I’d like to share some of the information from that press release with you here. I do this in an effort to try to expand your thinking about college selection and get you to think beyond name brands.
I see a lot of articles like this all the time saying to look into “no name schools” I think one of the many reasons kids like myself have trouble doing that is pretty obvious.
Top companies, law firms and organizations do not recruit from these schools. You will also have a hard time getting internships at places like United Nations, Goldman Sachs or Skadden Arps.
A teacher of mine used to work at Abercrombie & Fitch who had graduated from a state university. she told me that when she interviewed they asked her “Why should we take you over a Ivy League graduate?”. The only reason she was accepted was because of the skills she gained from working at a modeling agency in NYC.
But she was socially isolated from many of her colleagues. Many felt that she was less intelligent than others & would give her 'the easier workload." Many simply did not talk to her. She was not quick to gain promotions either.
She also recounted that for every senior manager or leader she had to work much harder to catch their eyes for special assignments.
She decided to become a business teacher at my school, and has been doing it for 10 years.
However she did state that she was working for them in the 70s and 80s. Maybe things are completely different.
Wow, sorry, but the above statement is misguided on so many levels. It implies that anyone attending a non-top 50 college has no hope to ever get ahead in life. To any student reading post 1, please disregard it. I went to a no name college. I have travelled all over the world. I live in a nice house in the suburbs of a major American city. I have a job I enjoy. I have friends, kids, family, pets, and no complaints.
If the person mentioned in @Formation 's post above got hired above the “Ivy league” candidiates applying to Abercrombie and Fitch, then I would say the problem lies with those kids, not the girl who ONLY got hired because of her modeling job. Many companies hire people because they happen to like them and can see that they have the skills to do the job. Personally, I will hire a nice person that I think will get along with others, from No Name U, over Ivy League Snob any day. And that isn’t saying Ivy League students are snobs. It’s saying that maybe some companies only hire based on name recognition, but I am quite confident that Abercrombie isn’t one of them, and neither are most other companies in the country.
Plenty of rich and famous people went to colleges you haven’t heard of: Walt Disney, Morgan Freeman, Steve Jobs, Queen Latifah, Terri Hatcher, Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, and many others. Getying jobs and making a career depends more on the kind of person you are rather than the college you attend.
@Lindagaf Reed and SAIC are no-name schools now? :-/
@Hamlon the point being they are a mix of community colleges, defunct schools, not well-known schools, or non-Ivy league schools and they are all people who have done well for themselves. Quite a few of the colleges are not household names to the vast majority of people. I had never heard of Reed until a few years ago. I could be very boring and add many more names, but won’t bother.
This list is weird for CC.
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College: as you might expect, almost all of the majors are related to agriculture. They don’t have majors like math, English, etc.
Amridge University: affiliated with Church of Christ, mostly only has vocational and Bible-related majors.
Brandman University: has 25 locations and specializes in vocational education for working adults.
Kettering College: affiliated with Seventh-Day Adventist church, mostly only offers vocational healthcare degrees.
Patten University: for-profit.
Western Governors University: seems to be completely online.
(The ones I didn’t mention are mostly small religious schools with relatively limited offerings.)
I’d say these schools are no-name for good reason. They aren’t like Reed or other liberal arts colleges that are discussed frequently here. They offer specific vocational majors and mostly aim to serve students who live nearby. A couple of them seem outright shady.
@Lindagaf , You obviously didn’t understand or read anything that I said. I’m not misguided at all.
I’m not talking about being an average joe and having a decent life. (Which is you.)
I’m not talking about students who want a life style like you.
I’m talking about the students wanting to be the C.E.O of Goldman Sachs on Wall Street, trying to be a senior advisor to the president, or Director of the United Nations.
Notice the difference.
I love how you didn’t even address my main point that most major companies, law firms and organizations mainly recruit form Ivy League and other brand name schools.
Second of all she told me this herself. She was not a model, she worked for a top modeling agency. She was responsible for booking models & celebrities into magazines, photo shoots & fashion shows.
After 9/11 happened she became heartbroken and went back to Columbus,Ohio. That’s when Abercrombie & Fitch hired her.
This is what they exactly told her, " We typically don’t hire form state schools but you have some benefits to us besides you being form a state school. You have worked with supermodels & celebrities and have successfully pivoted their careers. You have marketed the modeling agencies brand to the next level. Your experience will serve us a benefit. "
@Lindagaf , also most of those rich people you mentioned are in the entertainment industry.
Show me a C.E.O. of a major bank around the world that didn’t go to a known school. (Top 100 colleges.)
And by the way,
Walt Disney went to the School of Art Institute of Chicago, that’s an elite art school. Steve Jobs went to Reed College, that’s a top liberal arts school.
Again I was addressing possible opportunities in Silicon Valley, Business/Finance, Law/Government & Politics. (For students)
There are very few majors where the name of the school matters. Students who want to work on Wall St. may need to shoot for a limited number of schools, but @Lindagaf is correct that people can do well with degrees from one of the ~3,000 other universities in our country.
When you begin applying to colleges next year you may want to remember that the admissions at the few schools that do recruit for Wall Street is highly
competitive. Attitude matters.
What percentage of people actually want to be CEOs or Chief Advisors? There’s only room for so many no matter where you go to college. If you have your heart set on being one of the elite, you’re likely to be disappointed.
Here you go, @formation. You are very off base with your generalizations.
Not a bank, but:
Randall L. Stephenson, CEO of AT&T.
University of Central Oklahoma (B.S.)
University of Oklahoma (Master of Accountancy)
@austinmshauri , I’m not applying to any elite schools. I’m a poor black girl with too many B’s.
I’m just going to a state school. Lol
But I went on Goldman Sachs website. Why is it that most of there students that they show face to are form Ivy League schools, liberal arts colleges and other top schools ?
But go to the Americas.
http://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/why-goldman-sachs/our-people/index.html
You always can find an outlier to just about any statement.When one makes a statement it is usually a generalization and sad to say but @Formation is closer to real life than she is to being out in left field. In careers like medicine, teaching, engineering or an average business field I agree where one graduates is not as important as GPA, board scores and other resume builders, but if you want to get hired to work in New York, at a top financial firm, directly out of school, your institution of higher learning is the most important.You could be a great interviewee, or the nicest person but most times your application will not get you in the door. Same goes for obtaining internships at those top firms. When my son applied for internships and went to super days, he was flown in for these meetings the applicants
all were from Ivys, Nescac and top B schools from across the country. He said he did not see one “regular” school applicant at any of his days. When he landed his job prior to Thanksgiving of Senior year, which apparently is the norm for these jobs, all the other hires were from the same type of schools. This year, the new hires all from Ivys and Nescacs. Yes, I am sure someone will reply about a friend of a friend who got an internship or a job from a top firm but that is not the norm. That being said, one can do great or have a great life without working in New York, but to be in New York as Formation is talking about it is very unlikely without that pedigree. It is not a coincidence that the major of Econ at the Nescac schools has grown tremendously over the last 5 years.
Even getting an MBA, will not help get you into a top firm, unless that degree comes from a top program.
@Jamrock411 , that’s a really cool guy. Nice to learn about him.
The sad truth is that many students have bought into the idea that the only Harvard can make them the next Bill Gates, or the next Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. Or only Georgetown can produce a Bill Clinton.
I don’t think I could convince my school valedictorian, school state champion to consider local universities because one C.E.O out of the 400 didn’t go to the usual suspects.
The 45,000 applicants to Harvard are still going to continue.
In my personal opinion I think companies should expand their horizons a bit. Then maybe students would be more open to considering other schools instead of the usual.
Some kids cant go to Ivy League because they cant afford them, or their not Barack Obama’s daughter. Or didn’t raise $250,000 to build a school in Africa.
That’s why I was commenting throughout this whole time.
I would have hoped the author would have addressed the concerns of students on why they maybe avoid no-name schools. But didn’t and that why I brought up this point.
Nice discussion. One thing, though, @Formation:
Ivy league schools offer some of the best financial aid around. Harvard is absolutely ludicrous in terms of how much money they give.
@mohammadmohd18 , That is true. Good point.
@fleishmo6 , Great points. But some of my friends reading this discussion had some questions:
Here was one question a person had:
If you attend a good undergraduate business school like Fisher College of Business @ Ohio State University, Mendoza school @ Notre Dame, or the one University of Texas-Austin? Which all of these business programs are ranked in the top 20 for undergraduate business schools.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-best-undergrad-business-schools/
The other following that:
What type of financial or business corporations would you say hired from there? Could they possibly work in New York?
My answer was yes considering that Forbes, Businessweek, Bloomberg raved about them and Lex Wexner who is quite known has went to the Fisher College of Business. However you would have to be top notch.
Also I told them that Iowa State University or University of Phoenix wouldn’t cut it.
I’d say either a
- elite university (Ivy, Duke),
- top 100 college with a top-ranking program or school. (Like the ones listed above)
- or you going to a unknown undergrad, then Wharton or Harvard for Business school.
What are you thoughts?
The author wasn’t discussing colleges that might be of interest to students considering careers on Wall Street. The article is geared toward kids considering careers such as health, social work, medicine, education, and agriculture. His point is that you don’t need name brand universities to pursue those careers.
@fleishmo6 , I live an hour away from NYC. I know a TON of professional people here who did NOT go to HYPSM or NESCAC schools. In fact, the most successful guy I know attended SUNY Plattsburg. The HUGE majority of students in the US attend one of the “other” 3000+ colleges. The ones that are not in the USNWR top 100. These people go on to run businesses, become teachers, work white collar jobs, and on and on. They do not all work at Abercrombie and Fitch or McDonalds. Plenty of educated people are not getting degrees from Harvard, and plenty of educated people are needed in the work force.
The person in post #1 may not be out of left field, but IS off base. Your son went to “super days”; he encountered plenty of students from elite schools and wealthy families. But did they all wear signs around their necks identifying them as such? How did he know they were not “regular”? Did he interview all of them to find out where they went to college? My kid attends a well-known LAC. It is true, a substantial number of students are from wealthy familes, but nearly ten percent of this year’s incoming class are first in their generation to go to college. And it’s amazing, but every time I visit, I simply can’t tell who they are.
Bottom line, the kids who work really hard and achieve are going to do well in life, regardless of where they attend college. Plenty of kids go to Podunk U, and they work hard and have successful lives and careers. Plenty of kids who are NOT privileged work hard, get into Harvard, and have successful lives. Work hard, get an education. BOTTOM LINE. Those things will determine your future, not getting into HYPSM. This is not a post about working at a top Manhattan law firm. It’s a post about going to lesser known colleges, (though it would seem the colleges in the article are a little suspect.) The point is that students should consider lesser known colleges, and that not well known colleges can successfully prepare you for careers.