limnath

Folks,

One of the greatest concerns of parents is this --- will the degree my child earned in the college of her choice be recognized after graduation ?

In other words, parents do not want to spend top dollars on a 4 year college education only to find their child unemployable/unemployed after 4 years of hard work.

So, here's a fair question to ask --- which colleges in the USA have great career placements ? great internship porograms ? great job recruitment programs where companies go to to get fresh new, graduates ?

Thanks for your help.

collegehelp

A lot of the responsibility for career/grad school/professional school placement rests on your own shoulders.

Schools with top students tend to be more heavily recruited.
I think the Ivies and other top-30 schools tend to be heavily recruited.

It helps if faculty are prompt with letters of recommendation and enthusiastic and knowledgeable and have connections. Faculty are an important part of career/grad school placement.

Some schools are better than others at securing internships/summer jobs/coops. They sometimes lead to first job or at least job experience.

I was really satisfied with the support at Cornell, especially from the faculty.

moizuhk

http://www.princetonreview.com/colle...D=1&topicID=64

RealM

How's PSU's Smeal College of Business (regarding internships and recruitments)?

Joejitsu

See here for a list of colleges with the best career/placement service. These are the the top ten schools offering students some of the most outstanding career/job placement services around :

http://spotlight.encarta.msn.com/Fea...ervices08.html

Also, based on the ratings of students who graduate from their respective schools as to how great their school's placement services are, Princeton Review came out with this list of top 20 best colleges :

http://www.princetonreview.com/colle...D=1&TopicID=64

1. The University of Texas at Austin

2 University of Notre Dame

3 Penn State--University Park

4 Clemson University

5 Sweet Briar College

6 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

7 Southwestern University

8 Smith College

9 Bryant University

10 Cornell University

11 Bentley College

12 Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

13 American University

14 Villanova University

15 Grove City College

16 Stevens Institute of Technology

17 University of Virginia

18 University of Miami

19 Connecticut College


20 University of Missouri-Rolla

TheWatcher

Here's another tip --- Find out the percentage of graduates from a college who have found good jobs within 6 months of graduation.

One excellent site that provides this sort of information of :

http://www.collegedata.com

From their site, you can search the name of a college prospect ( or the college your child is already attending ). The COLLEGE PROFILE will tell you at the section : "STUDENTS", how many percent of their recent graduates were offered Full-Time Employment Within 6 Months.

It will also give the percentage of graduates Pursuing advanced study directly after graduation.

CAVEAT -- Some colleges prefer NOT to give this information so sometimes you might see NO DATA GIVEN. However, I will say that colleges with extremely good placement rates will proudly highlight their percentages.

TheWatcher

RE:

----------------
How's PSU's Smeal College of Business (regarding internships and recruitments)?
-----------------

Penn State U at University Park is in the TOP 5 of career placement services among universities in this country. I know of several graduates who found great jobs within 6 months of graduation in 2007 -- one went to work for the Hyatt Hotels, another was recruited by ALCOA, and another interned for and eventually was hired by Sherwin-Williams.

Grove City College ( not far from Penn State ), although a small LAC has an astoundingly high placement rate for graduates ( greater than 90% placed within 6 months ). Schools all over the Northeast and Midwest actively recruit and hire their education graduates ( I am not surprised as the college started out in 1876 as a teacher's college and have maintained their reputation ever since). I was also astounded by the number of recruiting companies that attended their latest job fair last year ( over 260 !! ). Companies like the Top 5 Accounting Firms, Banks, Computer companies like Microsoft and IBM, etc. all recruited heavily. No wonder Princeton listed them in the top 20.

UT at Austin is in the center of Texas' Oil boom and they are located in a growing high tech area. I am not surprised that they will be ranked high up there in terms of placement.

Joejitsu

I'm not sure why Babson College ( in Massachusetts ) wasn't included in Princeton's Top 20. Maybe it's because the school is purely dedicated to Business and Entrepreneurship ?

At any rate, there might be no need for any placement service because close to 100% ( about 97%) of their graduates were offered full time positions within 6 months of graduation. Many were offered jobs months before they graduated.

deutsch

don't USC grads find jobs relatively easy? they have an amazing alumni network!

sakky

I think it should be noted that degree marketability often times depends more on what your major is than what school you got it from. Let's face it. Some majors are (on average) simply more lucrative than others.

As a case in point, the average chemical engineering graduate (from all ChemE programs) earned a higher starting salary than the average Princeton graduate (from all majors). I don't have the data for Harvard and Yale graduates, but I believe the data would similarly show that the average Harvard and Yale graduate makes a lower starting salary than does the average chemical engineering graduate nationwide.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/11/pf/c...ries/index.htm
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/caree...eport2007.html

Engineering is not the only highly marketable undergrad major. Others include accounting, nursing, computer science, and finance/economics/management.

Hence, those parents who are worried about future employability should be advising their children to study marketable subjects. I personally think one of the wiser deals around, if you can't get into one of the top schools, is to just go to an average school and get a degree in engineering/CS/accounting/nursing.

slipper1234

To get a top job majoring in econ at an Ivy-caliber school or a top business school is your best bet.

In my experience it looks something like this:

1) HYPS, MIT (Sloan and econ), Wharton
1.5) Dartmouth, Columbia
2. Penn, Brown, Cornell, NYU (stern), Williams, Northwestern, Michigan (Ross)
3. UVA (business), georgetown, others

Outside of the top elite schools, top ten undergrad business schools tend to place well, but into less "elite" jobs.

sakky

I think it should be pointed out that the average MIT engineering student makes a significantly higher starting salary than does the average MIT econ or Sloan student.

slipper1234

Sakky is right...to be honest though what you major in at MIT isn't going to be that important; you're going to get a great job.

limnath

RE: MIT

The school's name says it all --- INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ( actually it also has a great BUSINESS school ).

I'd add that it remains true for most INSTITUTE's OF TECHNOLOGY for that matter -- CALTECH, STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, WEBB INSTITUTE ( where 100% are hired IMMEDIATELY after graduation), Cooper Union, etc.

Joejitsu

Well, I looked at the list of Silicon Valley CEO's and where they went to college, here :

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_757974...nclick_check=1

There seems to be LITTLE correlation between going to top name schools and being a top CEO. Some even went to little known colleges like Cal State-Chico, Cleveland State, SUNY-Purchase, Alfred University and many got their degree overseas from India, Taiwan or China. Also, I did not find anyone from Harvard, Yale or Columbia, although I found a few from Stanford and MIT.

What do they all have in common ? THEY ALL HAVE TECHNICAL DEGREES -- Engineering, Science, Physics, Biology and the like.