Check placement rates before committing to OSU

buzzlightyear3
Sun, 28 Feb 2016 16:13:51 +0000

Yes @albert69 posted the link to the Engineering Career Services placement rates I was referencing. The latest year published was actually a good year for OSU relatively speaking. Check out some of the previous years. The stats are even more alarming. In fairness, there were some tough economic years in those periods too, but when I researched this a while ago, I still found a gap between OSU and other schools.

For OSU Business, check out page 22 of this annual report you’ll find that 20% of OSU business majors are still seeking employment 3 months after graduation. http://fisher.osu.edu/supplements/10/7730/AnnualReport2015.pdf
In contrast, Miami University’s stat is that 93% of business majors have a job before graduation and 97.6% of all majors are employed or in grad school by fall after graduation.

I’ll leave you all to check out placement rates for other programs you are considering to compare/contrast.

Here are my anecdotal experiences with two kids that might account for the placement rate differences: OSU grad son had huge challenges engaging with faculty and advisors, finding internships/research opportunities, etc. There were promises of research opportunities that never actually happened, professors wouldn’t respond to email requests and couldn’t be found in offices, and advisors sent him to seek help at offices/locations that didn’t seem to exist. In fairness, my son owns responsibility for some of this too as the truly persistent kids are probably succeeding despite the environment. I will also add that despite the poor outcome, he absolutely loved OSU and feels like he got a great education. In contrast, I have a freshman DD at Miami and she is having the opposite experience in just about every way: professors are incredibly engaged and responsive, career services has already gone above and beyond in helping her follow-up with a company that she talked with at a career fair, and she’s already working with a professor on a research project.

In the end though, it’s been an expensive and depressing lesson for me and my son. Hopefully he will get a break soon. In the meantime, I’m helping him research 2nd bachelor degree options at different colleges which have much better outcomes.