The path to an Ivy (or Stanford, MIT etc equivalent)

Parents Forum
141

@Marian‌ & Data10: For CS and tech recruiting, UCSD and UDub are top tier, so it shouldn’t be surprising that both Microsoft and Qualcomm recruit heavily from the top CS/tech school in their backyard.

SJSU may be a better example of a school that benefits from its location, though note that Apple may not care about getting the very best/smartest programmers (it’s more of a design/fashion company; they are more of a consumer electronics company than a software company).

Here’s the list of the schools with the most CS majors at Google:

  1. Stanford
  2. UC-Berkeley
  3. CMU
  4. MIT
  5. UIUC
  6. Tsinghua
  7. Cornell
  8. Waterloo
  9. UCSD
  10. UCLA
  11. GTech
  12. USC
  13. UDub
  14. UT-Austin
  15. PekingU
  16. Princeton
  17. Harvard
  18. UMich

Note the correlation with USNews’ CS rankings:
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings

142

Out here, we’ve never even heard of them before. :wink:

Well, okay, maybe The Hopkins.

143

Further to PurpleTitan’s point in #140 is this recent study: http://qz.com/343521/18-universities-produce-half-of-us-and-canadas-computer-science-professors/

144

Google’s past hiring practices were more the exception to typical tech hiring than the rule. Several articles over the past few years have mentioned that they no longer emphasize college name to anywhere near the degree that they did in the past since their internal studies found such practices to be ineffective. Instead they have notably increased hiring of qualified candidates without a formal education, the latter making up as much as 1/7 of employees in some groups. For example, the article at http://qz.com/180247/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-top-college-graduates states:

“Google has spent years analyzing who succeeds at the company, which has moved away from a focus on GPAs, brand name schools, and interview brain teasers.”

The more typical practice is to have a strong locational bias. For example the colleges with the most alumni on LinkedIn at Microsoft’s Dallas office that have jobs with “engineer” in their title are below. It doesn’t correlate well with the USNWR list you linked, but it does correlate much better with location.

  1. University of Texas: Arlington
  2. University of North Texas
  3. University of Texas: Dallas
  4. Texas A&M
  5. University of Texas: Austin
145

OK, I ran across the post that the OP is referencing.
That poster did say dozens to Ivies & equivalents, not just Ivies, so 1-2 dozen to those colleges from a big open-enrollment HS that is either in a well-off suburb or has lots of faculty progeny (or both) isn’t terribly surprising. You have to remember as well that unlike NoVa, the suburbs in MI don’t have a magnet (that I know off) which siphons off some of the most promising kids like TJ in NoVa.

Princeton HS also sends a bunch of kids to elite colleges each year.

146

We are at one of the top public HSs in CO. So far only one admitted to Ivy EA. It’ll be interesting to see if any get in RD. Last year stats maybe three total at all Ivies, MIT and Stanford.

147

@moooop‌ - I suspect the reaction was due to the talk being in suburban Detroit. UM and MSU have a very loyal following in-state, and it is hard to find a UM grad who doesn’t think that Harvard is the Michigan of the Ivy League.

I bet when the Vandy rep gives the same talk in the Chicago suburbs, there are plenty of parents happy there are alternatives to UIUC.

148

Just last night I was talking colleges with my mom and she said “I recently heard that Northwestern is the Harvard of the Midwest”. This coming from an 85 yr old granny who knows nothing about the college process.

149

My son is at an Ivy League and came out of a “regular” open public high school and that did not believe in gifted and talented programs at the time my son attended. Every year about 5-10 students are admitted to Ivies and other similar colleges. It appears that the numbers are slowly going down each year, but I thought I would offer this up to you as an example of students from a regular public school aspiring and making it into the Ivy Leagues.

150

^^ The Today show has regular features about colleges. :slight_smile:

151

I think DS’s class at his high school did 3 times better, say, about 10 in his graduating class. (number of matriculants is what I refer to here.)

152

“Just last night I was talking colleges with my mom and she said “I recently heard that Northwestern is the Harvard of the Midwest”. This coming from an 85 yr old granny who knows nothing about the college process.”

We joked about that 30 years ago, and I’m sure the same was said about Duke being the Harvard of the South and so forth.

153

Ahem. Harvard is the Northwestern of the East.

(OK, I only ever saw one kid wearing that shirt; don’t think I would.)

154

Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers say that Harvard is the Northwestern of Cambridge and that’s good enough for me.

155

^^ this is all quite humorous…but, I hate to break the news…Harvard is no longer considered the flag-bearer or the standard by which other schools are compared…there is a school out West that is leading the charge into the 21st century…and even those at Harvard are begrudgingly starting to acknowledge it…even my K1 at H knows the zeitgeist’s winds are blowing west…

…and all you have to do is read the newspapers from coast to coast to understand this is happening…

156

Always nice to have some comic relief on threads.

157

And the zeitgeist’s winds are blowing plenty of places beyond Harvard and Stanford.

158

And I would say the zeitgeist’s winds are staying in Cambridge but blowing down the river a bit.

159

“Harvard is no longer …the standard…”. Finally, someone refers to the U of Phoenix.

160

Mention not the name lest it become besieged by the minions of mediocrity.

Oh…wait…