools. This is just the way it is.

If you are doing amazing in career track Xa, but really want to move to career track Xb, you might get told, in the same interview, that you're both overqualified and undereducated.

You and I are clearly of different views on this, and throwing down anecdotes back and forth benefits no one. I post this view so it's not one of those "I didn't know one had to study for the SAT" things. What one does with the info is their business. It's not changing the way I guide my own child, for one. But I thought more information was a good thing.

You just added an additional element to your post that was not in your original comment--wanting to move to a different career.

[madteaparty]

You just added an additional element to your post that was not in your original comment--wanting to move to a different career.

It's not a different career. It's a slightly different version of the same exact career, which is why Xa to Xb vs X to Y. Ugh. Never mind, this is absurd now. Edited April 13, 2017 by madteaparty

[Roadrunner]

I am going to echo madteaparty comments.

Private equity hires from few selective MBA programs. So if a kid wants to work at one of those top private equity firms, sadly the name of the school one graduates from matters tremendously. I am sure somebody can find an example to contradict my statement, because there is always a genius out there that defies trends, but for people who aren't outliers, this is the reality.

I believe some management consulting firms and investment banks can also be very discriminatory in their hiring. Does that mean every industry is that way? No. Every profession? No. But some are.

[8filltheheart]

I am going to echo madteaparty comments.

Private equity hires from few selective MBA programs. So if a kid wants to work at one of those top private equity firms, sadly the name of the school one graduates from matters tremendously.

Does the MBA matter or the UG matter or both?

[SeaConquest]

I am going to echo madteaparty comments.

Private equity hires from few selective MBA programs. So if a kid wants to work at one of those top private equity firms, sadly the name of the school one graduates from matters tremendously. I am sure somebody can find an example to contradict my statement, because there is always a genius out there that defies trends, but for people who aren't outliers, this is the reality.

I believe some management consulting firms and investment banks can also be very discriminatory in their hiring. Does that mean every industry is that way? No. Every profession? No. But some are.

Agree with Madteaparty and Roadrunner. In some industries, rightly or wrongly, it matters. I think I've mentioned the ex-member of Congress who was asked for his law school transcript when applying for a position with BiglawDC. I believe it was Gibson Dunn.

 

I've also mentioned my experience getting positions outside of my area of study based on the reputation of the school overall. I think there are very few law students who are able to interview with investment banks on campus. I also imagine that there are very few Russian majors who could interview with banks and consulting firms on campus. If I went to a lesser-ranked school, I might have had those job offers if I had been studying at the bschool, or was an econ major, but the reputation of my schools gave me flexibility to do things outside of my area of study. I think that's the point being made.

Edited April 13, 2017 by SeaConquest

[SeaConquest]

Does the MBA matter or the UG matter or both?

MBA matters for associate level and above positions. UG matters for analyst positions. You can trade up.

[Roadrunner]

Does the MBA matter or the UG matter or both?

if all you have is BA, then UG matters. If you managed to get an MBA from top 5 schools, then UG will not matter. The best combination is often a technical UG followed by top 5 MBA.

Again, very few people will end up working in those companies relatively speaking, so this is not relevant to most of us, but if my kid were to tell me he wants to go work for Goldman after undergrad, I will look at the choice of school.

Outliers live by different rules for sure.

[Bootsie]

if all you have is BA, then UG matters. If you managed to get an MBA from top 5 schools, then UG will not matter. The best combination is often a technical UG followed by top 5 MBA.

Again, very few people will end up working in those companies relatively speaking, so this is not relevant to most of us, but if my kid were to tell me he wants to go work for Goldman after undergrad, I will look at the choice of school.

Outliers live by different rules for sure.

I have worked at a state flagship school, a small Catholic school, a large regional state university, and a larger well-known private university--I have had students from all four universities who have gone to work for Goldman upon completing their undergraduate degree.

[idnib]

Oops, I didn't mean to start anything!

 

The data I posted does not factor in whether someone ended up in the career they wished to have, or even if the career for which they are counting earnings has anything to do with their field of study.

 

I do think if a student has a very particular career in mind, it behooves the family to examine the best way to make that happen, and if that means looking at feeder schools or schools with very strong connections to particular employers, they should certainly run the numbers and the odds. There are often ways to enter as an outlier, but the extra effort and risk must be weighed against the cost and the characteristics possessed by the individual student. 

 

That said, I do think people, especially people who are not thinking of particular firms or grad schools, may overstate the importance of the name of the school.

[Roadrunner]

I have worked at a state flagship school, a small Catholic school, a large regional state university, and a larger well-known private university--I have had students from all four universities who have gone to work for Goldman upon completing their undergraduate degree.

Again, there are always exceptions.

I can see that from UCs, from UNc Chapel Hill, kids who have connections, kids who get lucky.

 

Here is an article

http://news.efinancialcareers.com/us-en/218782/the-top-universities-for-the-analyst-class-for-2015-at-goldman-sachs-j-p-morgan-and-morgan-stanley/

 

I don't want to deal in absolutes here, but the odds are greatly diminished based on school.

 

Private equity is even more restrictive. Just pick a name and then look at people who work there. What you will often find is they all come from the same school. I know so many people who have tried to crack that market and failed with UC degrees. Many succeed for sure as well, but then again, we are speaking of trends.

 

If you scroll at the bottom of the article, it gives you 25 schools Goldman hired from in the us.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Roadrunner

[SeaConquest]

It's also about how well you have to do in school. I assumed I would graduate at the top of my class in law school. I had always excelled academically; why would I not? I graduated in the bottom half of my class, yet still had offers from many big law firms, banks, and consulting firms. A friend of mine turned down the University of Chicago to take a full ride at Loyola Marymount in LA. She had personal reasons pulling her to stay in LA. She ended up getting pneumonia in law school, and her gpa for that semester went down. Biglaw firms in LA wouldn't touch her. I was super glad to have my school name to vouch for me when I didn't perform to expectation.

 

Eta: her LSAT score was higher than mine, and I know her well, so I have no doubt about her abilities.

Edited April 13, 2017 by SeaConquest

[*LC]

I always wonder how they decide how much graduates of schools make. No one has ever asked me, which is good for my school, since I don't work currently. No one ever asked my husband when he was consulting. The way tha this business worked that information was not available anywhere. So, I am always confused when I read ROI articles about colleges. (For some reason the link would not open for me, so this is totally a random observation.

 

I have read that private equity firms and investment banks only hire from certain schools.

 

I have a friend whose son is graduating in finance from the same top 100 state university where my kids go. In talking to her, I know finance majors will be going to JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PwC, in offices across the country. Others will be going to regional banks and to large companies across the country. I know she mentioned private equity, but I didn't remember if she mentioned a name/names.

 

So, I searched the school name and private equity, Blackstone Group was one that popped up. It had names/backgrounds for many employees, so I decided to read some bios.

 

I found many employees at the private equity firm The Blackstone Group who are not graduates of selectives MBA schools or super selective undergrad schools. Blackston is in the top 10 of every private equity list I see. It is easy to read check the educational background of many of their employees on this list: https://www.blackstone.com/the-firm/our-people

 

In a quick look, there are employees listed who graduated from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Clemson, Dartmouth, Texas, SMU, Drexel, Utah, Ohio State, Illinois, Rider, Virginia Tech, Souhern Illinois, many different State University of New York, Mississippi, Michigan, NYU, Illinois, etc. Many have grad degrees from higher ranked schools, but many do not.

 

The Global Head of private Equity graduated from Georgetown; no graduate degree is listed. Many of the senior managing directors in private equity did not graduate from from US schools. Of those that did, Harvard, Yale,and Princeton have more than one graduate. The senior manager directors in private equity also have undergrad degrees from Virginia Tech, Northwestern, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, and some others that I forget. This group mainly has graduate degrees from ivy league schools, but not all.

 

The three operating partners in private equity graduated from RPI, California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, and University of Cincinatti. They have graduate degrees from Cornell & Harvard, Pepperdine and Central Michigan respectively.

 

One of my current high schoolers is interested in business and plans to go to the same school his siblings attend. He has never mentioned private equity as a career interest, but from what I read, I would feel comfortable with his school choice if he did decide that was his dream career. He definitley would not be the only state school grad at Blackstone Group if he did decide that was his interest. I had heard similar things about my oldest's major and it turned out not to be true for her.

Edited April 14, 2017 by *LC

[SeaConquest]

A couple of things to keep in mind... things become more competitive each year. What it was like for very senior people is not necessarily representative of what it is like today.

 

UG degrees matter for very junior positions, but if you have a Harvard MBA, nobody cares that you went to CSUN for UG.

 

Senior people have connections, and they use them to help others. Sometimes that is to help a young alum from their own underrepresented alma mater, sometimes to help a relative or colleague's kid. Exceptions do happen. I don't think that anyone is saying that it is impossible.

 

But, I can tell you that in my law school class, we had one Cal State alum. One. Do you know how many Cal State students there are? The numbers are astonishing. Sure, maybe they all turned down Stanford for Yale that year, but I doubt it. Yet, we had 3 people admitted from my tiny liberal arts college (of less than 800 people in the entire school, at the time) in my year.

Edited April 14, 2017 by SeaConquest

[DawnM]

I am going to echo madteaparty comments.

Private equity hires from few selective MBA programs. So if a kid wants to work at one of those top private equity firms, sadly the name of the school one graduates from matters tremendously. I am sure somebody can find an example to contradict my statement, because there is always a genius out there that defies trends, but for people who aren't outliers, this is the reality.

I believe some management consulting firms and investment banks can also be very discriminatory in their hiring. Does that mean every industry is that way? No. Every profession? No. But some are.

 

 

This is true, but this is at the MA level.  My husband went to a smaller state school for undergrad and then to the flagship school for his program for grad school.  It has paid off well.  

 

ETA:  And yes, for his undergrad it isn't matter.  If it had, he would have chosen differently.

Edited April 15, 2017 by DawnM

[madteaparty]

nm

Edited April 15, 2017 by madteaparty

[*LC]

A couple of things to keep in mind... things become more competitive each year. What it was like for very senior people is not necessarily representative of what it is like today.

 

UG degrees matter for very junior positions, but if you have a Harvard MBA, nobody cares that you went to CSUN for UG.

 

Senior people have connections, and they use them to help others. Sometimes that is to help a young alum from their own underrepresented alma mater, sometimes to help a relative or colleague's kid. Exceptions do happen. I don't think that anyone is saying that it is impossible.

 

But, I can tell you that in my law school class, we had one Cal State alum. One. Do you know how many Cal State students there are? The numbers are astonishing. Sure, maybe they all turned down Stanford for Yale that year, but I doubt it. Yet, we had 3 people admitted from my tiny liberal arts college (of less than 800 people in the entire school, at the time) in my year.

Ugh, for some reason this tablet eats my posts.

 

Basically, the schools I named at first were for the more junior positions listed on the website. Some of those Blackstone employees from non-name schools had graduate degrees and some did not. I listed the senior employees to show you could advance in privte equity with a degree from a less known school.

 

Since top law schools are also frequently mentioned as a place that require a top undergrad school for admittance, I looked up Stanford Law School. Do you know (at least) 67 schools outside the top 30 national universities and top 30 liberal arts schools have law students at Stanford right now? Many of them have more than one. Around 18 of these schools are in top 50. Of the remaining 50 schools, most are in the top 100 national universities. There are probably 10 represented that are outside the top 100 schools and another handful that are regional universities. I did not include the military academies or foreign universitSies in the list.

 

By my rough estimates, the class of 2017 has about a 1/3rd of the class from undergrad schools outside the top 30. About 20 percent of the class come from schools outside the top 50. (The names ran together too much to do the other classes in my head.)

 

Here are the list of schools with a student or students who are part of the 2017, 2018 or 2019 class at Stanford Law School. The school I recognized as California schools are at the end. I don't know much about California State schools, but there is at least one California school with state in the school.

 

American

Arizona State

Auburn

Brandies (in top 50)

Boston University (in top 50

Boston College (in top 50)

Boston University (in top 50)

Bucknell

BYU

Case Western (in top 50)

Clemson

Chapman

Colorado State (phd from Wisconsin)

Concordia College (had also studied at Georgetown)

Dickinson College

George Washington

Gongaza

Indiana

Kent State

Loyola Marymount

Mount Holyoke

New York University (in top 50)

Occidental

Ohio State

Oregon State

Pennsylvania State (#50)

Pitzer

Pratt Institute

Southern Methodist University

Spelman

St Olaf (had master's from Pace)

Trinity University

Tulane University (in top 50)

U of Alabama

U of Connecticut

U. of Florida

U of Georgia (had also studied at Oxford)

U of Hawaii (had also studied at NYU)

University of Kansas

University of Illinois ((in top 50)

University of Illinois - Chicago

U of Iowa

U of Maryland

U of Massachusetts

U of Miami (in top 50)

U of Mississippi

U of Missouri

U. of Nevada, Reno

U of North Carolina, Charlotte

University of Oklahoma

U of Pittsburgh

U of Rochester (in top 50)

University of Texas

U of Utah

U of Washington

U of Wisconsin (in top 50)

Villanova (# 50)

William and Mary (# 50)

William Jewell

 

 

San Diego State

UC Davis (ranked 44)

UC Irvine (ranked 39)

UCLA (ranked 31 and in California, so probably shoudn't be in this category)

UC Santa Barbara (ranked 37)

UC Santa Cruz

U of Redlands

U of San Diego (not UCSD

 

You can see the current classes and see where they went for undergraduate here. https://www-cdn.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/16-15602_C1__WhosWho.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwje68fP2qXTAhWI6SYKHdcDCDsQFggkMAE&usg=AFQjCNG0zt2rwoIiTEIjORpRCPzEY-mIMA&sig2=kNE_VZHfiLmZORgmBIQL9A

[Hoggirl]

I'm a broken record but again, it depends what field you go into. In certain fields, it matters and it doesn't stop mattering regardless of what amazing career you proceed to have.

Ds has a summer internship in one of the fields where we on this board have had much discussion about whether the school one attends matters. Eight summer interns for this office who will be rising college seniors from the following schools:

 

Harvard

Yale

Princeton

Stanford

UPenn - Wharton

JHU

Berkeley - (2 interns)

 

A sample of one.

[8filltheheart]

The conversation gets so muddied bc it isn't just a simple statement one way or the other. Are you talking about UG? Grad school? Professional programs? All UG degrees? A handful of fields?

 

Every single one of those areas has more separation.

 

Does it take a top UG program to get into a top grad program? That is another whole can of worms. ;)

[wapiti]

Since top law schools are also frequently mentioned as a place that require a top undergrad school for admittance,

 

FWIW, I would not put it quite that way.  Top undergrad can be very helpful but is not required for admittance to a T14 law school - it's not that simple.  While law school admission is a numbers game, the undergrad institution would play a role in the inherent value of the GPA portion of the equation. A 3.7 gpa at a school ranked 20 or 45 or 65 isn't evaluated the same as possibly even a 4.0 at a school ranked 200 or 300.  The differences may not be parsed finely by the adcoms, especially inside the top-50 (or 60 or 70), but there are differences in the bigger picture.  There is a continuum.

 

As far as I can remember, I can't think of any of my classmates at a T14 law school who attended undergrad outside the top-100, though surely there must have been some; almost all my friends attended top-50 undergrads.  I didn't look, but the list of undergrads attended from Stanford above does not indicate what proportion of students were from each school; there are over 500 students in a class (aren't most schools on that list top-100?).

[SeaConquest]

Yes, you will find so-called diversity among the ranks of the admitted, but your post actually proved my point. The size of the Cal State system cannot be understated; it is enormous. And, out of that entire system, SLS took one student from SDSU. What they don't show are the number from Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst -- unimaginably tiny schools in comparison to the Cal State System. We probably had a good 80% of my class from T10 national universities and liberal arts colleges. And among the remaining 20% that went to the University of Hawaii or Georgia, almost all had 'traded up' via a prestigious post-UG fellowship or grad school program. Fully, 10% of my law school class already had their PhD upon admission. A lot of those folks are from UG programs outside of the top 10.

 

And again, I'm not saying it cannot be done. I interned at biglaw in LA with a girl from Pepperdine Law. She was number one in her class, and felt lucky to be there. I was the bottom half and was entirely unmotivated, pining away instead for some do-gooder public interest position that I could not afford to take (I made 40K that summer). And lest you think me a snob, I will say without hesitation that she was by far the better associate. What she *may* have lacked in mental firepower, she more than made up for in terms of work ethic. Law firms know this, and yet, they still choose to hire the vast majority of their associates from elite schools. I assume that they do so to impress clients and because biglaw partnership is made by less than 10% of associates, and they know that most of us from elite schools will bail for greener pastures before they have to make us partner. It doesn't surprise me in the least that she is still practicing law, and I burned out a decade ago.

 

Also, please know that what I'm saying only applies to a very small number of professions. I'm currently hoping to pursue a second doctoral degree (in nursing), where elite credentials are mostly irrelevant. I will (hopefully) be pursuing my degree at a cheap state school vs. applying to Yale or JHU.

 

Eta: woah, I just realized that your post included 3 years of law school classes from SLS, and still only one poor soul from SDSU. That is really really sh*tty. Seriously, SLS, out of 400k+ UGs in the Cal State system, you took one in 3 years?!?

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_University

Edited April 15, 2017 by SeaConquest

[SeaConquest]

And yes, as Wapiti said, law schools have some secret sauce formula by which they weight your GPA based on the 'strength' of your school. I left USC in 1993 (which used to be more of a party school than it is today) for CMC (where 25% of grads go to law school) for that reason. I had basically the same GPA at both schools, but CMC's was no doubt accorded more weight.

Edited April 15, 2017 by SeaConquest

[Roadrunner]

We never even considered CSU graduates for internship and/or hiring positions when I was working. Not even all of UCs. We tended to hire out of grad school or undergrad with little or no work experience. The name of the undergrad institution is how to those kids made their first cut. Then the writing samples and then interviews.

One summer I decided to revolt against this system and my boss let me interview some CSU grads. That was the last time we ever bothered.

Again, I am not speaking in absolutes here. I am sure there are ton of dumb kids with fancy degrees due to their family wealth and great kids from lesser known institutions, but in our tiny experience, general quality (interview and mostly written samples) from those two groups proved incomparable. The bias on part of the bosses at my company was real.

I am sure there are less discriminating companies all around, but there are others like mine as well.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Roadrunner

[Arcadia]

We never even considered CSU graduates for internship and/or hiring positions when I was working.

CalPoly SLO student services is good at getting/sourcing internships for their students. Engineering undergrads have summer internships their freshman year if they put in the effort to apply and interview well. There are quite a few juniors with summer internships in their resume for freshman and sophomore years.

 

Considering CalPoly's cost of attendance for in-state undergrads, the summer internships would offset quite a bit of the COA if they co-rent a one bedroom apartment (maximum 3 adults) for summer internships in my area.

 

So student services personnel are another thing to check out during informal campus tours.

 

As for law, my friend relocated using H1B to Albany, New York with a non-US LLM (ranked under 20 for law schools in world rankings) and has been working as a lawyer there since 1998.

[Roadrunner]

CalPoly SLO student services is good at getting/sourcing internships for their students. Engineering undergrads have summer internships their freshman year if they put in the effort to apply and interview well. There are quite a few juniors with summer internships in their resume for freshman and sophomore years.

 

Considering CalPoly's cost of attendance for in-state undergrads, the summer internships would offset quite a bit of the COA if they co-rent a one bedroom apartment (maximum 3 adults) for summer internships in my area.

 

So student services personnel are another thing to check out during informal campus tours.

 

As for law, my friend relocated using H1B to Albany, New York with a non-US LLM (ranked under 20 for law schools in world rankings) and has been working as a lawyer there since 1998.

We weren't an outfit that was interesting in engineers. None of our employees were engineers.

SLO Cal Poly engineering is now as competitive as UCs.

[8filltheheart]

University of Alabama has UG kids accepted into top law schools: UVA (as a Dillard Scholar-- full-tuition and fees), Georgetown, Yale. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20006906/#Comment_20006906

 

Kids from lower ranked schools who have exceptional accomplishments do get accepted to all sorts of top programs/jobs. This is where those specialized honors programs with mentoring, research, and internships can enable students to have excellent UG experiences. The distinction is that these are not avg kids at these avg schools. They are top students at these avg schools. (Most of these specialized honors programs only accept a handful of students. )

 

(ETA: This is in a letter Dd just received from the deputy provost: "Step into the role of Scholar, and you will find that the attention and resources lavished upon you are hard to beat....

Faculty are at the heart of your UG experience......we will hand select a faculty mentor who specializes in your field of interest.... meet for coffee, lunch...offer insights into opportunities in your area of study..." plus a lot of other specialized supports.)

Edited April 15, 2017 by 8FillTheHeart

[madteaparty]

FWIW, I would not put it quite that way. Top undergrad can be very helpful but is not required for admittance to a T14 law school - it's not that simple. While law school admission is a numbers game, the undergrad institution would play a role in the inherent value of the GPA portion of the equation. A 3.7 gpa at a school ranked 20 or 45 or 65 isn't evaluated the same as possibly even a 4.0 at a school ranked 200 or 300. The differences may not be parsed finely by the adcoms, especially inside the top-50 (or 60 or 70), but there are differences in the bigger picture. There is a continuum.

 

As far as I can remember, I can't think of any of my classmates at a T14 law school who attended undergrad outside the top-100, though surely there must have been some; almost all my friends attended top-50 undergrads. I didn't look, but the list of undergrads attended from Stanford above does not indicate what proportion of students were from each school; there are over 500 students in a class (aren't most schools on that list top-100?).

I was one with an undergrad from outside top 100 that attended a top 10 law school. It was the exception, not the rule and I felt like a freak show the entire time.

I think finance is much much worse.

Edited April 15, 2017 by madteaparty

[JanetC]

I've posted this before, but here's an economist who's studied the value of a degree thing. Her conclusion was it wasn't reputation or test scores, it was what the college spent on you. Note that this is not the same as tuition, because students get financial aid and colleges have donors and endowments. And some students, like the one in 8Fill's link, have more resources spent on them than others (because they take full advantage of every possible opportunity).

 

Caroline Hoxby - Stanford University and NBER

The Dramatic Economics of the U.S. Market for Higher Education

July 27, 2016

 

Video:

http://nber.org/feldstein_lecture_2016/feldsteinlecture_2016.html

 

Slides:

http://nber.org/feldstein_lecture_2016/hoxby_feldstein_lecture_27july2016.pdf

 

 

Websites that collect education expenditures per student:

http://www.collegeresults.org

https://www.collegetransitions.com/education-expenses-per-student-by-institution/

[Sebastian (a lady)]

A comment on the income numbers. Many listings use data from Payscale.com, which gets its info from alumni who self-report.

 

I dug into the report for the Naval Academy about 3 years ago. There was an average for early career and one for mid career (around 10 years IIRC). But they excluded anyone on active military duty.

 

For the academies this give skewed results since the vast majority are on active duty for the first 5 years and many are still on active duty at the 10 year point.

 

The self reported nature of the figures gives me pause, as does the fact that last time I looked you couldn't see how many people each average was based on.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

For folks who are mentioning industries or sub-categories that recruit heavily from particular schools could you give some specifics.

 

I've seen high finance and investment banking mentioned. Someone also mentioned top law firms. Would some branches of medical research fall into this category?

 

Not trying to start a debate. It is hard to do research if you don't see the specific career fields named.

[madteaparty]

For folks who are mentioning industries or sub-categories that recruit heavily from particular schools could you give some specifics.

 

I've seen high finance and investment banking mentioned. Someone also mentioned top law firms. Would some branches of medical research fall into this category?

 

Not trying to start a debate. It is hard to do research if you don't see the specific career fields named.

Management Consulting is another one.

[Roadrunner]

Management Consulting is another one.

Absolutely.

Here is an article in this

http://www.businessinsider.com/mckinsey-hiring-policy-2013-9

 

 

Coastal cities are probably more competitive. I am not sure if the situation is similar in Alabama, or Kansas, or generally less "popular" states and/or metropolitan areas.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Roadrunner

[8filltheheart]

Absolutely.

Here is an article in this

http://www.businessinsider.com/mckinsey-hiring-policy-2013-9

 

 

Coastal cities are probably more competitive. I am not sure if the situation is similar in Alabama, or Kansas, or generally less "popular" states and/or metropolitan areas.

That article is an example of why these conversations lack clarity. It focuses on MBAs. Grad school and professional programs are really not the same as UG.

 

Our ds would never go to Bama for grad school. Bama for UG followed by attending a top funded grad program is his plan.

[Roadrunner]

That article is an example of why these conversations lack clarity. It focuses on MBAs. Grad school and professional programs are really not the same as UG.

 

Our ds would never go to Bama for grad school. Bama for UG followed by attending a top funded grad program is his plan.

True, but it's similar for undergrads for those specific industry subgroups. At least in my group of friends that's been the case.

 

Also, I think geography matters. When you live surrounded by Stanford and Berkeley, it's hard compete for jobs with those grads. Maybe not the case for jobs in Idaho.

[8filltheheart]

For folks who are mentioning industries or sub-categories that recruit heavily from particular schools could you give some specifics.

 

I've seen high finance and investment banking mentioned. Someone also mentioned top law firms. Would some branches of medical research fall into this category?

 

Not trying to start a debate. It is hard to do research if you don't see the specific career fields named.

I would contact some professionals and ask. I would suspect that research is going to require a grad degree and that who they work with/dept of that degree will matter according to the specific field.

[*LC]

In a previous life, I was an editor, so whenever I read something stated as an absolute, my first inclination is to check it. In today’s world, checking absolute statements is simple. For all these careers/industries, I have simply typed in the name of my alma mater and x company and found someone working for that top company in y industry. Many times that person also has a grad/law degree from an Ivy league school or a similar top-name school, however, it was the education received from that top-100 school that got the student accepted into grad school with enough preparation to come out on the other side with a career at a top management consulting firm/private equity company/investment bank. In other cases, my alma mater was where the person working for x company in y industry received their graduate degree after an undergrad degree at a different school. I have found recent graduates as well as people higher up in these companies.

 

I am not trying to convince those of you who feel a top name school, either as an undergrad or as a grad student, is essential for going to X company, Y industry, Z grad school after graduation, when I respond to these posts. I have no problem with difference of opinions. I fully admit I am not surrounded by Ivy League or Stanford or Berkeley people, but I am surrounded by sucessful people.

 

So, when I post showing examples of people going to X company, Y industry and Z grad school from other schools, I do it for the student reading the board who wants that management consulting/private equity/you-name-it career or wants to attend the top-rated grad/law/medical school and was turned down for the top-name undergrad school. Or, the student was accepted, but can’t afford the top-name school as an undergrad. I don’t want that student to give up on a dream just because they read on a message board it was impossible to reach that dream from a non-name school. I have easily found people in all those companies/industries/schools from regular schools. So, I post for the mom researching for her highschooler who has these ambitions, but she knows the family cannot afford the "type of school" said to be necessary for these careers. I don’t want her to feel that her daughter/son will never reach these lofty career goals because these schools are not affordable for her family. (Yes, I know these schools offer aid to middle class families, but you don’t have to read here long to know that many families cannot afford their EFC.)

 

Someone mentioned that anyone offering an exception to the thought that you must go to a certain top-ranked college to work in Y industry is simply showing an outlier, and while I disagree with that assumption, I do agree that these students will need to work hard, make good grades, (possibly even go to grad school first) and interview well to be hired at X company or in Y industry. I'd even say they would need a bit of luck. Of course, I would say that also applies to students at name brand universities seeking to break into these companies/industries. As, Hoggirl mentioned only one rising senior from her son’s name-brand school was selected for this internship this year. (Congratulations to your son on being the one; that is a great accomplishment.) The same is true for Harvard, Yale, Princeton and ...

 

On a previous thread about this subject, the same argument was made that the management consulting firm McKinsey only hires from certain schools, with the University of Texas Dallas mentioned as a school the company does not hire from. So, I searched and found there were at least two recent UT Dallas graduates that were hired by McKinsey, at least one of whom interned for the management consulting firm prior to graduation. (The flu hit our home hard this year, and I never made it back to that thread to post this.) They both work for the McKinsey New York City office. Both have undergrad degrees from foreign universities and master’s degrees from UT Dallas; they do not have other degrees. The article is under the pictures. http://jindal.utdallas.edu/career-management-center/internship-stories/#7 In case you are curious this school is ranked 146.

 

I think that previous thread was about computer science, and while reading it, I had attempted to find an article about internships that I had previously read. Before I found what I wanted, I found a different article in Forbes on the 20 most prestigious internships for 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2016/10/11/the-20-most-prestigious-internships-for-2017/#4e79dc2a3f95 Here is the list: 1. Google Inc. 2. Apple Inc. 3. Facebook, Inc. 4. Goldman Sachs & Co. 5. Microsoft Corporation 6. Tesla Motors, Inc. 7. J.P. Morgan 8. NIKE, Inc. 9. The Walt Disney Company 10. Morgan Stanley 11. Amazon.com, Inc. 12. PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) LLP 13. Twitter, Inc. 14. IBM 15. ESPN, Inc. 16. Deloitte LLP 17. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 18. McKinsey & Company 19. The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. 20. Intel Corporation

 

From the companies on that list, my college senior interned at two, received internship offers at three, interviewed at six and turned down interview requests at two. (With all but one of the six companies on the list that she interviewed with, she went to the third or final round of interviews. She stopped the interview process with one of the companies when she accepted an internship from a different company that she preferred.) I simply post this to show exactly why I know students from Big State U can intern/work for prestigious companies. From what I understand, one of the companies has a reputation of only hiring from prestigious universities, but they asked my daughter to agree to be interviewed by a writer about what it was like to work for that company. My shy daughter said yes, because she wanted others from non-prestigious universities to know they have a shot at working for X company.

 

My daughter worked hard, made good (not perfect) grades, and practiced for phone interviews, which are her weakness. She also had some luck along the way. The Hive is in large part responsible for that luck. Almost exactly four years ago, my then high-school senior received an email informing her that she did not receive a big outside scholarship that she wanted. Instead, she was invited to interview for a summer program that the scholarship provider sponsored. I posted here asking if I should "make" her as practice for later interviews. She did not want to attend the program as the timing did not work well with her summer plans & school start date. It also would mean losing almost month worth of income from her two jobs. The vast majority of posters said to interview. She interviewed; she was selected for the program; and she decided to attend. She loved it. During the program, she became interested in working for a different type of company in a different part of the country than she had thought about earlier.

[SeaConquest]

In a previous life, I was an editor, so whenever I read something stated as an absolute, my first inclination is to check it. In today’s world, checking absolute statements is simple. For all these careers/industries, I have simply typed in the name of my alma mater and x company and found someone working for that top company in y industry. Many times that person also has a grad/law degree from an Ivy league school or a similar top-name school, however, it was the education received from that top-100 school that got the student accepted into grad school with enough preparation to come out on the other side with a career at a top management consulting firm/private equity company/investment bank. In other cases, my alma mater was where the person working for x company in y industry received their graduate degree after an undergrad degree at a different school. I have found recent graduates as well as people higher up in these companies.

 

I am not trying to convince those of you who feel a top name school, either as an undergrad or as a grad student, is essential for going to X company, Y industry, Z grad school after graduation, when I respond to these posts. I have no problem with difference of opinions. I fully admit I am not surrounded by Ivy League or Stanford or Berkeley people, but I am surrounded by sucessful people.

 

So, when I post showing examples of people going to X company, Y industry and Z grad school from other schools, I do it for the student reading the board who wants that management consulting/private equity/you-name-it career or wants to attend the top-rated grad/law/medical school and was turned down for the top-name undergrad school. Or, the student was accepted, but can’t afford the top-name school as an undergrad. I don’t want that student to give up on a dream just because they read on a message board it was impossible to reach that dream from a non-name school. I have easily found people in all those companies/industries/schools from regular schools. So, I post for the mom researching for her highschooler who has these ambitions, but she knows the family cannot afford the "type of school" said to be necessary for these careers. I don’t want her to feel that her daughter/son will never reach these lofty career goals because these schools are not affordable for her family. (Yes, I know these schools offer aid to middle class families, but you don’t have to read here long to know that many families cannot afford their EFC.)

 

Someone mentioned that anyone offering an exception to the thought that you must go to a certain top-ranked college to work in Y industry is simply showing an outlier, and while I disagree with that assumption, I do agree that these students will need to work hard, make good grades, (possibly even go to grad school first) and interview well to be hired at X company or in Y industry. I'd even say they would need a bit of luck. Of course, I would say that also applies to students at name brand universities seeking to break into these companies/industries. As, Hoggirl mentioned only one rising senior from her son’s name-brand school was selected for this internship this year. (Congratulations to your son on being the one; that is a great accomplishment.) The same is true for Harvard, Yale, Princeton and ...

 

On a previous thread about this subject, the same argument was made that the management consulting firm McKinsey only hires from certain schools, with the University of Texas Dallas mentioned as a school the company does not hire from. So, I searched and found there were at least two recent UT Dallas graduates that were hired by McKinsey, at least one of whom interned for the management consulting firm prior to graduation. (The flu hit our home hard this year, and I never made it back to that thread to post this.) They both work for the McKinsey New York City office. Both have undergrad degrees from foreign universities and master’s degrees from UT Dallas; they do not have other degrees. The article is under the pictures. http://jindal.utdallas.edu/career-management-center/internship-stories/#7 In case you are curious this school is ranked 146.

 

I think that previous thread was about computer science, and while reading it, I had attempted to find an article about internships that I had previously read. Before I found what I wanted, I found a different article in Forbes on the 20 most prestigious internships for 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2016/10/11/the-20-most-prestigious-internships-for-2017/#4e79dc2a3f95 Here is the list: 1. Google Inc. 2. Apple Inc. 3. Facebook, Inc. 4. Goldman Sachs & Co. 5. Microsoft Corporation 6. Tesla Motors, Inc. 7. J.P. Morgan 8. NIKE, Inc. 9. The Walt Disney Company 10. Morgan Stanley 11. Amazon.com, Inc. 12. PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) LLP 13. Twitter, Inc. 14. IBM 15. ESPN, Inc. 16. Deloitte LLP 17. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 18. McKinsey & Company 19. The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. 20. Intel Corporation

 

From the companies on that list, my college senior interned at two, received internship offers at three, interviewed at six and turned down interview requests at two. (With all but one of the six companies on the list that she interviewed with, she went to the third or final round of interviews. She stopped the interview process with one of the companies when she accepted an internship from a different company that she preferred.) I simply post this to show exactly why I know students from Big State U can intern/work for prestigious companies. From what I understand, one of the companies has a reputation of only hiring from prestigious universities, but they asked my daughter to agree to be interviewed by a writer about what it was like to work for that company. My shy daughter said yes, because she wanted others from non-prestigious universities to know they have a shot at working for X company.

 

My daughter worked hard, made good (not perfect) grades, and practiced for phone interviews, which are her weakness. She also had some luck along the way. The Hive is in large part responsible for that luck. Almost exactly four years ago, my then high-school senior received an email informing her that she did not receive a big outside scholarship that she wanted. Instead, she was invited to interview for a summer program that the scholarship provider sponsored. I posted here asking if I should "make" her as practice for later interviews. She did not want to attend the program as the timing did not work well with her summer plans & school start date. It also would mean losing almost month worth of income from her two jobs. The vast majority of posters said to interview. She interviewed; she was selected for the program; and she decided to attend. She loved it. During the program, she became interested in working for a different type of company in a different part of the country than she had thought about earlier.

 

IMO, you are mischaracterizing our statements in this thread, I made great pains to point out that admission to top grad school programs and jobs at the Cravaths/Goldmans/McKinseys/KKRs of the world were still possible coming from other schools, but that the odds were longer (in some cases much longer), and the path more difficult, with less flexibility (in terms of geographic reach/ability to change major or industry) or margin for error (higher grades required). I stand by those statements, and I would challenge anyone to refute them. That is not dream killing; it is facing reality with eyes wide open, and making an informed decision. 

[*LC]

Yes, you will find so-called diversity among the ranks of the admitted, but your post actually proved my point. The size of the Cal State system cannot be understated; it is enormous. And, out of that entire system, SLS took one student from SDSU. What they don't show are the number from Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst -- unimaginably tiny schools in comparison to the Cal State System. We probably had a good 80% of my class from T10 national universities and liberal arts colleges. And among the remaining 20% that went to the University of Hawaii or Georgia, almost all had 'traded up' via a prestigious post-UG fellowship or grad school program. Fully, 10% of my law school class already had their PhD upon admission. A lot of those folks are from UG programs outside of the top 10.

[/url]

 

 

I need to clear up some confusion, the Stanford Law School directory does say exactly how many students attended from each school, because it lists each student by name as well as his/her undergrad (and grad school) in the directory. To figure out how many went to a certain school you just have to search the school name, but then you need to double check that the hit is not for a faculty member or an advanced degree student. Also for some reason, they use initials for some schools in some class years and not others, so you will need to search some schools by multiple names and combine the results.

 

I only listed every school once no matter how many times it was listed, because I was showing how many schools were represented outside the top 30. Plus, it was quicker that way. (That is why those top-ranked schools are not listed at all.) I just went back and searched and only one undergrad hit for San Diego State; and two for Swarthmore. Amherst had 9; BYU had 7. Williams is a bad search term, since it is also a last name.

 

The current makeup of law students seems different from when you went; only four students are listed as having PhD's in the three classes combined. One is a Berkeley grad who has multiple degrees from Yale. One was a Colorado State grad with a PhD from Wisconsin. The other two went to Oregon State and Clemson for undergrad before attending Stanford for grad school. The majority of the students from outside the top 30 schools were not listed as attending any grad school. If they did, I put it next to their school name. If I recognized the undergrad school name as one I had previouly listed, I did not put a grad school down since another graduate of that undergrad school did not have grad school before attending law school. For some students Stanford listed a grad school degree and with others just a second school name was listed; I'm not sure what that meant, so I listed 2nd school name only unless it indicated PhD. Also, on the year I estimated how many came from outside the top schools, it looked like 80 percent came from top 30 schools not top 10. I promise it seemed every liberal arts school I looked up was ranked #12.

 

As far as I can remember, I can't think of any of my classmates at a T14 law school who attended undergrad outside the top-100, though surely there must have been some; almost all my friends attended top-50 undergrads.  I didn't look, but the list of undergrads attended from Stanford above does not indicate what proportion of students were from each school; there are over 500 students in a class (aren't most schools on that list top-100?).

Again to clear up any confusion as well as answer your questions, I did not attempt to find proportions or percents simply to show that students were accepted from schools outside top 30. There seem to be about 200 students in a class at Stanford. I'd say most of the schools were top 100, however I know some were not. I didn't keep track. For a quick guide, I just now looked up the U of state schools. These are ranked outside top 100:

U of Alabama

U of Hawaii (had also studied at NYU)

University of Kansas

University of Illinois - Chicago

U of Mississippi

U of Missouri

U. of Nevada, Reno (just inside top 200)

U of North Carolina, Charlotte (just outside top 200)

University of Oklahoma

U of Utah

 

I remember from when I originally searched that William Jewell was outside the top 100 national liberal arts schools. I also remember that at least two schools were regionally ranked schools, but I don't remember which ones or if it was more than two.