In what professions is school prestige especially important?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Law. The only thing that matters is where you went to law school. The top dozen or so schools can and do place 100% of graduating students; the substantial majority that go to top firms start at $135k to $180k per year, depending largely on location. Those that do gov't or public interest have their student loans forgiven. This includes the entire graduating class. Lawyers at the next four or five dozen law schools have to kill themselves to come even distantly close. Those at the lower 2/3 of law schools basically have no hope whatsoever of employment. The only thing that matters for a lawyer is where you went to law school.

+1 this should be stickied for every person who asks about law school.

Could not agree more. Every. Single. Person.

This isn't true if you work in government. I went to a lower rated law school, as did my spouse, as we are both GS15s in two different agencies. We work with many 4th tier grads. I am on interview panels, and experience is much more important than law school. I agree it's very important for clerkships and law firms, but not government. The top two attorneys in my agency, both SES level, are 4th tier law grads.

Agreed. I never wanted to work for a big fancy firm. My heart is in government and prosecution. I went to a well-recognized name school (big state school, popular on sports, etc) but my school is only ranked in the third tier. I got a job right out of school (and not even in the same state).

[Anonymous]

Are you government lawyers at DOJ? Because pedigree definitely matters for hiring here, even for experienced attorneys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Law. The only thing that matters is where you went to law school. The top dozen or so schools can and do place 100% of graduating students; the substantial majority that go to top firms start at $135k to $180k per year, depending largely on location. Those that do gov't or public interest have their student loans forgiven. This includes the entire graduating class. Lawyers at the next four or five dozen law schools have to kill themselves to come even distantly close. Those at the lower 2/3 of law schools basically have no hope whatsoever of employment. The only thing that matters for a lawyer is where you went to law school.

+1 this should be stickied for every person who asks about law school.

Could not agree more. Every. Single. Person.

This isn't true if you work in government. I went to a lower rated law school, as did my spouse, as we are both GS15s in two different agencies. We work with many 4th tier grads. I am on interview panels, and experience is much more important than law school. I agree it's very important for clerkships and law firms, but not government. The top two attorneys in my agency, both SES level, are 4th tier law grads.

Well, it's absolutely true at my agency. Maybe less so at backwaters.

[Anonymous]

PP 16:19 here. I work for a local agency, not a fed.

[Anonymous]

Also adding that I lucked out with school loans and don't need an extremely high paying job as I'm 36 and all of my loans are paid off. I had a full athletic scholarship for undergrad so what my parents had saved for college was put toward law school. At my school, which was a large state university, I obtained residency after 6 months (I moved to the state right after college to get a head start so I could have residency for the second semester of my first year). Once I was qualified for in-state tuition, the rate was about $15,000 per year (it's since gone up quite a bit though). So coming out of law school I only had about $20,000 in school loans total. I am eternally grateful that my parents were good savers and that they pushed me to excel at the sport that paid for my undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say grants and publications matter a lot more in academia than school. It doesn't follow you as it does in law school.

It decisively matters up front - you are highly unlikely to get a tenure-track job in the first place if you did not attend a top school.

After you get hired, you are expected to perform (get grants, get published) but to do that you have to get hired in the first place.

The advice for would-be PhDs is the same as for would-be lawyers: top ten schools place 100% of their graduates, graduates of the next couple of dozen schools have to scramble, and graduates of the bottom 75% of the schools basically have no hope whatsoever of employment in academia (these schools are a scam and their PhD programs should be shut down).

+1000 There are not enough tenure track positions for the number of PhD graduates in most fields. Top tier graduates often have to accept jobs at 2nd tier schools and 2nd tier graduates fight for positions at 3rd tier schools.

Yep, this is totally true. When DH was on the job market, he kept making comments about what schools placed people who got their doctorates from which institutions. I thought it was just self-depreciation, but after being a faculty spouse for a while, I recognize the frequency and immediacy of these conversations.

But the world of academia is weird.

[Anonymous]

Academia is best understood as an apprenticeship. It matters most with whom you study, and a handful of PhD advisors have a near monopoly on the placement of newly minted PhDs into tenure track jobs. These advisors tend to be at universities than can support the best PhD students, and thus tend to be at top tier universities for their field. Incredibly, the apprenticeship often begins at the undergraduate level, with certain colleges producing a disproportionately large number of students who get admitted to top PhD programs--because the undergraduate advisors went to the same PhD programs as the PhD advisors. It's a very, very small and tight-knit world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Academia is best understood as an apprenticeship. It matters most with whom you study, and a handful of PhD advisors have a near monopoly on the placement of newly minted PhDs into tenure track jobs. These advisors tend to be at universities than can support the best PhD students, and thus tend to be at top tier universities for their field. Incredibly, the apprenticeship often begins at the undergraduate level, with certain colleges producing a disproportionately large number of students who get admitted to top PhD programs--because the undergraduate advisors went to the same PhD programs as the PhD advisors. It's a very, very small and tight-knit world.

It's a pyramid scheme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would put engineering in the somewhat category.

Somewhat to high depending on the specific major and company.

I work in aersospace and nobody cares. After your first year on the job, all people want to know is what you did in the working world.

Another aerospace person here and totally agree with this. After your first job, no one cares even a little bit where you went to school. And for your first job, a good GPA, lots of research or internships, and enthusiasm is going to outweigh a good school every time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would put engineering in the somewhat category.

Somewhat to high depending on the specific major and company.

I work in aersospace and nobody cares. After your first year on the job, all people want to know is what you did in the working world.

Interesting. DH is an aerospace engineer and people seem to care/notice where he received his degrees. Sr. military officials comment when they see his bio.

They're probably trying to be nice and make conversation. Doesn't mean he wouldn't have been hired for the exact same job if he went somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Law. The only thing that matters is where you went to law school. The top dozen or so schools can and do place 100% of graduating students; the substantial majority that go to top firms start at $135k to $180k per year, depending largely on location. Those that do gov't or public interest have their student loans forgiven. This includes the entire graduating class. Lawyers at the next four or five dozen law schools have to kill themselves to come even distantly close. Those at the lower 2/3 of law schools basically have no hope whatsoever of employment. The only thing that matters for a lawyer is where you went to law school.

+1 this should be stickied for every person who asks about law school.

Could not agree more. Every. Single. Person.

This isn't true if you work in government. I went to a lower rated law school, as did my spouse, as we are both GS15s in two different agencies. We work with many 4th tier grads. I am on interview panels, and experience is much more important than law school. I agree it's very important for clerkships and law firms, but not government. The top two attorneys in my agency, both SES level, are 4th tier law grads.

Well, it's absolutely true at my agency. Maybe less so at backwaters.

I work for a federal agency in the DC region. I've had received offers from other agencies here. I don't work for DOJ, so I can't comment on their approach. Many, if not most, of the attorneys I work with are from middle tier law schools. Most people never really discuss the topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would put engineering in the somewhat category.

Somewhat to high depending on the specific major and company.

I work in aersospace and nobody cares. After your first year on the job, all people want to know is what you did in the working world.

That is relatively new. It used to be that A's from top tier engineering schools went to X company, B's in top tier and As in second tier went to Y........ But then Boeiing bought up all the companies over time. However, the quality of engineers was noticable between those companies as they merged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you government lawyers at DOJ? Because pedigree definitely matters for hiring here, even for experienced attorneys.

Wrong!

Signed, A DOJ Attorney

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ I've met almost no Ivy League-educated accountants.

There's no accounting major at most of those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Law. The only thing that matters is where you went to law school. The top dozen or so schools can and do place 100% of graduating students; the substantial majority that go to top firms start at $135k to $180k per year, depending largely on location. Those that do gov't or public interest have their student loans forgiven. This includes the entire graduating class. Lawyers at the next four or five dozen law schools have to kill themselves to come even distantly close. Those at the lower 2/3 of law schools basically have no hope whatsoever of employment. The only thing that matters for a lawyer is where you went to law school.

+1 this should be stickied for every person who asks about law school.

Could not agree more. Every. Single. Person.

This isn't true if you work in government. I went to a lower rated law school, as did my spouse, as we are both GS15s in two different agencies. We work with many 4th tier grads. I am on interview panels, and experience is much more important than law school. I agree it's very important for clerkships and law firms, but not government. The top two attorneys in my agency, both SES level, are 4th tier law grads.

Well, it's absolutely true at my agency. Maybe less so at backwaters.

Academic pedigree definitely matters for lawyers at State/L. They only even recruit on a few campuses. There's more flexibility for later laterals based on experience/subject specific knowledge, but I'd say ~10 law schools account for 80% of attorneys.