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    #239754 09/20/17 12:30 PM
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    Old Dad Offline OP
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    I've often read threads where parents are concerned about their child being able to get into private college X, Y, or Z and often cocked my head a bit wondering if they really believe it's that important. Of course I can't speak for every field of study, I'm certain in certain fields of study it "can" make a difference, however, I've been convinced that for the mass majority of fields, employers are much less concerned about where you went to college as what classes you took while there, what non-academic activities you took advantage of, and whether you did reasonably well. I've seen many more potential college graduates fail to impress because of poor interviewing skills than because of the college they attended.

    So with the above in mind, it was interesting today when I ran across an article of the top 50 engineering colleges in the country. Of course, I don't see what metric they used to measure and it's only one source's opinion, however, which colleges they see as top of the line might surprise you, most are state colleges.

    https://www.collegechoice.net/rankings/best-engineering-degrees/

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    Originally Posted by spaghetti
    That said, I know that some employers only recruit at certain schools and employers starting salaries can vary depending on school and GPA.

    So, I'd say yes, it does matter where you go to school, but you will still get a job if you are in a field with need.

    Sure, it's difficult for a business to recruit at a wide variety of colleges, it makes sense to pick out those colleges that are recognized as being strong in the field they're interested in. My point with this was, many of the colleges on this list are state colleges with much more reasonable tuition. I know a great many engineers, my hometown is engineer heavy due to local business demand, not a one of them I've talked to has said that their hiring was highly influenced by what college they attended.

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    Originally Posted by Old Dad
    Of course, I don't see what metric they used to measure and it's only one source's opinion, however, which colleges they see as top of the line might surprise you, most are state colleges.

    Since one of the metrics that went into the test was the cost of the school (and it doesn't sound like they took financial aid into account at all), this doesn't surprise me. I bet they used in-state tuition for all of them, too, since part of the "point" of this list is that state colleges can be solid choices. Which they can, but students should not fail to consider private universities because of sticker shock without looking into their financial aid offerings.

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    College rankings are gossip rag material, and should be accompanied by pieces on the new dieting craze and latest adventures of Bat Boy. The number of flaws in their methodologies leave them with no merit.

    We're currently hiring for a computer systems engineer, and as usual, the hiring manager is soliciting all team members for input, so I'm highly involved. This is not an entry-level position. The focus is on experience and "team fit" (hence the involvement of team members). I can tell you that the resumes that have passed through the HR and hiring manager filters to end up in my inbox have educational backgrounds running the gamut from a doctorate to no degree at all. It has never been mentioned in any of our conversations about individual candidates. Clearly, nobody cares about college.

    Only if we were hiring for an entry-level position would we be interested in which college someone attended, and that would be as a tie-breaker for otherwise good candidates, because if you don't have any experience, education matters. Except that we tend to grab candidates for new systems engineers from the pool of entry-level IT folks already at hand, like helpdesk and operations, and by then we already know those people well enough that we don't care what college they went to, either. They've already demonstrated something that made us take notice.

    We're not exactly Google, but there are a lot more businesses (and opportunities) in the world like us than there are like Google. We just don't get the same kind of press.

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    Originally Posted by Dude
    This is not an entry-level position. The focus is on experience and "team fit" (hence the involvement of team members). I can tell you that the resumes that have passed through the HR and hiring manager filters to end up in my inbox have educational backgrounds running the gamut from a doctorate to no degree at all. It has never been mentioned in any of our conversations about individual candidates. Clearly, nobody cares about college.

    Only if we were hiring for an entry-level position would we be interested in which college someone attended, and that would be as a tie-breaker for otherwise good candidates, because if you don't have any experience, education matters.

    But high school kids looking at colleges are going to be entry-level with no experience, where you note that education does matter. And that's who rankings are typically aimed at.

    No one will hire me today, 20+ years later, for my top-10 BS in Engineering. But it certainly helped when it was applicable. And there are certainly valid studies that correlate school "rankings" with various measures of "success". (and as there's no definitive measure of "success", anyone can just choose to denigrate ignore the data. But it's the same as those who say IQ isn't defined, so it doesn't mean anything.)

    Generic statements about "flaws in their methodologies" is gossip rag material laugh

    Rankings are a data point. I looked at about a dozen of them, mostly looking at the why/what went into the rankings to understand what was good/bad about each school. This specific ranking would only be useful with a published ranking methodology. But as it seems to be an aggregate of existing data, additional value added is unknown)

    DD18 is a freshman at school #2, but my usually-top-8 alma mater is out of the top 15, so I have no skin in the game for this particular one. Other to say it is quite different than most.

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    But when I say "education matters," that doesn't mean that a top-10 engineering school matters. We want to know that they have studied, what they've studied, and how those studies apply to what we're selecting them to do. Where they studied is, again, merely a tiebreaker for students with otherwise similar qualifications.

    We don't see too many, though, because when the first payments on many thousands of dollars of high-interest, unforgivable student debt come due, you don't want to be working on the help desk.

    Again, we're not everybody. But we are everywhere, because there are a lot more companies like us.

    Some people have already pointed out a few obvious flaws in the set of rankings under discussion. I figure that a generic statement about flawed methodology is plenty, given that this is well-trodded ground. Much like the curvature of the earth, the flaws in college rankings are well-established fact that I assume we can accept without lengthy discussion. If you'd like some reading:

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-to-ignore-us-news-college-rankings/
    http://www.businessinsider.com/best-college-rankings-are-flawed-2016-10
    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/why-college-rankings-are-a-joke.html?mcubz=0
    https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...world-report-em-college-rankings/279103/
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-things
    https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2015/0914/Why-college-rankings-are-unfair

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    I tend to agree with Dude (nice to see you again, BTW).

    Another thing about rankings is that the rank depends on the priorities of the rankers. Everyone will have a different idea there.

    For example, one person may decide that a small undergraduate college is "better" than a big R01 university. At the former, classes are small and students get attention from professors. At the latter, classes are big and your interactions with your professor might be minimal. But...the professor may be a Nobel laureate. Some may be attracted by that idea and the potential for getting a research experience in a Nobel's lab. Others may think, "Well, I'm only seeing the laureate from row 16 in the lecture hall and...."

    Ultimately, what matters the most is the student's motivation. Much knowledge (especially at the undergrad STEM level) is self-taught, anyway. Sure, a tutor or the prof can explain the chain rule for two-variable functions, but IMO, lectures/tutorials are mostly road maps to what must be learned. The student must go back to the dorm, sit down, and go through the material him- or herself.

    A highly motivated student will go out of his way to learn in depth, and IMO --- assuming the college meets minimum standards --- the student's location at a high-prestige college becomes less relevant to learning as motivation increases. In some ways, a low-pressure environment may be better for a highly motivated student with a keen instinct for what's important to know and what's not.



    *The situation is a bit different in the humanities, where discussions are critical to learning (e.g. different interpretations about a chapter in Middlemarch or different ideas about Stalin's motivations for pursuing the non-aggression pact with the Nazis). But even then, you still have to have done the reading and done a lot of thinking on your own first.

    Last edited by Val; 09/21/17 10:52 AM. Reason: Clarity
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    Employers aren't hiring for what you've done, but for what they believe you can do. Sure, some "exclusive" firms only hire from Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, but the student has to ask himself/herself what the relative lifetime value associated with that path is.

    I can't comment for engineering, as that's not my field, but I can speak to law and management consulting, two of the most identity-conscious fields out there, and ones in which I have direct experience. Alma mater is a sorting mechanism for first jobs. In both fields, the top firms only recruit at a short list of schools, and any other interviews are extended because of either personal connections or extraordinary outreach by the candidate. Beyond early career recruitment, that's it. And, as far as first-stage sorting, it's a porous filter. Quality seeks its own level and, after a year or two on the job, your actual workplace achievements speak more accurately to your potential than your university studies.

    Frankly, for a position requiring more than 2-3 years out of school, I wouldn't hire someone still playing up their alma mater. Why? Because it means they haven't accomplished much of note since and don't have the growth mindset required to expand off that base.

    Even assuming a student worked at a firm that wasn't top-ranked for the first year or two of his/her career, it's quite easy to transition to top-tier firms as a high performer. They want smart rainmakers. So what's the calculus? You take the "hit" for a maximum of two years on salary and the differential client opportunity set by going to a non-top-10 university, but forego potentially multi-six-figure university costs. For some this will matter greatly, for most it won't. On aggregate, I'd guess top-10 alma mater is NPV negative.

    And let's also acknowledge the brutal culture associated with life at a lot of these firms. It's exhilarating, yes, and it can provide unparalleled opportunities, but it can also jade a young professional's self-concept and change his/her life path. (Don't believe me? Gladwell's 'David and Goliath' features a chapter on the big fish/small pond phenomenon of self-selection into careers. Even if you think Gladwell plays fast and loose with his data, it's eye-opening.)

    Even assuming a candidate is successfully routed along a "high achieving" path, it's not necessarily suitable or healthy for that individual. I've seen too many cases of "brilliant star student burnout" to think it's an anomaly.

    No, my approach with my own child will be to cultivate the core skills in his chosen field(s) that will afford him the flexibility to choose from a range of satisfying, competitive options without racking up a decade worth of debt. That might mean top-10, it might not. It depends on his interests, what funding options are offered, and the career path he's looking for. But I think the discussion can't be reduced to to a universally dominant strategy. It depends on the individual, and there's a large stochastic component to it.



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    For the vast majority of engineering jobs, including well known companies like Google, Apple, etc., it matters little where you get your degree. And for one of these entry-level jobs, the engineer from CalTech and San Jose State could be working side-by-side and making the same salary.

    What differs though is the opportunity set available. The top CalTech engineers often don't enter engineering jobs, but instead take higher paying finance or consulting jobs.

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    I would think the school you attended would matter more for the "high tech" engineering jobs, at least for your first job out of school.

    In other fields, such as civil, you really just need to attend an ABET accredited school so you are on your path to a PE license. Civil doesn't have a whole lot of "cutting edge" stuff you need to know, as high-tech would, and an ABET accredited school assures you've studied the fundamentals of civil.

    Also, while the PE exam is given in a number of engineering disciplines, most PE exam takers are in civil, mechanical or electrical ("traditional electrical", not high-tech), because those are the folks that need to seal drawings. In the latest PE exam administration, there were about 9K-10K civil test takers, but only 20 software engineer test takers.

    You just need to know where you want to go when you get out of school. If it is going to cost a lot, I would never advise going to the big name school when you just need the ABET accredited school. If you're in a field that requires a PE license, once you have the PE license, no one cares where you went to school.

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