Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my org, it doesn't matter that much for technical roles and seems to matter more for non-technical roles. Like top 100 school is fine for mechanical engineers and top 50 school is fine for project managers. There are also way fewer applicants for technical roles vs. non-technical roles.

Top 50 is crazy high cutoff for “doesn’t matter much”

I don’t consider a project manager a technical job. I meant non-technical jobs have a higher threshold and school matters more, especially for younger employees. For technical jobs, it doesn’t matter as much.

Anonymous wrote:At my org, it doesn't matter that much for technical roles and seems to matter more for non-technical roles. Like top 100 school is fine for mechanical engineers and top 50 school is fine for project managers. There are also way fewer applicants for technical roles vs. non-technical roles.

Top 50 is crazy high cutoff for “doesn’t matter much”

In accounting, as long as the school is accredited it really doesn’t matter. Most people who I work with went to state schools, Florida, Maryland, VT, JMU, Georgia

In tech...it does not matter at all. They are looking for skills and they will also do a lot of testing and tests and watch your body language etc before hiring you.

The pipeline is certainly the internships for the first job.

We are a very liberal firm so I'd pump the brakes on someone from Liberty or some other very christian college, but other than that? No.

Too many times I've seen someone from Princeton or Harvard being egotistical while the person who did community college and state school connected well with clients, got them not just what they asked for but prepped the next step, etc.

Anonymous wrote:for established professionals it's less about absolute ranking or desirability and more about degree mill vs not.

degree mill helps check the box if a degree is mandatory for a position; but it definitely doesn't add to a resume, and can sometimes be a hurdle to overcome.

for fresh grads, a lot of recruitment happens at the college itself; there are definitely opportunity pipelines that exist at the more prestigious programs that are not available to the bulk of recent grads.

I know what you mean, and I’ve seen some great people in that first category, but otherwise the majority are people I’d pass over. I tend to have a serious dose of skepticism for the established professional+diploma mill.

In law firms, it matters very much, including for at least the first 5-8 years of your career. If not longer.

At my org, it doesn't matter that much for technical roles and seems to matter more for non-technical roles. Like top 100 school is fine for mechanical engineers and top 50 school is fine for project managers. There are also way fewer applicants for technical roles vs. non-technical roles.

Anonymous wrote:Are you less likely to hire someone from a lesser known college/university, than a well known one?

At what point does the college and university no longer matter?

For a law firm, an applicant's undergraduate school generally doesn't matter too much. Attending a top university for undergraduate and a third-tier law school might be a red flag, but we wouldn't recruit from a third-tier law school, with a few local exceptions. On the other hand, attending a lesser known college or university and then attending a top law school suggests you did very well as an undergraduate, so that makes a positive impression. Typically, we're just going to see a ton of kids who went to top colleges and universities and then well known law schools.

What matters most is attending a top law school and doing well. Yale Law students get more scrutiny because Yale graduates are notoriously impractical. Harvard and Stanford students get a boost because of the prestige of those schools. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if you attended Chicago, Columbia, UVA, Georgetown, Penn, Duke, NYU, or Northwestern. We're just looking for good grades and a can-do attitude. We'll look at some local law schools in addition to Georgetown. If you attended one of those schools, you'll need to stand out to get an interview or offer, but some of our best associates have come from local schools, especially GW and George Mason (Scalia).

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the profession.

In law, law school attended is a good proxy for intelligence (not necessarily competence, etc.), because the primary factor in admissions is the LSAT, an extremely hard standardized test.

IDK . . . there are a lot of people who choose law school (and other graduate programs) based on a location that works for where they are in their lives.

"Lesser known" in what sense? If it's a school I haven't heard of, I would do a little research on it so I can use that information in an informed way rather than brush it off out of ignorance.

It depends on the profession.

In law, law school attended is a good proxy for intelligence (not necessarily competence, etc.), because the primary factor in admissions is the LSAT, an extremely hard standardized test.

Zero unless you were my bosses frat brother or lax teammate.

for established professionals it's less about absolute ranking or desirability and more about degree mill vs not.

degree mill helps check the box if a degree is mandatory for a position; but it definitely doesn't add to a resume, and can sometimes be a hurdle to overcome.

for fresh grads, a lot of recruitment happens at the college itself; there are definitely opportunity pipelines that exist at the more prestigious programs that are not available to the bulk of recent grads.

Are you less likely to hire someone from a lesser known college/university, than a well known one?

At what point does the college and university no longer matter?