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<p>U-IUC has long been a strong public university with some departments comparable or exceeding those of elite universities, a reason why it has long been a popular with recruiters…especially those from the engineering/CS/tech fields.</p>
<p>Penn State and Texas A & M both have large and fiercely loyal wide-ranging alum networks along with campus culture bonding activities like successful Div I sports and A & M’s Cadet Corps which likely played a role. </p>
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<p>It also depends on whether the employer perceives a need to hire employees who meet a minimum level of perceived high academic stats/intelligence/work ethic and feels his/her recruiting efforts would be better spent with institutions with large critical mass concentration of such graduates as opposed to institutions where he/she may feel it is not worthwhile due to students falling all across a wider spectrum in those factors. </p>
<p>In this, I’m not sure size is a factor so much as perceived average student academic strength of a given institution. Such employers may also be prestige obsessed, but not always necessarily so. </p>
<p>In short, they may be just as willing to hire from schools like Columbia, Berkeley, UVA, UMich, Grinell, and Vassar as opposed to a lower-tiered private or public college with less competitive/open admission policies. </p>
<p>Sometimes this perception is a product of past history along with employer prejudices for/against given academic institutions. Just a week ago, I chatted with a couple of CUNY undergrad/grad alums who recounted how much harder it was to get interviews, much less hired compared with friends and acquaintances who attended elite private or public colleges ranging from UPenn to UVA even though they had comparable/higher GPAs and more relevant working experience/internships. Another person at the hangout who happened to be a Brown alum concurred with them and admitted he had multiple interviews/offers largely due to the name of his undergrad alma mater. </p>