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<p>Your argument is indeed flawed. </p>
<p>Note, that’s not to say that my arguments are never flawed. Sometimes they are. </p>
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<p>You’re speaking as if brand names have no value. Look, whether we like it or not, we live in a branded world, particularly when it comes to recruiting. Top students are drawn to top schools, thereby drawing top employers, which then draws even more top students, and so forth. It’s practically impossible to obtain an offer from McKinsey coming out of SouthEast Missouri State - in fact, you probably won’t even obtain recruiter facetime. Fair or not fair, that’s the reality of this world. </p>
<p>Look, I’m not defending the practice. Perhaps the top employers should cast wider nets in a broader search of talent. But as long as those employers continue to insist on recruiting in only within the rarefied patina of brand-name schools, then if you want a chance of obtaining a job with one of those employers, you will have to go to one of those schools, whether you like it or not. You can complain all you like about how those employers should not be recruiting in that manner, but they’re not going to stop. </p>
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<p>Absolutely wrong - the top 50 may represent a sizable but skewed fraction of the hundreds of ABET-certified engineering programs out there. </p>
<p>But far more importantly, as I said before, you have fatally confused overall graduation rates with engineering graduation rates. For example, I have no doubt that over 80% of all students at Berkeley will graduate, but I would vigorously dispute that 80% of starting engineering students will graduate with degrees in engineering, for many of them will switch out to some other major (and others will not graduate at all), while relatively few students will switch into engineering. An examination of the overall graduation rate is therefore meaningless in this context.</p>