Auren Hoffman: the brand of your school stopped working

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

Of course it is true. Unless you come from a super connected family, you'd better go to a school in the top 20 (the 20 or so that MBB and other top companies target, not necessarily us news):

8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, JHU
CalTEch, Northwestern. That's the top 15, not in that order.

Which of these is in the next 5 is debatable:
UCB, Rice, WashU, CMU, UCLA, UMich, Vanderbilt, ND, WAS, Georgetown, UVA, Emory....

That is already 27 and getting borderline.

The dropoff is quite steep after that group.

This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies.

I’m a hiring manager at a Mag7, and I’ve worked at three of the Mag7/FAANG companies. Honestly, you sound stupid. I could give a rats ass about a kid going to Harvey Mudd, Northwestern, Vandy, etc. It just doesn’t matter. Waterloo might have raised a few heads but in general schools were never a consideration. I left Meta as an L8 and I had more people from SJSU on my team than anywhere else. I had MIT, CalTech, UCB but I also had MS&T, NC State, UCSC, SUNY, etc. if you are good enough, you will make it through the gauntlet from any solid school.

You’re both BSing a bit. Mudd students do factually make more than a lot of peer school engineering majors, and they do often get the job over others, because HMs know they’re good students.

PP

Not BSing a single bit. I never had a Mudd kid cross my desk but if they had I would have said “great school, smart kid” to myself and not have given it a second thought after that. A Waterloo kid would have a “ready to go” mental note because of their internships. If a Mudd kid got a spot in my team it would be because they were the best candidate, the school would have counted for zero in the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

Of course it is true. Unless you come from a super connected family, you'd better go to a school in the top 20 (the 20 or so that MBB and other top companies target, not necessarily us news):

8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, JHU
CalTEch, Northwestern. That's the top 15, not in that order.

Which of these is in the next 5 is debatable:
UCB, Rice, WashU, CMU, UCLA, UMich, Vanderbilt, ND, WAS, Georgetown, UVA, Emory....

That is already 27 and getting borderline.

The dropoff is quite steep after that group.

This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies.

I’m a hiring manager at a Mag7, and I’ve worked at three of the Mag7/FAANG companies. Honestly, you sound stupid. I could give a rats ass about a kid going to Harvey Mudd, Northwestern, Vandy, etc. It just doesn’t matter. Waterloo might have raised a few heads but in general schools were never a consideration. I left Meta as an L8 and I had more people from SJSU on my team than anywhere else. I had MIT, CalTech, UCB but I also had MS&T, NC State, UCSC, SUNY, etc. if you are good enough, you will make it through the gauntlet from any solid school.

You’re both BSing a bit. Mudd students do factually make more than a lot of peer school engineering majors, and they do often get the job over others, because HMs know they’re good students.

PP

Not BSing a single bit. I never had a Mudd kid cross my desk but if they had I would have said “great school, smart kid” to myself and not have given it a second thought after that. A Waterloo kid would have a “ready to go” mental note because of their internships. If a Mudd kid got a spot in my team it would be because they were the best candidate, the school would have counted for zero in the process.

Your treating your own personal anecdote as proof positive of how the industry works. Again, Harvey Mudd graduates factually make more on average than SJSU graduates, so the school clearly counts for someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

Of course it is true. Unless you come from a super connected family, you'd better go to a school in the top 20 (the 20 or so that MBB and other top companies target, not necessarily us news):

8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, JHU
CalTEch, Northwestern. That's the top 15, not in that order.

Which of these is in the next 5 is debatable:
UCB, Rice, WashU, CMU, UCLA, UMich, Vanderbilt, ND, WAS, Georgetown, UVA, Emory....

That is already 27 and getting borderline.

The dropoff is quite steep after that group.

This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies.

As if anyone thinks META and the like are desirable places to work anymore.

I’m pretty sure that it is a pretty desirable place to work. Tough, but desirable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all are so confused. As usual.

They don't "hire off the US News rankings." They "hire off" connections or merit or both. People who go to top schools usually have one, the other, or both.

They hire from US News rankings in the sense that they send recruiters to top schools but all other graduates have to email their resumes and hope for the best.

[Anonymous]

Newsflash: many people from HYP have very average careers and salaries. The same is true of other Ivies, “new Ivies,” and non elite schools. Top schools offer challenging academics and peers who were exceptional students between the ages of 14 and 18. That’s really it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Newsflash: many people from HYP have very average careers and salaries. The same is true of other Ivies, “new Ivies,” and non elite schools. Top schools offer challenging academics and peers who were exceptional students between the ages of 14 and 18. That’s really it.

Agree. Those peer groups have a lot of strengths, but life isn’t settled at 18.

All schools have students that collectively form distribution curves. Academics. Privilege. Future professional success. The means vary but the curves overlap more than the DCUM crowd is capable of imagining.

In my own experience, YLS classmates who are killing it professionally would have done just as well from any top 15 law school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone here will argue about where the cliff is (top 5, top 10, top 50) but there is a cliff.

https://auren.substack.com/p/if-you-cant-get-a-job-today-its-your

the brand of your school stopped working (mostly)

until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

the high schooler who worked their tail off to get into Tufts University (currently #36 in US News) has basically no real job-market advantage over the student at DePaul University (currently #169) -- even though the difference in median SAT scores between the two schools is roughly 300 points.

300 SAT points used to be the difference between two completely different career arcs. today it is the difference between two students sending the same number of cold applications into the same void.

this is not a knock on Tufts. it is not a slight to DePaul. both schools teach their students well. the brands of the schools just converged in the eyes of the people doing the hiring.

paying $80K a year for a brand that no longer carries any hiring premium is one of the worst trades in the consumer economy. and that trade is being made by hundreds of thousands of families per year who never got the memo.

is there something other than a graph on a napkin to back this up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone here will argue about where the cliff is (top 5, top 10, top 50) but there is a cliff.

https://auren.substack.com/p/if-you-cant-get-a-job-today-its-your

the brand of your school stopped working (mostly)

until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

the high schooler who worked their tail off to get into Tufts University (currently #36 in US News) has basically no real job-market advantage over the student at DePaul University (currently #169) -- even though the difference in median SAT scores between the two schools is roughly 300 points.

300 SAT points used to be the difference between two completely different career arcs. today it is the difference between two students sending the same number of cold applications into the same void.

this is not a knock on Tufts. it is not a slight to DePaul. both schools teach their students well. the brands of the schools just converged in the eyes of the people doing the hiring.

paying $80K a year for a brand that no longer carries any hiring premium is one of the worst trades in the consumer economy. and that trade is being made by hundreds of thousands of families per year who never got the memo.

That 300 point SAT difference is less meaningful in a test optional world.
I think there is a brand dilution that has started to occur with test optional admissions when we started to see a critical mass of DePaul level student get into Tufts level schools.

I have seen a lot of high-end employers expand their recruiting in the last few years and I think a lot of it has to do with the failure of these institutions to maintain their standards.
Admission to these schools lose their signaling value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

Of course it is true. Unless you come from a super connected family, you'd better go to a school in the top 20 (the 20 or so that MBB and other top companies target, not necessarily us news):

8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, JHU
CalTEch, Northwestern. That's the top 15, not in that order.

Which of these is in the next 5 is debatable:
UCB, Rice, WashU, CMU, UCLA, UMich, Vanderbilt, ND, WAS, Georgetown, UVA, Emory....

That is already 27 and getting borderline.

The dropoff is quite steep after that group.

This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies.

I’m a hiring manager at a Mag7, and I’ve worked at three of the Mag7/FAANG companies. Honestly, you sound stupid. I could give a rats ass about a kid going to Harvey Mudd, Northwestern, Vandy, etc. It just doesn’t matter. Waterloo might have raised a few heads but in general schools were never a consideration. I left Meta as an L8 and I had more people from SJSU on my team than anywhere else. I had MIT, CalTech, UCB but I also had MS&T, NC State, UCSC, SUNY, etc. if you are good enough, you will make it through the gauntlet from any solid school.

You’re both BSing a bit. Mudd students do factually make more than a lot of peer school engineering majors, and they do often get the job over others, because HMs know they’re good students.

PP

Not BSing a single bit. I never had a Mudd kid cross my desk but if they had I would have said “great school, smart kid” to myself and not have given it a second thought after that. A Waterloo kid would have a “ready to go” mental note because of their internships. If a Mudd kid got a spot in my team it would be because they were the best candidate, the school would have counted for zero in the process.

Your treating your own personal anecdote as proof positive of how the industry works. Again, Harvey Mudd graduates factually make more on average than SJSU graduates, so the school clearly counts for someone.

Do they? Major for major, experience for experience? I do not know, and frankly neither do you. Harvey Mudd is an outstanding college, absolutely top tier and its graduates are the same. I was not disparaging HMC or their graduates in the slightest.

But, you've lost context. My post was in response to this post:

"This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies."

A post that is nonsense, flat out not true. I know that it isn't true because I led good size teams in the group of companies mentioned and have interviewed hundreds, yes hundreds of candidates for SWE and engineering roles on the teams that I was a member of, adjacent too, or leading. It may be personal anecdote, but it is born out actual experience which seems to be quite rare in this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

Of course it is true. Unless you come from a super connected family, you'd better go to a school in the top 20 (the 20 or so that MBB and other top companies target, not necessarily us news):

8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, JHU
CalTEch, Northwestern. That's the top 15, not in that order.

Which of these is in the next 5 is debatable:
UCB, Rice, WashU, CMU, UCLA, UMich, Vanderbilt, ND, WAS, Georgetown, UVA, Emory....

That is already 27 and getting borderline.

The dropoff is quite steep after that group.

This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies.

I’m a hiring manager at a Mag7, and I’ve worked at three of the Mag7/FAANG companies. Honestly, you sound stupid. I could give a rats ass about a kid going to Harvey Mudd, Northwestern, Vandy, etc. It just doesn’t matter. Waterloo might have raised a few heads but in general schools were never a consideration. I left Meta as an L8 and I had more people from SJSU on my team than anywhere else. I had MIT, CalTech, UCB but I also had MS&T, NC State, UCSC, SUNY, etc. if you are good enough, you will make it through the gauntlet from any solid school.

You’re both BSing a bit. Mudd students do factually make more than a lot of peer school engineering majors, and they do often get the job over others, because HMs know they’re good students.

PP

Not BSing a single bit. I never had a Mudd kid cross my desk but if they had I would have said “great school, smart kid” to myself and not have given it a second thought after that. A Waterloo kid would have a “ready to go” mental note because of their internships. If a Mudd kid got a spot in my team it would be because they were the best candidate, the school would have counted for zero in the process.

Your treating your own personal anecdote as proof positive of how the industry works. Again, Harvey Mudd graduates factually make more on average than SJSU graduates, so the school clearly counts for someone.

Do they? Major for major, experience for experience? I do not know, and frankly neither do you. Harvey Mudd is an outstanding college, absolutely top tier and its graduates are the same. I was not disparaging HMC or their graduates in the slightest.

But, you've lost context. My post was in response to this post:

"This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies."

A post that is nonsense, flat out not true. I know that it isn't true because I led good size teams in the group of companies mentioned and have interviewed hundreds, yes hundreds of candidates for SWE and engineering roles on the teams that I was a member of, adjacent too, or leading. It may be personal anecdote, but it is born out actual experience which seems to be quite rare in this forum.

I think the impression is that sometimes the school name matters for the first job out of college and places like Harvey Mudd do better than a lot of other places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Newsflash: many people from HYP have very average careers and salaries. The same is true of other Ivies, “new Ivies,” and non elite schools. Top schools offer challenging academics and peers who were exceptional students between the ages of 14 and 18. That’s really it.

Sure "many" people have typical careers from ivies. But the average student at an ivy does on average better in life(measured by salary 10 yrs out, or by prestige of grad/professional school, or whether they end up CEO or VP at a top nonprofit or top company). The top 1/4 of ivy grads are far far more successful than the top 1/4 of average flagships. The chance to land "outlierish" opportunities that are popular DCUM and everywhere (T14 law, T20 med or phD, MBB or similar consulting, quant finance, fellowships such as Rhodes/Fulbright/Marshall) are much more likely from an ivy-level: they are all in reach for roughly the top 1/4 of these schools. The chances are slim to actually ZERO for schools a couple of tiers below, even for the very top students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.

the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.

below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.

Of course it is true. Unless you come from a super connected family, you'd better go to a school in the top 20 (the 20 or so that MBB and other top companies target, not necessarily us news):

8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, JHU
CalTEch, Northwestern. That's the top 15, not in that order.

Which of these is in the next 5 is debatable:
UCB, Rice, WashU, CMU, UCLA, UMich, Vanderbilt, ND, WAS, Georgetown, UVA, Emory....

That is already 27 and getting borderline.

The dropoff is quite steep after that group.

This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies.

I’m a hiring manager at a Mag7, and I’ve worked at three of the Mag7/FAANG companies. Honestly, you sound stupid. I could give a rats ass about a kid going to Harvey Mudd, Northwestern, Vandy, etc. It just doesn’t matter. Waterloo might have raised a few heads but in general schools were never a consideration. I left Meta as an L8 and I had more people from SJSU on my team than anywhere else. I had MIT, CalTech, UCB but I also had MS&T, NC State, UCSC, SUNY, etc. if you are good enough, you will make it through the gauntlet from any solid school.

You’re both BSing a bit. Mudd students do factually make more than a lot of peer school engineering majors, and they do often get the job over others, because HMs know they’re good students.

PP

Not BSing a single bit. I never had a Mudd kid cross my desk but if they had I would have said “great school, smart kid” to myself and not have given it a second thought after that. A Waterloo kid would have a “ready to go” mental note because of their internships. If a Mudd kid got a spot in my team it would be because they were the best candidate, the school would have counted for zero in the process.

Your treating your own personal anecdote as proof positive of how the industry works. Again, Harvey Mudd graduates factually make more on average than SJSU graduates, so the school clearly counts for someone.

Do they? Major for major, experience for experience? I do not know, and frankly neither do you. Harvey Mudd is an outstanding college, absolutely top tier and its graduates are the same. I was not disparaging HMC or their graduates in the slightest.

But, you've lost context. My post was in response to this post:

"This list is for muggles. You need to consider the industries and audience unless the ranking's sole purpose is to impress your neighbors born before 1975. No one in Silicon Valley cares about Northwestern, a school known for journalism and radio. A hiring manager at FAANG will want a Harvey Mudd grad 10 out of 10 times over someone from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and at least 2 Ivies."

A post that is nonsense, flat out not true. I know that it isn't true because I led good size teams in the group of companies mentioned and have interviewed hundreds, yes hundreds of candidates for SWE and engineering roles on the teams that I was a member of, adjacent too, or leading. It may be personal anecdote, but it is born out actual experience which seems to be quite rare in this forum.

Agree