I really hope this isn't true about Chicago.

aworldapart · April 21, 2008, 2:10pm

My sister works for a public relations firm and they recently held a job fair at the University of Chicago.

She had students from the University of Chicago with 3.9 GPA’s who she said she rated significantly lower than people with 2.8 GPA’s from the University of Iowa and Michigan State.

There were two reason for this that she told me.

<li>She said she couldn’t even hold a conversation with some of the University of Chicago students. They didn’t know how to interact with a potential employer and it showed. She said all of the applicants from “less prestigous” universities were personable and were far more polite than the University of Chicago applicants. Some of the U of C students came off as pompous, others as antisocial. Obviously these problems are magnified with a job in public relations, but it plays a large role in virtually any field. Try making it as a doctor who can’t communicate with patients.</li>
<li>University of Chicago students were not adequately prepared for the real world of employment. She said that some of the University of Chicago students turned in applications that made her laugh out loud. One of them used 18 point font and a complete sentence was nowhere to be found. It was apparent that nobody had ever taught them how to write a resume. Another point she made is that the University of Chicago degrees were so broad that it was hard to pinpoint whether they were suitable for the job they were applying for. A degree in social sciences from U of C tells an employer nothing.</li>
</ol>

In conclusion, you all may think it matters where someone went to college. You may sit there and say, “Of course I would take a brilliant U of Chicago student over a mediocre U of Iowa student.” But in the real world, most employers don’t think that way. If you choose to go to an “elite” school, then good for you, but don’t forget that interpersonal skills are far more important in the real world.

Obviously there are some fields and careers where this may not apply, but I would bet about 90% are this way.

<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/497067-college-name-not-important-interpersonal-skills-most-cases.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/497067-college-name-not-important-interpersonal-skills-most-cases.html</a>

Are students there really that socially awkward and inept?

JHS · April 21, 2008, 2:29pm

This obviously falls into the urban legend category:

While there may be a few students per class with a 3.9 GPA at Chicago, there aren’t dozens of them, and they aren’t all signing up in droves to interview with the same PR firm at a job fair.

There is no such thing as a “Social Sciences” major at Chicago. Social Sciences is a whole division of the college, and the sponsor of SOSC and CIV sequences in the Core, as well as some other interdisciplinary electives.

corranged · April 21, 2008, 2:49pm

Yeah, this isn’t true at all.

There are awkward students here. There are awkward students everywhere. There may be more here, I’m not sure, but if you have social skills now, it’s not as if they’re going to vanish when you come to school here. I go to the U of C, and I’ve had a lot of successful interviews. Actually, most of my interviewers have told me that I interview well and come across well because of the way I speak, act, and handle myself.

The U of C is obsessed with resumes. Students generally write their first professional resume during their first year. You need to have your resume critiqued by someone in the career office before you’re allowed access to our job search website (which is where you’d need to sign up for a career fair that required registration). The College asks for your resume constantly, and they’re very good at providing useful feedback.

Very few industries care all that much about major. It’s true that we don’t have an Accounting major or a Marketing major, but no one I’ve ever interviewed with has ever had an issue with that. I’ve heard many employers say they like the U of C because the students have such well-developed critical thinking skills from the core. If you’re looking at business, marketing, or any related field, they’re basically going to be looking at your ability to write and reason. I’m generally not interested in applying for jobs if the company specifies a particular major because it shows that the employer is focusing on the wrong things.

Also, people who lack social skills probably aren’t looking at PR careers, at least not in the types of numbers she suggested, and as JHS said, there certainly aren’t very many students with 3.9s.

Seashore · April 21, 2008, 3:01pm

The poster simply doesn’t like Chicago’s “theory over practice” philosophy and seems to be inventing a world to fit his/her view.

There are some pompous and some socially inept students at UChicago, just as there are at all elite universities. But most of them communicate very well–the small, discussion-based core classes promote learning to think and to express those thoughts in words and on paper.

Also, UChicago advisors start helping their students with resumes during their first year and they continue to develop them throughout their time at school. The part of the post that says they have no instruction is silly. (corranged got to this point first–and says it better!)

anon43256521 · April 21, 2008, 3:18pm

that dude’s a chump if he actually thinks UIowa/Michigan state grads regularly compete for the same jobs as 3.9 UC grads

edit: haha look at his other posts

uchicagoalum · April 21, 2008, 4:32pm

This is most certainly made up by a student or parent to assuage their own woes about not getting into a selective college. The specifics are totally implausible on so many levels. However, every elite college graduate needs to learn how to deal with people who are outspokenly hostile towards their education.

akx06 · April 21, 2008, 5:06pm

I agree with the notion of we don’t have many 3.9’s to begin with, and I highly doubt those who have a 3.9 would be looking for a PR job.

Nonetheless, I would imagine recruiters are not idiots. With some of the most competitive firms in the nation/world coming here to recruit year after year (and for those of you who don’t know that means: Holding a presentation with lots of food, holding lunch with students, doing workshops with them, etc.) and invest resources into our school because they value U of C students, it doesn’t seem very likely that a U of Iowa or a MSU grad would fall into the same playing field.

And lastly, I wouldn’t think too many students with 3.9’s can’t write a complete sentence. (Not that resumes have complete sentences anyways…)

unalove · April 21, 2008, 5:20pm

I posted this on the other thread:

I think the singling out of the U of C for criticism in the OP is the real problem for me. A few things I’ll say at the bat:

1) I agree that intellectual know-how and people skills don’t always work together, and at times the people skills will trump the actual knowledge. Sometimes, though, it won’t.

2) I have been in a work environment over the summer where I felt that the secretary (who probably has no college degree, or perhaps a junior college degree) was doing a better job graduates of super-elite schools. What made the difference? While the super-elite grads obviously had the intellectual advantage, they did not have the personal interaction skills. I think you can find graduates of ANY college ANYWHERE who are more brain than they are handshake, and, as such, don’t necessarily make the best employees. If I were the boss at this office, I would have fired the super-elite grads for not being people-friendly enough and I would have kept ones who barely passed through college.

3) U of C students and other students who have liberal arts degrees have not been training to write resumes, but rather five-page papers on Plato or solve problems on quantum physics. While I think the skills employed in both are very transferable (be clear, concise, logical, and speak to your audience), perhaps some will tend to “overintellectualize” or “overanalyze” in an interview. Just because Plato has been bludgeoned to death in hum class, or the problem set requires a lot of background information doesn’t mean the reason you want X job should be bludgeoned to death in an interview.

4) I’m a little bit unclear what the subsidiary take-home message is here. Certainly one message is that brains won’t get you everything, but is another message that all U of C students are socially inept and not ready for real-world skills? That part of the argument simply doesn’t hold, because U of C students go into fields that require people skills and teamwork all the time (i.e. business, teaching, lawyering, doctors, etc.), and considering I hang out with them all day, I can testify that the majority have the people skills down. I would tend to agree that some have a bit of a problem talking to the “layman,” but I think that’s something that is an issue across all of the elite colleges and is probably a function of the economic background of the person before they graduated from the college rather than the college itself.

1990Dad · April 21, 2008, 7:15pm

The fact that the OP never posted again on the thread even when challenged would tell me he was just ■■■■■■■■.

unalove · April 21, 2008, 7:55pm

So let’s drop it, then, unless we have reason for the discussion to continue. I could go and flame about another school based on realistic-sounding evidence, but I don’t.

Bowler_Hat · April 22, 2008, 5:22am

You know, my cousin’s friend’s mother’s ex-boyfriend’s dead brother’s best pal’s drinking buddy says that everyone who attends UChicago is an antisocialist idiot.

I sure hope that isn’t true.

Bowler_Hat · April 22, 2008, 5:55am

*antisocial. Long live the revolution! :O

I really hope this isn't true about Chicago.

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