<p>Blossom is spot-on based on my experience at a large company (you’d all recognize the name). It’s not necessarily “prestige.” It’s also - is it easy to get to the campus, do I have managers who are willing to travel there (perhaps they themselves have ties), how much have I found that students from these schools will want to live in or relocate to the area of the country that the job is in.</p>
<p>Re 1279: No, it means that if a student from the Northeast wants to work in the NE after graduation, he believes he’ll be better off with a degree from certain schools over others. Fortunately for Northeasterners, those top schools in our region are sufficiently prestigious nationally so as not to disadvantage us elsewhere in the country, even if they won’t confer any special advantage elsewhere. It is less “provincial” (since you chose to revisit that insult) to select a school with a national reputation, because in doing so you keep open the door to working anywhere in the nation and not just in your home region. Just another reason HYPSM et. al. are wonderful, LOL.</p>
<p>Lorem, there are schools where we get hundreds of resumes for a recruiting target of 20 students. We are picky because we can afford to be. I don’t need to interview marginal candidates - the quality of the students we see on campus is often breathtaking. We can be generous on qualifications sometimes if we know about a high need area with narrow specifications- company needs people for entry level roles in risk management; the roles require strong programming skills, great communication skills, a degree in applied math or similar; writing and presenting skills are important (I’m making this up, but we often have jobs that require strong left and right brain skills). So a student with a GPA a little lower than we’d like to see but with other important stuff on the resume might get an interview- I’m thinking an applied math major from a strong school who was editor of the campus paper. So that’s where human judgment comes in- we don’t just have a GPA cut off, or immediately throw away every resume where there’s a need for interpretation. </p>
<p>There are some schools and some majors where we have learned over time that it’s not worth the trouble. Lax standards, massive grade inflation, etc. One year we targeted students at a big U who made it into the departmental Honors Society for a particular major. We wrote personalized letters, did a sushi bar, etc. </p>
<p>Then we saw the resumes and started interviewing- anyone with a B or better average made it into the honor society; there were two versions of each of the prerequisite classes (the hard one and the easy one); the senior project was optional, and most galling, you could double count classes for both your major and your minor so there wasn’t much beyond bragging rights in terms of depth on that second discipline. Better not to have a minor, than to have a weak, barely there minor. Just take classes for god’s sake!</p>
<p>So it’s not without human intervention and there are no hard and fast rules. But just like in college admissions, students often underestimate how deep the talent pool is nationally. If there are students who can do well in academics, participate in meaningful volunteer work and hold down a job, contribute to campus life either through EC’s or other activities, and have written a senior thesis or done a project demonstrating interest or mastery in a topic… why wouldn’t we interview that student vs. the kid with a 2.8 who has been playing Beer Pong for four years???</p>
<p>Re bovertine #1242: Under the category that “life is unfair,” I think that winding up in one of Pol Pot’s “re-education camps” as a young person has a level of “unfairness” that trumps most things we could be talking about.</p>
<p>lookingforward often points out that I don’t have access to the applicants’ files, and so can’t reach any conclusions about the fairness of admissions. In the particular case of the Cambodian immigrant, I did have access to the full file, and I still have no idea how the decision was made as it was–and the person who made it was a friend of mine.</p>
<p>When my colleague/friend said that the student needed to be “more realistic,” I asked him which was less realistic: a) Being 11 years old and in one of Pol Pot’s camps, and thinking “Someday I will get a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field from an American university,” or b) having completed such a degree with a GPA not that far from 3.0, and thinking that he might get into an M.S. program for students with GPAs somewhat below 3.0, who nevertheless showed promise for graduate work. This did not budge my colleague.</p>
<p>yes, and some of you might be shocked to learn that the second largest banking city in the United States is in the Southeast, and there are many jobs in all the “elite” fields in this medium sized southeastern city. And… you might also be surprised to learn that they are just as likely to hire bigstateU grad as they are to hire Northeasteliteschoolinsertnamehere grad.</p>
<p>The thing is, people are moving out of the northeast. Jobs aren’t being created very rapidly in the northeast, not in any field, including the fields kids all think they want to go into.</p>
<p>So, I can see where the desperation comes from. There are fewer jobs, in these particular places, than there are in other places. But, if your entire world view is these places? Good luck to you.</p>
<p>I think, too, the BigstateU hiring vs. the East Coast Elite school hiring issue is much the same as the hairsplitting on the SAT scores. Harvard says, We had 14,000 students who scored over 700 on each section of the SATs. That says to me, Harvard really only cares if you score over 700. People then complain when a 2150 gets in over a 2400. Well, a hiring authority may choose a UMiami grad for a job in Miami over a Princeton grad whose family lives in New York City for a reason. They have the 700 (Good enough) degree and they are happy to be in Miami.</p>
<p>Also, beyond a certain point, the name of the school is as relevant to a hiring authority as the difference between a 2200 SAT and a 2350. It. just. doesn’t. matter. very much.</p>
<p>Good luck to all of those with kids out looking for a job. Remember to let them know that taking a job they might not want is the first step to getting the job they really want.</p>
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<p>Having friends and family in a given location would normally make the place a strong first-choice, other things being equal.</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree that it’s smart to choose a school with a national reputation. I think people of reasonable minds could differ on what constitutes a national reputation, as we are all influenced by what’s hot-or-not in our given area and it’s all too easy to extrapolate that strength to other parts of the country.</p>
<p>The headquarters of the NYC bank S works for is in the city you reference, poetgrl. However, when S went there for training, he still encountered mostly Ivy grads. If they weren’t Ivy grads, they weren’t exactly High Point alumni either. They had graduated from schools like Washington & Lee which are still highly ranked, but not as well known in NY as in the South.</p>
<p>GFG- that’s why recruiters love Georgetown. You can call it North, you can call it South; it’s religious but secular; it’s got both a national reputation as well as a regional one.</p>
<p>We aren’t lazy but we sure love a short-cut!</p>
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<p>This can also work in reverse. I know of many college classmates from rural Southern and Midwestern towns who became so alienated from their family/hometown neighbors due to differences in politics, religious outlooks, cultural differences that they’ve made it a point to move to the NE or the west coast to find people more congenial to their outlook. </p>
<p>This was especially common among those who grew up in socially/religiously conservative areas and/or GBLTQ students…especially back when I was in college in the mid-late '90s and before. </p>
<p>On the flipside, I know of some socially/religiously conservative HS classmates who have relocated to particular rural South and Midwest towns precisely because they felt they provided a more congenial environment for their socially/religiously conservative views rather as opposed to our NYC hometown. </p>
<p>Moreover, I know of some minorities who don’t feel they have as much flexibility to relocate to more rural parts of the US…especially the South and Midwest due to having had family, friends, or even themselves experiencing racism/homophobia/etc firsthand. Some of this experience also wasn’t past history. </p>
<p>A former supervisor who is Chinese-American was threatened by a shotgun toting racist in a rural Georgia gas station while driving down to Florida on business during the mid-'90s. While he reported it to the local cops, they didn’t seem terribly interested in taking the report or following up on it.</p>
<p>During my own experiences at my rural LAC in NE Ohio, I witnessed and experienced local ne’er do wells do yell racist epithets and catcall female classmates. One of those ne’er do wells even tried to come out of his car to try fighting me before he saw a cop car coming and thought better of it.</p>
<p>Yes, GFG, but if you mention W&L on here? And say a kid from W&L has as much chance at an internship in Charlotte as a kid from Yale? First, people will say “Charlotte!!! Who wants to go to Charlotte? Sheesh.” Then, they will scoff at the idea that a UVA grad might be more desirable than someone from MIT.</p>
<p>It’s true.</p>
<p>Good luck to your son, GFG. I’m sure he will find the right place.</p>
<p>Oh, and one other quick thing. People here loooove Palo Alto and the Stanford connection. My sister is a hiring authority and board member for one of the top VC firms out there and she went to … well regarded BigStateU in the southeast. They hired her for her “people sense,” and I quote.</p>
<p>Carry on.</p>
<p>Why are we insulting each other?</p>
<p>I presume Notre Dame means more in the Catholic community, although all may recognize it as a good school.</p>
<p>Perhaps Northeasterners are a bit provincial, but Im sure all regions are a but.</p>
<p>As for the “good luck” to those spending their lives here colored by these values, that seems gratuitous.</p>
<p>We have family and history here. Both kids have passionate ties to NYC. DD is especially close to her grandmother. DD’s work as an historian involves NY legal history and DS is an art historian with frequent trips to MET, or rather constant trips.</p>
<p>As long as they don’t harbor unpleasant feelings if superiority, I don’t see what’s wrong with these values or priorities. Each has had many humbling experiences, neither sought out Ivy brand ( though schools often considered with Ivies), and their struggles have precluded any illusions about their place in the world.</p>
<p>I am sure there are some who find a bug ten school the be all, and others of us less impressed.</p>
<p>So what?</p>
<p>Blossom, I’m curious – do you use SAT scores as one way of assessing candidates? I would.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is trying to insult anyone. We are discussing how hiring works. This is how hiring works.</p>
<p>And if you want to stay in an area where the jobs are leaving, it is the same as staying in an area where the steel plant closes. Good luck is a nice sentiment, coming from me. If you choose to interpret it another way, that’s not about me.</p>
<p>That was big ten school. No negative connotations intended. In fact, my brother attended one, stayed, and has a very prestigious job. I</p>
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<p>Exactly! </p>
<p>Mythmom - of course people everywhere can be provincial. No argument there. I don’t think people from the NE are any <em>more</em> provincial than people from elsewhere – it’s that they don’t realize they are <em>as</em> provincial.</p>
<p>You are correct, poetgrl. It is highly possible that a kid from W&L would be more likely to want to work in Charlotte than a kid from Harvard. Charlotte would feel pretty exciting after having lived in Lexington for 4 years. But Charlotte after living in Boston, not so much.</p>
<p>I know, GFG, I have one who is an urbanite. She’s not going to go to Charlotte.</p>
<p>But, Charlotte is the second largest banking city in the united states. NOT Boston.</p>
<p>So non-Northeastern provincial people deserve less disdain because at least they know they are provincial? This is getting absurd now.</p>
<p>my kid from W&L was happy to take a first job in the research triangle, and yes it certainly is more exciting than Lexington. However he also spent a year of those four at LSE in London and isn’t originally from a small town. So one can’t assume preferences simply based on their colleges. In my opinion, we should factor in that a good job, (right for the person) should be considered, given the economy. He loves what he’s doing but like most of our kids realizes he may end up anywhere.</p>