OP has only used the term business - and for many of those other fields you noted for grad school, med, law, nursing - the where is unlikely to matter vs grades, test scores and more. Many today want work experience, which of course you hope to get to out of undergrad. If OP planned to pursue a PhD, but I don’t think so, it could matter.
It’s clear and I’ve acknowledged these names can/do matter for a very small percentage of roles - so it’s a question of those are in play. I’m sure at 16, mom or student can’t say.
But I provided the outcomes from Hamilton so they can see. I added Grinnell as its high end and they list by job.
A U Richmond or Bucknell will look different bcuz they have actual business majors tied to a discipline - like accounting.
If nothing else, the responses in this thread prove that the answer to the OP’s original question is not finite. No matter what program a student ultimately attends there are hundreds of outside factors that can either advance or hinder their success in any career choice.
Some will insist that there is zero chance of employment in the upper echelons of finance without undergrad prestige yet some squeak through. Were they good networkers? did they have a family member with connections? Were they finance wunderkinds who happened to land in a state U honors program? Who knows?
Let them bloom where they are planted. College is only four years of their life - not a life sentence.
If you would like information on outcomes, this is how Hamilton and Middlebury compare to a few national universities by the earnings of economics majors four years out from graduation (highest to lowest):
As the long time posters know- I think the reliance on these “rankings” is misguided. The “data” is a mess- Garbage In, Garbage Out. Who is earning more- the kid earning $125K with an “up to 10% bonus, discretionary” at a regional bank, or the kid earning $80K with stock options worth $750K at the next unicorn startup?
To me, the “rigor” of the education at Hamilton, Middlebury, etc. means that you don’t have to worry about rankings. Quality education, lots of opportunities, lots of optionality down the road. You’re paying for the rigor, not the name. The fact that there is a “prestige effect” to colleges like this is secondary IMHO.
And for a kid who is undecided about a discipline- Middlebury- wow. What a place to be if you want small, don’t mind the cold, and love the outdoors. Is it the right place to study accounting or nursing ? No. Is it a great place to study psychology or neuroscience or history and then end up in marketing or strategy or corporate speechwriting? I’d vote yes.
Neither of us are “prestige first”. He’d rank prestige higher than I would, but both of us put our kid’s happiness, and social emotional well being first.
I read your comment that his ideas were wrong, but looking back you said they weren’t “current” or “common”.
I do think that he’s probably right that if DS does end up factoring in prestige, along with other things he values such as size and geography, these are good schools to look at.
Ultimately, when it comes time, OP will have to decide if a specific discipline, such as accounting is in play or rather isn’t eliminated.
If they decide they want to study a specific business discipline, whatever it is - finance, accounting, operations or more, they’ll need to find a school that offers it just in case.
If they’ve ruled them out, then they can focus on total fit - regardless of major.
To me, the weight of “prestige” depends upon the value of optionality to the student/family. Optionality includes starting career choices, geography and money committed to college education. For certain jobs, there is a fairly narrow band of colleges that give the job seeker a huge advantage. If working at “Goldman” or MBB is not the goal, then the value of this optionality is relatively lower. If having the ability to get a job anywhere in the US/world is not important vs staying within the region of the college, again prestige is less important. If there is debt or otherwise huge opportunity cost in investing a couple hundred grand or more for 4 years of college, that is another type of optionality (less financial stress). This is not to say that going to local U definitively limits your career options or that having an Harvard diploma opens all doors, but there is a difference assuming you have a choice, and then it’s how much financial stress you are willing to take. Every kid and family have their own rubric to sort through.
So going back to OP’s original question, if the goal is finance working for a “Wall Street” firm, prestige is tremendously important. Being a “business analyst” (let’s say a credit officer) at the regional bank, the importance of prestige drops dramatically. For forensic accounting, going to any school with a good feeder program into a national accounting firm is good enough. I can’t speak to cybersecurity.
I asked Chat GPT this question specifically about accounting, because forensic accounting is definitely something he is interested in. Of course like all AI I need to fact check. But it told me that being a CPA requires 150 credits, or essentially 5 years of school, and you can do an econ degree and a one year’s master. So, even if there isn’t an accounting major there’s still a path.
Depends on how many accounting type classes the student has access to in undergrad…many masters programs and state boards require 24-30 undergrad accounting credits.
Some non-accounting majors have to do a bridge program before they can start their masters’. Some states only require 120 hours to sit for the CPA…note there is a difference between sitting for the CPA test and licensing. There are many changes happening in CPA requirements. Rules are made by state, you can start research here:
OP- google FBI and Forensic Accounting and you’ll get a VERY good overview of the different paths that the FBI considers, both in terms of degree/coursework and early career experience.
Of note is the Quantico training component-- which if I’m not mistaken is considered the gold standard in forensics.
It is a fantastic field with many arms and legs (cybercrime has made the roles VERY interesting). The professionals I know who work in this field all had a stint in government at some point- FBI, CIA, Interpol, Justice Department. I sat next to a guy on a plane one time who had just come back from consulting to law enforcement oversees as they were tracing the assets stolen by a former head of state. What was so cool about it was that he was the center of the wheel. Old Master paintings “requisitioned” and not returned from the government-owned art museum? He’d hire an expert in Old Master paintings, and another expert to monitor auction houses around the world. A collection of valuable vintage cars, watches, coins, jewelry? His rolodex was filled with the specialists around the world who could look at a Cartier bracelet and state “made in Paris in the 1920’s, there are two of them, one is owned by the King of the Netherlands who allowed his daughter to wear it at a state dinner last year, and the other was owned by Wallis Simpson and hasn’t been seen since her husband’s abdication”. Anything valuable-- he knew someone who could identify, assign a value, help locate. Every black market around the world- vaults in Switzerland where drug money is laundered into Picassos; banks in the Caribbean where human trafficking proceeds become legitimate accounts.
College Scorecard is a government source that relies on information from the IRS, and the information is not provided to the public without a significant sample size. The example of a hypothetical graduate who will be a future millionaire — and who, not incidentally, would barely move the median in any case — seems fanciful in this context, and a GIGO characterization seems misguided.
The former Regional Managing Partner of my Big 4 Accounting firm and leader of the Forensics practice did not have a CPA (though he was a Certified Fraud Examiner). Head of the Forensics Practice. He did not have an undergrad degree in accounting. His degree was in government. Oh yeah, and he didn’t go to a prestigious undergrad, which was much less prestigious then (he’s been retired for a bit now), nor did he get his MBA at a name you’d think prestigious. I suspect he went at night.
Again, this was a senior and very respected leader of a Global Big 4 Accounting firm. Many in the practice do not have CPA’s, but a quick look shows CFEs as common, which, as far as I can make out can be gotten coming from several different industries.
I’ll say it yet again and then will move off of this thread. There are lots of different ways to get lots of different places, especially if you don’t know where you want to go to start. Your initial college or career choice is not defining or final.