<p>Thats just it though. Generally in most majors you do have to be at the top of the class to get the most desirable jobs. The beauty of petroleum engineering, however, used to be that anyone with a 3.1+ GPA would be gold, and would come out of undergrad making at least 85-88K+.
For example, I go to a school with a top Petroleum program and in 2009, we sent over 20 grads to Big oil Integrated companies:
6 to BP
8 to Chevron
3 to Conoco
6 to Exxon
and a significant number to companies like Oxy, Devon, Statoil etc.</p>
<p>All the jobs above pay high 80s into the six figures. </p>
<p>In 2013, we sent:
2 to BP
5 to Chevron
4 to Conoco
2 to Exxon</p>
<p>And a handful to Shell, Statoil, Anadarko etc.
So a slight decrease in top tier jobs.
Freshman who entered in 2012+ are having trouble finding internships as reservoir, production and drilling engineers, and are having to look more to field engineer positions which are in high stress environments and pay circa 60K per year. </p>
<p>[Reports</a> | Texas A&M Career Center](<a href=“http://careercenter.tamu.edu/guides/reports/?pwid=393295592137445390&dynid=3648478&sn=undergrads]Reports”>http://careercenter.tamu.edu/guides/reports/?pwid=393295592137445390&dynid=3648478&sn=undergrads)</p>