Honestly, how important do you think college prestige is for future careers & career potential?
I think it’s fun to think about. It’s fun looking up class rank. it’s fun saying so and so is better than so and so because of the college they attended.
I’m not convinced that employers care that much, nor in all cases do alumni from highly prestigious schools get hired over standard schools.
I feel that, if I were a hiring manager, I’d be slightly uncomfortable ranking one graduate over another based on their school. For example, two resumes, one student went to Yale and one went to University of Oklahoma. I don’t know that the UO student was not smart. It could be that the UO student didn’t have financial resources, liked Oklahoma, had to care for ailing family, or any of a number of different reasons they chose UO as opposed to Yale.
I’m also not sure if I am looking for an average worker bee to do a worker bee job at a company, I’d hire a MIT grad over a state college grad. Maybe I am looking for a worker bee and am worried that the MIT grad might get bored doing worker bee stuff? I don’t need a dozen employees all trying to outdo each other, I might need a dozen employees to do the assigned task well to be successful at the project.
Similarly with students who went to 4 year community colleges instead of flagship state colleges. I just don’t know their story.
What is your opinion about career opportunities and the prestige of schools?
They have 4 year community colleges in my state. They dropped the word “community” from their name but they are still community colleges for all intents and purposes.
Too late to edit. @engineer4life is this related to your question on another thread about your own application to John Hopkins…and whether you should wait to apply to Stanford?
Is this for your possible PhD? Or for some other degree? Is this for a third masters?
Thumper1, I put quite a bit of time into creating an interesting thread. It’s specifically discussing how hiring managers view and rank colleges, which is uniquely different from the other 4 threads that you referred me to.
Let’s hold the discussion here.
Earlier a comment was made that no MIT grad would apply for a worker bee position. I don’t think this is right. My megacorp hires MIT grads and they get to do the same type of work as everyone else. They don’t get a pass on the grunt work simply because of their degree.
I think that as a hiring manager I see colleges less of an individual’s choice (people here have lots of choices but many students do not). As a hiring manager I’d look much more strongly toward things that the student was able to easily control, like GPA, leadership activities, etc, to find an employee that appeared to fit my needs well.
I think a MIT grad with no leadership experience would be much more of a risk to take on if I needed an employee with leadership qualities than a no-name school but significant leadership experience and a good GPA. Of course a hiring manager would never know if they did a good job as a leader or a crummy job as a leader, but at least they tried while the fictional MIT graduate discussed above did not show indications of striving for leadership opportunities.
I think trying to hire the right person is challenging.
I think it definitely matters, but school prestige likely matters less in engineering than some other fields(finance, law). I think a large number of jobs are gotten through connections anyway.
Can you elaborate? Are you saying that hiring managers from your experience provide significant weight to applicants from the highest ranked college when making hiring decisions over lower ranked colleges?
I can only say that I take a hard pass on candidates who got their Masters at for-profit schools. It is, in too many cases, a way to stay in the country as a student but not do much, if any work.
Your definition of “community college” is flawed. Look up standard definitions. AA degrees versus bachelors for example. Regional/directional are terms used by many.
Consider regions when thinking of hiring practices. Likewise for elite students’ choices of where to attend college. Also- look at the faculty of the elite colleges and the authors of the textbooks used. You will find many who did their undergrad (even grad) work at so many nonelite places. Plus, places like Harvard use books written by those at far less known schools (years ago I glanced at some on class lists while on a fall vacation in Boston).
You also need to figure out how prestige is figured- different in different fields and regions. So many variables.
Then- does it really matter? Who cares what place X does when you have no intention of working/loving there?
You seem to have a lot of time to speculate on so many things- do some homework.
From the perspective of hiring managers? In some industries, hiring is determined by one or a few revenue-generating employees. HR people guide and facilitate the process, but they do not make hiring decisions.
By “hiring manager”, I’m referring to the manager that is tasked with making the decision on who to hire. My experience is the hiring manager is NOT an HR person.
With regards to “community college”, I attended school at a community college that offered nothing beyond AA degrees (2 year degrees). They then, with the permission of the state legislator, started offering 4 year degrees and dropped the world “community”. So rather than being directional city community college (i.e., South Phoenix Community College) they became directional city college (i.e., South Phoenix College). They did not change the campus at all.
We can debate all day whether they are a “community college” or a “college” but I think it’s safe to say that most people, walking the campus, would describe the directional city college as a community college. 90% of the degrees that are distributed each year are 2 year degrees.
@TomSrOfBoston MIT grad might be applying for a job that normally no MIT grad will take. Just read about a recent grad who moved in the middle of the nowhere to take care of her dying father and her 5 younger siblings. So in this case she would be discriminated against by a hiring manager who would think that she will be bored by a bee job.
My experience… worked for one of the big four consulting firms. New-hire cohort included students from UCLA, Cal Poly SLO, Stanford, USC, Cal State Northridge and UCSD. We all started at the same salary. The Stanford grad was the weakest in the group, and the Cal State Northridge grad was the only one who made it to partner. Now I’m a hiring manager, and we just promoted someone in my department without a college degree over someone with a degree from Cornell. Honestly, the degree will help you get in the door, but once you’re in, only your performance and attitude matters.
If I were a hiring manager, I just wouldn’t feel comfortable judging a candidate based on name of the university attended. I would feel much more comfortable judging based on GPA, leadership positions, etc, than name of university.