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I understand that, only in a few instances will academic prestige actually amount to a job skill; as a job skill, however, academic prestige is a little peculiar. All that I know for certain as to which fields place importance to prestige as a job skill is that law, investment banking/venture capital, higher education teaching (admittedly more so in humanities/social sciences than in STEM) are the sectors where prestige actually counts as a hard job skill.
In law, prestige is considered such a critical hard job skill to have (but that's probably a function of the absolutely disastrous legal job market), to the point law firms would hire lawyers from top-14 schools, or top-6 even, over graduates from non-elite schools while having otherwise not nearly as much to show for as far as the other job skills are concerned. (Non-elite law degrees tend to travel a lot more poorly in the job market than even undergraduate degrees)
That said, I don't know how important will prestige become as a job skill in the future outside of those fields. I suspect it will increase as more jobs get outsourced and competition for the non-outsourceable jobs will increase, too...
Quote:
Originally Posted by J800
Baylor University
Syracuse University
Villanova University
Louisiana State University
George Washington University
UMass-Amherst
It's highly field-dependent... I could more or less tell what school is best for certain fields.
If you were contemplating a biomedical field, Baylor takes the cake, Syracuse in architecture, UMass Amherst in computer science, GWU in political science, public affairs and law, Villanova for religion. For undergrad business, I would have to go with Villanova, and then with GWU/Syracuse/Baylor and then UMass Amherst-Isenberg and LSU.
Oh, of course, as others said before, you should pay attention to whether you would even want to work in a given region, especially if you're open to work outside the field of your major but where some skills from your major may prove useful nonetheless; at this level of prestige, regional differences carry more weight than at the top. Go to LSU or Baylor if you want to work in the South, Villanova in Philly (and I would think the rest of mid-Atlantic, too), GWU if you lean more towards VA, MD, DC and, of course, Syracuse in NY.
I understand that these schools are not necessarily highly ranked, but I wanted to get an idea of which school (overall, regardless of program) would be most-respected/most-recognizable across the country. I know certain schools on the list are more respected regionally. I'm having a "friendly" conversation with my coworkers (that are alumni of these schools).
Baylor University
Syracuse University
Villanova University
Louisiana State University
George Washington University
UMass-Amherst
Name recognition among the general public has a lot to do with the college's sports program. Out of that list, LSU would be the most visible because of its football team and presence in the SEC.
Baylor has had success with football lately too but is in a lower-profile conference. Syracuse, GWU and Villanova have all been present in the NCAA basketball tournament in recent years as well as Baylor in both men and women's basketball.
Academically, I would have to look them up, none of them stand out off the top of my head. I'm from Texas so I know that Baylor's reputation is decent. I also know that UMass-Amherst is their public state flagship and on the higher end of them. Don't know much about the others. I've heard...something...about the GWU law school.
The entire Louisiana public university system had gotten a lot of bad press lately due to very aggressive budget cuts. I'd go to LA occasionally and the local news would always talk about how some Louisiana public university branch was going to close due to budget cuts and a couple years ago the LSU president testified before congress about possibly going bankrupt. Based on that alone, I'd say LSU would be the worst academically. That, and I remember Jon Stewart making fun of LSU because it was the backup school of the litigant in a high profile reverse discrimination lawsuit.
Last edited by redguard57; 05-17-2016 at 01:59 AM..
Name recognition among the general public has a lot to do with the college's sports program. Out of that list, LSU would be the most visible because of its football team and presence in the SEC.
....
I would have to agree. Big name football. Perennial baseball powerhouse. Men's basketball not so good, but their star player was on ESPN and CBS Sports every hour every day.
Also agree on the budget problems. I even remember a story that mentioned doing away with LSU football due to the persistent budget problems. Of course that would never happen. Remember they tried to fire Les Miles last year because he couldn't beat Bama. Within a week their big $$ alumni claimed they had raised the buyout money. And this was happening just a few months after they tossed around the idea of academic bankruptcy.
I understand that these schools are not necessarily highly ranked, but I wanted to get an idea of which school (overall, regardless of program) would be most-respected/most-recognizable across the country. I know certain schools on the list are more respected regionally. I'm having a "friendly" conversation with my coworkers (that are alumni of these schools).
Baylor University
Syracuse University
Villanova University
Louisiana State University
George Washington University
UMass-Amherst
Just off the top of my head, probably LSU because it's a large state school with tons of alumni and fans. Academically, they're all 2nd or 3rd tier.
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