Where you go to college matters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:News Flash: Where you go to school does not matter, who you know matters.

DD plays soccer at UNC and gets several internships opportunities including one from Citadel. Her BFF is also on the team and the father is an EVP there.

Agreed, but within reason. UNC is still a top 30 school (and a top top place for women’s soccer). A Citadel EVP is not sending their kid to UNC Wilmington or probably any school outside of the top 100 (maybe top 50?).

You still have to go someplace where you are going to meet someone.

also you don't rely on getting lucky and meeting someone

If this was true, bars and nightclubs would be out of business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have a higher probability of getting better professional "connections" on the golf course than attending an elite institution, if you are a good golfer with a college degree from a state school. I am sure a lot of "decision makers" in the DMV are members at Congressional, Riverbend, Chevy Chase, Westwood. If you hang out there long enough, you will get an opportunity. You only need ONE person to give you an opportunity out of 100.

Don't you have to be a member to "hang out" there? If you are a member, then does it really matter if you attend a state school?

Are you suggesting that you caddy so that the Judge puts you on his tournament team instead of Spaulding?

Not really.  If you're a good golfer, you will get invited to play there as a member's guest.  You work your way up from there.  You can also get a job there and on your time off, you can practice on the driving range, if you are good and accurate with the driver and irons, people will find you.  Do  you know what people do when they play golf?  They talk and drink socially, and that's where you make your impression because you directly have conversations with decision makers.  As I've said before, you only need one person out of 100  to give you an opportunity to set you up for success.  To me, that is a much higher probability than attending an elite college.  

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you go to grad school (law, medicine, PhD), your undergrad probably doesn't matter. At least, I don't care to argue with all of the "I went to a dinky no-name school and then Hopkins med school and I turned out fine!" posters here.

But for everyone else, the name of the game is on-campus recruiting.

Many of us are too old to really understand the importance of OCR; in my day it was fairly optional unless you are going into certain fields like i-banking or consulting.

But now it is much more important; jobs that are offered through OCR simply aren't offered to the general public or even to students outside of a small number of chosen schools.

Tech firm A may recruit at both School X and School Y, but the School X positions may be core engineering positions while the School Y ones are support positions at a regional office.

OCR is important in tech, finance, management consulting and other fields. See this (highly critical) HBR article for how it works: https://hbr.org/2015/10/firms-are-wasting-mil...-only-a-few-campuses

Yes, where you go to school absolutely does matter if you're not going to be a doctor, lawyer or professor - the vast majority of kids; including the vast majority of those who intend to be doctors, lawyers or professors (those fields have a nasty cut).

Oh My Goodness.

I'm being called out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a campus recruiter is like a multi level marketing person, they are looking for people to do crap work and hope they stay but few ever stay at their first job very long

Eh well that's everyone's first job experience regardless of whether they are recruited on campus or not.

exactly my point, if everyone's first job is like that, it doesn't matter where you go to school.

Eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you go to grad school (law, medicine, PhD), your undergrad probably doesn't matter. At least, I don't care to argue with all of the "I went to a dinky no-name school and then Hopkins med school and I turned out fine!" posters here.

But for everyone else, the name of the game is on-campus recruiting.

Many of us are too old to really understand the importance of OCR; in my day it was fairly optional unless you are going into certain fields like i-banking or consulting.

But now it is much more important; jobs that are offered through OCR simply aren't offered to the general public or even to students outside of a small number of chosen schools.

Tech firm A may recruit at both School X and School Y, but the School X positions may be core engineering positions while the School Y ones are support positions at a regional office.

OCR is important in tech, finance, management consulting and other fields. See this (highly critical) HBR article for how it works: https://hbr.org/2015/10/firms-are-wasting-mil...-only-a-few-campuses

Yes, where you go to school absolutely does matter if you're not going to be a doctor, lawyer or professor - the vast majority of kids; including the vast majority of those who intend to be doctors, lawyers or professors (those fields have a nasty cut).

Oh My Goodness.

I'm being called out!

What you do at university is more important than where you go. This having been said there aware a certain few mediocre schools which don’t have great outcomes or value but those schools don’t get mentioned on DCUM. But anything mentioned on these boards offer opportunities if you work at it and choose wisely.

I look back on the law review of the top 10 school where I attended and was an editor and at the top of the class. On the Editorial Board we did have Harvard, Penn, Dartmouth and Duke but we also had Oregon State, BYU, Penn State and Muelenberg (sp). The most talented was the Muelenberg grad, a FBI agent who was intensely bright. People have their own way in the world and it is not dependent on the school they attended. As for myself, I obtained admission to a very difficult honors program which I really didn’t qualify for but the professor let me in. That experience was so difficult it made look school look easy, so what you put into an institution matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a kid who really wants to be those things but didn't get the grades AT AGE 16 that they needed to get to one of the colleges you are saying 'matters', they absolutely can turn it around at whatever college they go to and make it happen.

I banking starting out at a second of third tier college requires a lot of nepotism or luck.

I went to a SLAC that’s ranked in the 25-40 range and had offers from both Goldman and JP Morgan because I was 1) in the top 1% of my graduating class with an Econ and math double major 2) a woman + attractive and 3) driven.
I’ve had a long and lucrative career on Wall Street.

By the way, one of Goldman’s CEOs went to Hamilton College, and my current hedge fund’s CEO (a successful, self-made billionaire) is a graduate of a public NY state university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All anyone has to do is a simple search on LinkedIn to see how ridiculous OP's statement is.

This. Does OP even have a job? Look around you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a campus recruiter is like a multi level marketing person, they are looking for people to do crap work and hope they stay but few ever stay at their first job very long

Eh well that's everyone's first job experience regardless of whether they are recruited on campus or not.

exactly my point, if everyone's first job is like that, it doesn't matter where you go to school.

Eh?

Canadian?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t think of a single person, old or young, who got their job from an on campus recruiter.

My kid did. B4 consulting. OCR, internship after junior year and then return offer. My younger child is going through OCR for civil engineering right now. Had career fair, five interviews set up this upcoming week and hopefully gets an internship offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a kid who really wants to be those things but didn't get the grades AT AGE 16 that they needed to get to one of the colleges you are saying 'matters', they absolutely can turn it around at whatever college they go to and make it happen.

I banking starting out at a second of third tier college requires a lot of nepotism or luck.

That can be true in the short term for analysts but associates are hired based on business school they attended and so a kid can go to any college, join peace corps or teach America and then apply to business school and has a solid chance at a name bschool if can make a good case for why now they want to do business.

Or, looking even father out. Eventually those associates age out and need be promoted into management roles (or leave). And since there are much few I-banking management spots so many wind up competing against those that came up through compliance and ops (where the undergrad school pedigree is not a thing) for other management roles.

I work in finance and although I went to an Ivy League college and absolutely would not have been hired as an analyst otherwise, my colleagues now went to all sorts of schools.

Life is long!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:News Flash: Where you go to school does not matter, who you know matters.

DD plays soccer at UNC and gets several internships opportunities including one from Citadel. Her BFF is also on the team and the father is an EVP there.

Agreed, but within reason. UNC is still a top 30 school (and a top top place for women’s soccer). A Citadel EVP is not sending their kid to UNC Wilmington or probably any school outside of the top 100 (maybe top 50?).

You still have to go someplace where you are going to meet someone.

also you don't rely on getting lucky and meeting someone

If this was true, bars and nightclubs would be out of business.

Tinder is more effective

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:News Flash: Where you go to school does not matter, who you know matters.

DD plays soccer at UNC and gets several internships opportunities including one from Citadel. Her BFF is also on the team and the father is an EVP there.

Agreed, but within reason. UNC is still a top 30 school (and a top top place for women’s soccer). A Citadel EVP is not sending their kid to UNC Wilmington or probably any school outside of the top 100 (maybe top 50?).

You still have to go someplace where you are going to meet someone.

also you don't rely on getting lucky and meeting someone

If this was true, bars and nightclubs would be out of business.

Tinder is more effective

You sound like more of a Grinder Guy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have a higher probability of getting better professional "connections" on the golf course than attending an elite institution, if you are a good golfer with a college degree from a state school. I am sure a lot of "decision makers" in the DMV are members at Congressional, Riverbend, Chevy Chase, Westwood. If you hang out there long enough, you will get an opportunity. You only need ONE person to give you an opportunity out of 100.

Don't you have to be a member to "hang out" there? If you are a member, then does it really matter if you attend a state school?

Are you suggesting that you caddy so that the Judge puts you on his tournament team instead of Spaulding?

Not really.  If you're a good golfer, you will get invited to play there as a member's guest.  You work your way up from there.  You can also get a job there and on your time off, you can practice on the driving range, if you are good and accurate with the driver and irons, people will find you.  Do  you know what people do when they play golf?  They talk and drink socially, and that's where you make your impression because you directly have conversations with decision makers.  As I've said before, you only need one person out of 100  to give you an opportunity to set you up for success.  To me, that is a much higher probability than attending an elite college.  

If you can’t play golf well, there are other way to slither into the right circles. Like Julia Roberts did in “Pretty Woman.”

[Anonymous]

I remember working at a well-known tech firm a year before their IPO with a $10b valuation. We recruited the top 25 CS schools. Positions weren't offered to some and not others. Recruiting was just about setting up interviews. Interview outcomes determined offers and included recommendations for placement.

[Anonymous]

Undergraduate institution matters on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. But 99% of college graduates probably aren't aiming for Google or Goldman Sachs and most of them will do fine in life in spite of that.