<p>@Pizzagirl I’m from California but I go to a private school, so at least for the top 25% (grade wise) of the students, they’re focused more on going OOS and a good private school because they have the stats and can afford it.</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon for us to have a kid in the top 20% (not 10%) to go to a low-tier ivy or top tier liberal arts like Vassar, so thats why students at my school seem to gravitate more toward the private schools, usually OOS.</p>
<p>And even kids in the lower percentiles want to go to a private school, but thats probably because they have the money, not necessarily the stats</p>
<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>
<p>You are confusing terms. Merit aid is typically $$ awarded based on merit (GPA, test scores, community service, outstanding accomplishments). Some schools do connect merit $$ to financial need, but there are schools that don’t. Ivy League schools do not offer much in merit $$. What you have described is financial need. It is strictly based on income/assets and not connected to merit. So kids that are very high achieving but have parents that make too much $$ to pay their expected family contribution (EFC which is what you determine by using a school’s net price calculator) cannot attend schools leaving a gap between financial aid and cost of attendance.</p>
<p>In some schools yes, in other schools no. For instance, my friend went to a school of 500+ where she was one of three students to go OOS (to W&M no less). The rest of the students all went to either a state flagship or a community college. It can be really eye-opening when you realize how different it may be in other areas of the country.</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. "</p>
<p>Prejudice? Boy that’s harsh (and not accurate).</p>
<p>GPA’s are hard to compare across institutions and I’d love hear what recent alums and undergrads consider “more relevant experience”.</p>
<p>Recruiting is not a random process by which a large bank or global chemical company or international consumer products company decides on the spur of the moment, “Hey, let’s stop recruiting at Baruch because when the president is in town or when the UN leaders convene the traffic in midtown is terrible. Let’s add a university in Florida so we can all combine the recruiting trip in December with a golf weekend”.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, there are actual numbers involved and facts on the table. When a school gets dropped it’s usually for very good reasons- the yield has been declining for several years. Or the quality of the kids who want to interview has been declining for several years- a company used to get the strongest kids from the Chemical Engineering department, and is now getting C students from the undergrad business program. Or the last 10 kids who got hired for the management rotation program all quit within the first 6 months claiming the work was burning them out. Or of the 100 kids hired in the last three years, the pass rate for (fill in the blank- the CPA exam, Series 7, CFA, actuarial exams, etc) has been less than 50%. Companies track this stuff. Law firms hire young lawyers who start in August and September, but don’t get their bar results into the winter. Why would a law firm continue to hire lawyers coming out of a law school with an abysmal pass rate? Why would a CPA firm continue to hire young accountants who struggle to pass the CPA exam?</p>
<p>you think they don’t track this stuff over time to refine their recruiting targets? More hires from the schools which better prepare their grads? Fewer hires from the schools with low standards or weak accreditation?</p>
<p>When a school gets added it is similarly for good reasons, and again, with facts on the table.</p>
<p>A bunch of 20-something kids sit around whining that they can’t get interviews because of all those U Penn kids sucking up all the jobs- and you think this is how corporate America operates???</p>
<p>Actually, the Brown and one of the CUNY alums are early 30 somethings with around 10 or more years of professional working experience each. It’s just the CUNY alum recounted it being much harder to get interviews and hired over the years. </p>
<p>And sometimes, some employers can be prejudiced for/against certain academic institutions. </p>
<p>I experienced this firsthand while interviewing at a financial institution in the Boston area where I knew the interview was going to go south within the first few minutes the moment the interviewer saw the name of my undergrad institution and made comments about it being a college full of “radical lefty protestors”. </p>
<p>Only consolation was later finding out that financial institution went under and closed its doors some years later. </p>
<p>The Ivy Leaguemschools give need based aid only…they give NO Merit aid. </p>
<p>And with an acceptance rate in the single digits, it’s getting accepted that is the challenge. The generous financial aid does you no good if you are in the 90% plus who are rejected by these schools every year.</p>
<p>"And sometimes, some employers can be prejudiced for/against certain academic institutions.</p>
<p>I experienced this firsthand while interviewing at a financial institution in the Boston area where I knew the interview was going to go south within the first few minutes the moment the interviewer saw the name of my undergrad institution and made comments about it being a college full of “radical lefty protestors”."</p>
<p>If they were that prejudiced against it, they wouldn’t have given you an interview in the first place. Anyway, ONE person made such a comment, which doesn’t extrapolate to “employers” as a whole. </p>
<p>Sometimes, when there is heavy demand for employees in certain industries, they may not be as selective about granting interviews. Secondly, as the interviewer and one of the senior partners of that firm, he was the face of that firm at the moment I was interviewed by him at the very least. </p>
<p>It is also possible that the decision to bring a candidate for an interview was made by someone other than the interviewer. If the candidate talks to more than one interviewer, it is common that at most one of them had any say in deciding to bring the candidate in.</p>
<p>And coming back to the topic, perceptions of having more grad school/career opportunities is another reason why many students do try their best in getting into a college which facilitates that end for its graduates and alums…whether it’s a public flagship or a private college.</p>
<p>Key factor is whether it has a reputation as a respectable or elite college with the reputation to help its students/graduates/alums in grad school admissions, careers, and yes, sometimes even social networking*.</p>
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<li>Which sometimes gets taken to ridiculously narrow extremes.<br></li>
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<p>Thumper1, nails it. My son garnered UBuffalo honors program which although he was also accepted at URochester, it would have cost 40k per year more. Need based aid changes the entire equation. Full pay can qualify to get in, but not necessarily be able, or choose to pay.</p>
<p>Just one anecdotal data point: I have a friend who went to our (very large) state flagship university on full ride + stipend in the Honors program. He got involved in research right away, taught lower level undergrad courses in his departments, applied to and was accepted at every grad program his professors suggested, selected and got his Ph.D. from Harvard, and is now a professor himself at a (different) state flagship.</p>
<p>Not to say that everyone could follow the same path, and I don’t know all the colleges he applied to out of HS, but I’m sure he could not have gone to Harvard undergrad for free + stipend, if he could even have gotten admitted back then. The ug college is just that much harder to get into, his parents would surely have had to pay for it, and he probably wouldn’t have had the same opportunities to explore research.</p>
<p>He observed that the Harvard grad students were generally somewhat less than impressed with the Harvard college undergrads.</p>
<p>Several friends who are/were PhD students before graduating would concur. </p>
<p>I myself noticed this while taking some classes at H and at Columbia. </p>
<p>However, some of the latter’s undergrads also had some contempt for the grad student population underscored by a cartoon contemptuously depicting Columbia grad students as homeless people digging through the trash published in the mid-'00s. </p>