i wasn’t talking about Vassar and did not mean to imply something if I was not clear.
Not sure what you are referring to, but my comments were general. If I tagged you, apologies.
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I am having a hard time understanding how not filling out these surveys means a lack of pride in the school, the school not trying hard enough, students who
don’t care, lack of career orientation etc.
I have no idea whether my kids responded or not (never asked). I do know, however, that they continue to give back to their school.
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it doesn’t 
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I doesn’t. It was asked - why don’t they? I suggested perhaps - Lack of pride.
I also showed how many at Vassar did the last two years.
Well over 13% - b4 talking about grad school - were employed.
There is a lot of concern for this in 2025. Even elite Amherst notes -the following information represents outcomes data collected by the Loeb Center in accordance with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) standards. Our knowledge rate was 90% for the class of 2024, 85% for the class of 2023, 89% for the class of 2022, 90% for the class of 2021, 91% for the class of 2020, and 93% for the class of 2019.
Perhaps, this is how Bucknell had 525 of 540 respond which is exceptional and far above the norm - and thankfully they provide positions and salaries. The transparency is, no doubt, welcomed by prospective students.
They can’t afford to live on brand perception as others, who may not deliver ( I don’t know) do.
I put a few more - W&L isn’t as detailed but shows salary. They have far less report.
Davidson - table below - not great info but reports an 87% knowledge rate (i.e. 87% they have info on).
This entire - no one cares - it’s all flawed - is frankly preposterous thinking. Parents spending hundreds of thousands want to know their kids will have success; they want to see the data.
Alumni Outcomes Six Months After Graduation : Washington and Lee University
This comment highlights one of the problems with parents or prospective students looking at these general/overall first year salary numbers and putting some significance to them. I think it’s pretty well known that an engineering grad on average will earn more than an English or sociology grad right out of school. So, why would it look bad for a school (other than prospective students/parents visceral reactions to seeing salary gaps on paper) that doesn’t have engineering to have lower salary numbers than one that does? If the kid wants to do engineering, don’t look at the school with no engineering. Those salaries are irrelevant to the career you want. If the kid wants to do english, the lower general number tells you nothing about whether English majors from the LAC without engineering make more, less, or the same salaries as English majors from the school with higher average salaries.
I will also add that for schools where a lot of kids eventually end up in grad school (like the Vassar stats above), but many take a year or two or theee working first, those salary numbers can be artificially low for the school because young alums are taking jobs that set them up for grad school as primary factor as opposed to those that would maximize salary. Thus a school that does excellent in grad school placement (Oberlin is another that comes to mind), may have first year salaries that are artificially low.
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Don’t recent grads fill out these forms?
Many will say that the engineering major from Connecticut will make more than the English major from Cornell. The answer - btw - Median from Cornell in 2024 is $52K, with a 73% response rate and 88% employment within 6 months of graduation. UCONN has a MechE median of $77K with 73% employment and 19% continuing education. It doesn’t show the knowledge rate. Both Cornell and Connecticut note these are salary only - no bonuses (I know schools can manipulate their #s).
And yet, parents / students - fall over themselves - to go to the Ivy or the most prestigious - even if they’re not headed for a pre-professional major. And we read many on here and I don’t dispute it - that say - these kids are learning to think, to communicate, and they can gravitate to fields including banking or media or you name it - and there is a lot of truth to that.
The reality is though, many of these kids, that end up in non profits or whatever else, will make less…as will those prepping for med school - but I don’t think parents “expect” before schools starts that their kids will come out and struggle, especially when they’re paying for these elite programs.
Nonetheless, as I showed, Vassar has a very high Knowledge rate. For Oberlin, the latest I could find is 2019 data (I"m sure they have it) - and they had a Knowledge rate of 71%. They had 74% employed, 17% continuing education, 5% seeking, 3% fellowship, 1% volunteering.
Found this - interesting, they list names and internships (near the end) - by student’s name. Great info for kids from any school looking for an internship for next summer : as these firms seem to take interns)
Empowering Futures: CED Insights 2023-24 by oberlinced - Issuu
Yes, I can’t speak for all but I believe some will get ahead of graduation, at graduation and in follow up - each school may have their own method but many seem to use a 6 months timeframe so likely follow up with that too.
Both Cornell and UCONN that I quoted in the most recent post - show “six months” after. Cornell showed the response rate for English (73%); UCONN didn’t that I could find.
It’s clear to me all schools have this data - it’s just a question of who wants to show it and what they want to show - and that’s all I was saying.
I do find it suspect that people try to diminish the data - it seems more of this comes from people who might have attended what people perceive as elite schools.
I do think we are in an era of data and many (at work) use data to make decisions and for many, I don’t see why this would be different.
But then we know from the less affluent or first gen, that a rank or reputation might outweigh anything - and the reality of outcomes may be irrelevant - they just know the school shows high in a magazine list.
Frankly it’s all so fascinating - and to @michaelcollege point, maybe future perceptions will change.
In the end, most want an ROI. And given more are struggling to find jobs, as @momofboiler1 showed with Purdue’s detailed data, I imagine that measuring of ROI will come into focus in the future.
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I’m not sure I followed your point in this post. Does the data from Cornell and Connecticut you referenced show that a student who studies the same thing at Cornell or Connecticut will earn more if they went to Connecticut? If an English major parent is “falling over themselves” over Cornell rather than Connecticut, isn’t that because they believe English majors from there are more likely to have success? (Whether that’s salary, job prospects, or otherwise). I don’t see the relevance of what a UConn mechanical engineering major makes for that parent’s assessment. Most kids who go to Cornell for English were never going to be an engineering major anywhere.
My point was the general salary stats are not that useful, because there is so much variance depending on what you major in/plan to do that the aggregate numbers are not that helpful for an individual.
Also, I will note that the Ivy League schools have a disproportionate portion of incredibly wealthy kids compared to a state flagship like UConn. A good number with generational wealth. Many of those kids are not making career choices based on money. And, are not struggling even if they go work for a non-profit, government, or something else they find fulfilling that does not pay that well.
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No - I was just providing data to a point you brought up -you said - "I think it’s pretty well known that an engineering grad on average will earn more than an English or sociology grad right out of school. "
I was just highlighting the point using an elite and a solid state school.
I believe certain schools - irrelevant of major - will attract wanna bes. How many want to attend a school for business. When they find out they don’t have business - would rather study econ there than business elsewhere.
I agree - many of the elite schools have a high level of wealth/full pay - and ultimately will find success, in part because of their lineage.
In the end, all I’m arguing is that - schools should provide stats (like Bucknell does) - but perhaps they do that because they have more to gain whereas a school without the higher paid majors may hide those - because they don’t make them look good. btw - how many on this website support this - you can do whatever major and you’ll end up on wall street or at McKinsey and make big bucks? That’s how many in society think.
If you go back to the title of the thread, I think it’s why schools like Babson, Bentley, and Bryant excelled and for LACs Bucknell, W&L, Lafayette but no Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, Vassar, etc. on the Linkedin Rankings…people are dismissing the ranking. @michaelcollege questioned that and I am too.
And that’s all I’m showing - these folks have something to hide (or they’d show the data) - and Linkedin is sort of pulling that out - and it just so happens that these schools I mentioned doing well in the linkedin ranking all do show salary data.
Now, if you have no interest in salary or you attend the elite name knowing you’re not going to necessarily earn a great living and you’re ok with that, then you won’t care about the data.
My hypothesis is, and I may very well be wrong, is that most who attend “elite” schools, however you define that, tie “elite” to assured success - and most tie earnings to career succeess.
Some may not but I’m talking about the masses.
You may not find them useful but those publishing are doing so because for marketing purposes, where they show strength, they are gold.
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Excellent points, @ECCA2026 . The problems and limitations of these surveys has been explained and repeated by experts and seasoned posters both in this thread and elsewhere.
The questions asked on the NACE post grad survey are rather lengthy, and it appears that colleges and universities may be able to tweak it individually. The questions are available on Handshake’s page https://support.joinhandshake.com/hc/en-us/articles/218693508-First-Destination-Survey-FDS-Standard-Questions. So responses, if sent, may be incomplete, or inconsistent across schools.
But if the goal of this discussion was to discuss how individual colleges offer assistance to their graduates, it has gone far astray.
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I am thankfully for Purdue’s data digest which has sortable information about a variety of points and can track trends over time. I think it’s very interesting to see the rise in unemployment across the board in the last two years and then disproportionately across certain majors. (See the job prospects thread for more on that). I’m interested in seeing where students land regionally, who are the top employers and even more importantly the industries.
I am thankful for the strong career center that integrated itself into the academic model. Their tips and guidance were the reason my daughter was employed every single summer, including through Covid, plus her co-op. It’s the reason my kid knew how to negotiate her offer effectively and be successful on the job from day 1. I credit the career center as part of the reason she’s been promoted quickly.
And, the strong career center is also the reason many students at Purdue don’t need loans, or can pay them back quickly because they earn so much during their internships and co-ops. Our first tour of Purdue, our guide said she earned enough at co-op to pay for 4 semesters at Purdue. That can be life changing for some kids. And she wasn’t an outlier in her earnings (also easily searchable in both data digest and in the Office of Professional Practice website). And this is not Purdue specific but for any school that has a well supported co-op program.
The bottom line for me is that finding the right college for student and family is HIGHLY personal. How a family goes about that it up to them. ALL the rankings are flawed in their own ways. Heck, my kid even used Niche rankings which are purely subjective. People can choose to use the information that is out there or not. It’s a personal choice. My experience here on CC is that when any ranking doesn’t mimic the USNWR, everyone sets off to discredit it, instead of trying to find the nuggets of value.
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Agree with this. I find this intense focus on ROI and a narrow definition of success disheartening. That is not to say people should be going into large amounts of debt for a “name”, but these discussions can make kids think they all have to go into business or engineering or other such fields in order to be successful. It devalues other professions our society also needs such as teachers, mental health professionals etc. My husband and I went to the same small, well-respected but not elite LAC. We were low SES, first gen, and got the same very large scholarship to attend. We both found it to be academically and socially transformative. We did not fill out surveys, but this is not an indicator that we don’t care about the school. We are incredibly loyal to it and our S25 was super close to choosing it. If we had filled out a survey our data would have been awful, but that is not the fault of our school. In fact, I only went to medical school because of the close relationship I had with my advisor who suggested it.
Our data would have been as follows
5 years out–I was making negative money as a medical student taking out student loans (had taken a gap year to apply since medicine as a career was introduced to me in college). My husband was making very little as a middle school teacher at a private school (followed me for training so not certified in that state)
10 years out–I was on a fellows salary and he had no income because we made the decision for him to take a school year off to stay home with our son for his first year of life.
By many here, we were not successful. No one was helping us and we had some very lean years, but we lived within our means. Those were happy years. Even now, my husband is a public school teacher and I am in a low-paying specialty in academics in a high cost region of the country. We are not helping any of our alma maters stats for “success” as often is defined here. We love our careers and by non-salary measures, we are both very successful. We are more than comfortable. We support my mom. I was in the top of my med school class and could have chosen a more lucrative specialty, but my goal in life was to treat and support vulnerable patients and families and teach others to do the same, This just doesn’t pay as well. My husband’s own family was not supportive of him teaching and felt he should have pursued something with more status and income potential. But we are professionally satisfied and as our only kid is about to go to college, we have no regrets about sometimes choosing time over money when we were able to. Life is short and once needs are taken care of, money can only buy so much happiness.
We focused on academic and social fit for my S25. He chose a less selective LAC where he was admitted to honors and got a ton of merit, which made it close to the same cost as our state school. My kid wanted small classes, a small community, and loved the feel of this school. I did not look at income data because my kid is also planning a social science major and eventual grad or law school. We did look at career services and life planning, which this school does a great job of. Even if the data were perfect, I personally do not think it makes sense for a 17 or 18 year old kid to choose a school on major-specific salary data when so many kids change their major. I want my kid to have the room and support to change and grow while in college so ultimately he is comfortable and happy in the end. I am not naive, the job market is tight and housing is expensive so it will not be easy. But I will say, my husband and I are in fields that have had shortages for years and we have job security. We have not have always had the highest incomes, but have not felt impacted by the economy at any point in the nearly 30 years since we graduated college. I guess my point of this overly long post is that people have different views of success and salary doesn’t tell the whole story. Given what the needs are, I hope kids are getting some messaging about benefits of doing good for society, life satisfaction, etc along with the messaging about the need to be successful financially, especially given the mental health crisis in our youth.
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“I do find it suspect that people try to diminish the data - it seems more of this comes from people who might have attended what people perceive as elite schools.”
What is suspect is how many folks lack an understanding of data collection and analysis, statistically significant results, and by your own admission…don’t care that most of these surveys ignore bonuses, stock grants, etc
You’d be getting a C minus in a freshman statistics class by promoting self-reported inputs as data.
Does your doctor ask you “how much do you weigh?”
No. You hop onto the scale. As do hundreds and thousands of people every day. When the CDC reports how many adults in America are overweight, they aren’t relying on Blossom to accurately report her “wedding weight”. Mores the pity-- but self reporting is a notorious issue in analysis and you persist in ignoring it.
5’4" and 115 lbs, right?
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There is nothing wrong with this.
I’m happy you’ve found personal success.
These surveys are simply data gathering and each who comes up with a ranking uses data to do so.
Data is data, whether yours help improve your alma maters ranking or not.
That you didn’t fill out might be very different today, given the much higher knowledge rates.
I bet you all use data at work.
It’s interesting to me that you eschew someone’s rank who used data. The ranking reports their data collection methodology for all who want to see (does LinkedIn deserve a C+ is not for me to say) and my guess is not all schools report or collect per NACE methods. But if they did, then all should have the same data. Btw when schools don’t have enough data, they note it so is it truly insignificant ? If you look over years by major, it’s awfully consistent where that major stands.
And it’s interesting to me you all continue to say - I didn’t report or my kids didn’t - but as the schools show, many did. And yes, at many, most are included. At Bucknell, near 95%.
Anyway, enough debate to the next ranking, that people will throw stones at, that isn’t US News.
I, myself, never said a ranking is perfect. It’s just another way to look at things but others seem to dismiss anything, that perhaps doesn’t make their elite alma mater look so great. Frankly, those schools, by not publishing salary data, do that all on their own in my opinion.
Congrats to the schools that made the list - I’m glad to see some new names so perhaps top prospective students will open their minds a bit.
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I see it differently. I don’t see people setting off to discredit information. I see many wise, knowledgeable, seasoned and experienced posters educating those who are coming to this site to learn about the college application/admissions process (as we all once did) how to use/read some of these lists. After all, that’s what this community is about. As CC says in it’s “about us”:
Share. Know. Decide.
“That’s what students, families and schools do with CC. We’re real. We’re direct. We tell it like it is. And we bravely champion students and those who support them with authentic guidance they can trust when and where they need it most.”
We are here to help others with our knowledge and experience. And that includes critical thinking and guidance about some of the lists out there. We are not helpful if we don’t point out the limits or flaws of some of these lists. People are then free to get from them as they wish with their eyes wide open.
As for the critique of the linked in list, there are many posts in the over 1000 comments, several from very educated and experienced individuals who point out its statistical flaws.
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I don’t disagree but go to the job prospects thread and see the struggle of this years graduates, and you might feel differently.
Certainly others there do and perhaps future kids will.
I, myself, was a history and journalism major, and had to remake myself several times to find success.
My ROI from undergrad wasn’t terrible as I became a six figure salesperson in my mid 20s (early 90s) but as a journalist (the initial goal), my ROI was horrific.
Hopefully those who struggle today can pivot to success (in however they measure it). This particular rank - it’s LinkedIn’s rank - not mine - says this - The list is built entirely on real career outcomes — measuring how quickly graduates secure full-time roles, rise into leadership positions, tap into the power of their alumni network and more.
Of course, on Reddit, you find things like this -
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I wouldn’t trust any list that puts Babson and Bentley University ahead of a UC Berkeley or Michigan
No offense to those schools.. that’s just my personal take
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They put Caltech below Purdue, tells you all you need to know about the seriousness of this ranking.
Their metrics also seem to value private liberal art schools that traditionally aren’t that strong academically. They’re just attended by wealthy nepo kids with connections so their placements are good. These unis don’t place on normal academic rankings
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Don’t worry. I hire engineers and developers for my company and we’re not going to be switching from GaTech and UIUC to Fairfield, Colgate and Southern Methodist Universities any time soon.
I’m afraid that we gave this click-bait list more attention than it deserves by even commenting on it.
Agreed, but when the points are made multiple times in the same thread it derails the discussion. People who actually want to talk about their school’s career office and the survey have their posts lost in a sea of back and forth. (Spoken as a participant in this thread, and not with my moderator hat).