What universities stand out for DC hiring managers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale

MIT, Stanford, and Princeton have no cachet in the policy world. Harvard and Yale do, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don’t want to accept this but increasingly there will be less and less differentiation between graduating from Yale or Princeton and graduating from UMiami or Penn State.

Some people may not like this but this is where we are going. So it really doesn’t matter where you go for undergrad.

This is so true. I hire in federal government , many of our best hires come from state schools. In the past 5 years, I have been on over two dozen job panels. The best hires were from JMU, university of Buffalo, Va. tech, UMD, Salisbury, Bucknell

So happy to read this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do a lot of hiring for entry level policy and media relations jobs at a prominent NGO in DC. Being able to write very well is the coin of the realm.

We hire from a range of schools, but if i were sorting solely by colleges, I'd definitely go with graduates of good SLACs over almost anyone else (although I'd probably also add at least some of the Ivies). People have to write-- and they get feedback on their writing--- at most SLACs. Over the past several years, our five best entry level hires were from Carleton, Smith, Oberlin, Swarthmore, and Bates. We've had a lot of other good people, but SLACs are doing well for us.

I went to a small, liberal arts college and there was NO feedback given in terms of writing. It was a cash cow with adjunct professors. Landed at Kansas State University - the feedback on every document has been amazing. Much more in-depth writing and analysis on every page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale

MIT, Stanford, and Princeton have no cachet in the policy world. Harvard and Yale do, of course.

Princeton does for grad students because of the Wilson school. But agree nothing for MIT or Stanford. Some of these comments seem to just be throwing out top tier school names with little regard for the question asked.