OP here. Yes, I was asking about the gap. NOT about similar schools.
I can be so analytical, but think many here are too much so. If the fit is right, the peer group level is right, the right variety of courses is available. a kid can thrive. There’s a glut of PhDs teaching at all sorts of schools. Dig into who teaches philosophy at, say West Chester or Mercer, their academic interests, and allied majors, in case she shifts gears.
D1 couldn’t do the state publics, they were doing away with her major interests. One last guy in another field taught her interest, one course. When he retired the following spring, there’d be zip. She got into her top choice, but her #2 was way down the list. It currently sits at 60+. Would we have been so worried about job prospects? No, we weren’t. We knew the faculty would satisfy (because we did that legwork. Not endowments or alum networks or who gets jobs locally vs afar.)
We knew our kids. I suspected (and was right) that D1 would go into start-ups or something corporate, (as far from her major as you can get.)
Find colleges that will empower her through the four years. Look at campus activities and clubs. Try to avoid suitcase schools.
Almost 40 years out of the seven sister AB, and 30+ years out of the ivy MS, what I get is invitations to local alum group events that feature museum tours led by alums who now are curators, while friends & relatives who went to big state Us get invitations to sporting events. I have access to alum networks to help me find physicians, or lawyers, or realtors, just like my state U grad friends & relatives. I do not have a “better” job, or “better” life-style than my state U friends & relatives - many of them have done a lot better than I by most measuralbe standards of quality of life. However, I am still usually granted the role of the “smart one” by merit of my fancier-named almas mater.
Temperament is fate. I ended up where I am not because of where I studied, but because of my basic character.
@blossom Maybe reread my post, I said correlation. That means Williams and U Penn ARE similar. You mentioned Williams a little Ivy and Framingham State ( a state school that is below the rank of Mass) not similar.
I also think we.need to hear that OP isn’t looking at elites. Imo, the comparison is different. To go on about tippy tops and finance (whatever) just clouds what will be a different sort of practical decidion.
My girls are very close to college friends. But they dont go to either the museum or the sports gatherings. Frankly, in part because they’re generally fundraisers. (They do contribute. And will go to their 5 year reunions.)
When I’m looking at potential new hires, I would definitely give an edge to a recent Bucknell graduate over a recent West Chester graduate, all else equal. The trouble is that all else is never equal.
@randyErika Can you elaborate on why? Is it just name recognition, a presumption of intelligence or history with grads from particular schools?
Not to beat a dead horse, but outcomes are a terrible way to judge the quality of education (and, therefore, a school):
- Regional and rural/urban differences in the cost of living mean different salaries for the same job
- STEM and Business degrees tend to lead to relatively lucrative jobs, so STEM- and Business-heavy schools get an outcomes boost
- Major (and, thus, job/industry) is largely a decision of the student/applicant, not the school.
- Job markets are not the same everywhere.
And I would venture that a lot of schools that aren’t very high in the national rankings are a pretty big deal in their city, county, state, or region. Here in Iowa, Iowa State is quite well regarded in Engineering. And the U of I is well regarded in everything else.
Maybe what we’re really after is, which degrees are the most portable – state to state, region to region, even country to country? I think that depends on how well the HR department and hiring manager know colleges and how much they care about the school vs. the applicant.
I do think there is something to be said for how well a school helps its students/grads secure interviews, as that is a service the school can provide. But even then, the job outcome is affected by the achievements and choices of the kid.
Not all of STEM leads to better job prospects. Biology majors and computer science majors both fall under STEM majors, but their job prospects and probable pay levels at the BA/BS level may differ.
Also, business is an extremely common major, typically more so at less selective/prestigious colleges. But it does appear to be a major where prestige of either the college or the business division can be quite significant in some types of employment. For example, University of Pennsylvania has a smaller percentage of business majors than California State University - East Bay, but the recruiting for business majors is not the same at each school.
After college I never worked in the ‘private economy.’ It was all in academia. Prestige matters to some but the quality of training and education matters more. Also the quality of your final degree (doctorate or professional degree – MBA, LLD) usually matters much more than your undergraduate degree.
But fundamentally, when you’re being hired, promoted, the questions are: What is your OWN reputation; what are your own skills, your specializations, your experiences, your ideas, your achievements (in academia this means research and publications, funding history, and professional reputation, perhaps as reflected in citations).
I think in careers such as law and business, there is a “diploma effect” beyond the issue of your abilities or the quality of your education and training. This would focus more on the ultimate degree than the undergraduate degree. If you go from Wabash College to JD at Harvard, only the latter matters; the former may be an interesting talking point, through.
My DD has a BFA (RISD), an MS (UMich), and an MBA (UMich). They all matter to her career, as much for the skills as the professional creds.
When I went to Wellesley 35 years ago, a lot of people outside of New England had either never heard of it or confused it with Wesleyan. Then Hillary Clinton became first lady and controversial and suddenly it shot up the charts, and nowadays it’s very prestigious. University of Maryland and UCLA had the reputation of ‘safety schools’.
You never know which college is going to shoot up in the rankings, or stumble and falter years down the road.
Find something with a solid alumni network in your field to land that first job. Six months later it will make no difference which college you attended.
It’s like the SAT score. 39 years ago I had a perfect SAT score. It may have gotten me into college despite mediocre grades, but once I had that offer letter the SAT became meaningless.
I’m just guessing here, but it seems to me that, when it comes to getting that first job, slight differences in prestige will result in little to no differences in outcome, qualified by field and region. The bigger the difference in prestige, the bigger the potential for a boost.
The College Search and Selection forum can be fun to read because they are often actual concrete situations where some of the factors are known and may be dispositive and make more sense than the Parchment preference game where college A > college B, college B > college C, but college C > college A.
Thank you – I should have specified the high-pay STEM majors.
Presumably, you never applied for a job at those companies that ask college graduates for their SAT scores?
What about someone who did similar great things after graduating from a more ordinary college? Or are you saying that high school achievements that got the other person into an elite college are still important even after college graduation and post-college achievements?
@ninakatarina “It’s like the SAT score. 39 years ago I had a perfect SAT score. It may have gotten me into college despite mediocre grades, but once I had that offer letter the SAT became meaningless.”
I don’t think this is a good analogy because it’s not just getting into “prestige school” that matters but also the education and experience during your 4 years at “prestige college” that is very important. The student still needs to get through the program and graduate, that is a big accomplishment at an elite school. If they graduate with honors (e.g. summa cum laude), that is even better.
As I mentioned before, while the prestige boost may diminishes over time, the college experience will stay with you for the rest of your career and life.
Some disciplines are more rigorous than others, all things being equal. Some colleges are more rigorous than others, all things being equal. Some kids find a way to make a not terribly rigorous major/college rigorous- that’s who they are.
Not every kid wants a high degree of rigor, not every kid wants to bust their %^&* in college, not every kid is prepared to be stretched intellectually in college. Some just want their ticket punched.
Question is, what does that ticket get you? Are there some colleges that just aren’t worth it?
Decades ago, the scions of the SES elite went to SES elite private schools feeding to HYP, where they earned gentleman’s C grades. Presumably, this was ticket punching of the past. Now, of course, even a highly advantaged scion of wealth needs to earn some of his/her own academic merit to get his/her ticket punched at HYP for a job on Wall Street or in consulting.
For me (and my spouse) there were dozens of colleges that weren’t “worth it” For our kid interested in engineering, we felt MIT (and a bunch of other places) were “worth it”, but once you got below a certain bar, a neighboring state’s flagship was a tremendous value financially, and somewhat (and in a few cases, significantly) better than many of the private options.
Not knocking the kids who go to these colleges of course, and their families made different decisions than we did which I respect, and thousands of these kids graduate every year and have taken advantage of terrific opportunities and get wonderful jobs.
But faced with a nearby flagship where our kid was an auto-admit based on stats, vs. a private engineering program which did not have as robust research, lab and faculty opportunities- to us, many of these colleges weren’t “worth it”.
For the other kids with less well-defined interests-- again- lots of places that weren’t 'worth it" for various reasons.
Not sure this is helping you…