Anonymous wrote:For that matter, I got a degree in EE from one of the schools in the top 10 and though it was 15 years ago I can't think of more than a couple of my classmates who went into engineering as a career. Some did higher education, quite a few went into sales, but the majority seemed to be in the program just to go into consulting or investment banking.

You graduated at the tail end of the tech bust - not surprised the didn't go into engineering.

If they graduated now, more would - IB and consulting recruiting has scaled back compared to the frothy 2002-2006 days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got a CS degree from one of the schools in the top 5 on that list. Recruiters told me their strategy to recruit fresh grads is to only visit the top universities and do all their recruiting from there. I had 14 job offers when I graduated. Probably would have had more but I turned down a number of interviews if I knew I wasn't interested in the company or location.

In my experience since the (that was 15 years ago) in the industry, you can definitely tell the difference between a grad from a top school and one who didn't in terms of work product and understanding of the concepts and theory. However, anything in the top 25 and you can't go wrong. It's not like #10 is so much worse than #2 or anything like that.

It's been my experience after working/hiring in the field for 20+ years that the targeting the top schools helps yields of good employees but doesn't guarantee it. For example, lets say 80% of MIT grads turn out to be excellent employees. That percentage is probably 30-40% at a place like UMD and 5-10% at Towson. On my team right now I have a Towson grad and a UMBC grad blowing the doors off an MIT grad. That being said, the Towson grad would need an excellent resume and interview. This is of course for new graduates; I've seen much less correlation with hiring experienced grads. Once you develop a good reputation and have some results the college you graduated from becomes much less important.

The one school I've batted A 1000 with is CMU. Haven't been let down yet.

Hiring is becoming more 'tracked' though. Without the initial opportunities as a young grad, it is difficult to get the experiences and opportunities required to develop a good reputation and results.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any ranking that puts VTech before UMD, is worthless.

+1 My relative, who is a professor of engineering in another part of the country and counsels graduate students, said that UMD's engineering program is more highly regarded than VT's.

However VTech is Technical Institute i.e. engineering school to the core, and UMD is not Engineering school, but has some engineering degrees.

To see the difference look at Engineering Degrees possible from any Technical Institute vs. University.
Also look at courses. May be you will see the difference.

UMD is very good in Theoretical fields like Math, Physics, Computers. But one who wants to get Engineering degree will have to look carefully is that particular area even available in UMD.

There are very few Engineering areas that UMD is at the top 20.


Signed,
Graduate of Technical Institute (Not VTech but one listed in top 10).

Anonymous wrote:And yet, Apple regularly hires grads from San Jose State - CA State Univ. school.

Apple, Verizon and Microsoft hire a lot of H1B workers. So broaden your horizon a bit.
50 best in the US is not helpful when you add Cambridge, Oxford, Univ Lundt, etc

Anonymous wrote:I got a CS degree from one of the schools in the top 5 on that list. Recruiters told me their strategy to recruit fresh grads is to only visit the top universities and do all their recruiting from there. I had 14 job offers when I graduated. Probably would have had more but I turned down a number of interviews if I knew I wasn't interested in the company or location.

In my experience since the (that was 15 years ago) in the industry, you can definitely tell the difference between a grad from a top school and one who didn't in terms of work product and understanding of the concepts and theory. However, anything in the top 25 and you can't go wrong. It's not like #10 is so much worse than #2 or anything like that.

It's been my experience after working/hiring in the field for 20+ years that the targeting the top schools helps yields of good employees but doesn't guarantee it. For example, lets say 80% of MIT grads turn out to be excellent employees. That percentage is probably 30-40% at a place like UMD and 5-10% at Towson. On my team right now I have a Towson grad and a UMBC grad blowing the doors off an MIT grad. That being said, the Towson grad would need an excellent resume and interview. This is of course for new graduates; I've seen much less correlation with hiring experienced grads. Once you develop a good reputation and have some results the college you graduated from becomes much less important.

The one school I've batted A 1000 with is CMU. Haven't been let down yet.

Combining CS with engineering is wrong IMO. VT has an excellent engineering program but a mediocre CS program.

For that matter, I got a degree in EE from one of the schools in the top 10 and though it was 15 years ago I can't think of more than a couple of my classmates who went into engineering as a career. Some did higher education, quite a few went into sales, but the majority seemed to be in the program just to go into consulting or investment banking.