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Not true. Most of us folks who didn't attend Ivy or Ivy level schools are quite dismissive of how selective these institutions are and what sort of opportunities they offer.
Everyone coming out of there isn't going to be a genius as they do let in athletes, kids of Uber wealthy/highly accomplished/powerful folks like Bushes, Kings/presidents of other countries, CEOs and NFL owners. They also admit some below merit from underrepresented minorities, underprivileged, refugees, learning disabilities etc. with high potential.
However, all merit admits are exceptional students most of whom go on to run the world. If you look at the merit admission process, standards are insanely high. They only accept 5-10% of applicants and most who apply are valedictorians or top 1% students with perfect GPAs and SATs and tons of awards. They pick cream of the creamiest bunch.
As scientists say, you are sum of five people you spend time with. Hanging out with top students and accomplished faculty and having access to distinguished alumni is priceless.
I'm not going to pretend that my community college and state school had equally accomplished students, teachers and alumni. Of course, many of them were awesome outliers but a very small percentage.
Last edited by UnfairPark; 02-01-2017 at 07:44 AM..
In my experience as a hiring manager of engineers I found that young graduates from name brand institutions underperformed those from small state schools (bachelor's degrees, young people because after 10 years in the workplace the university generally doesn't matter any more).
Name brand schools, unless they are of the very few that deliberately keep their enrollments very small, have a lot of apparent advantages that are not actually available to the average student.
Name brand professors? They show up once or twice per semester. The rest of the time the course is taught by non-English-speaking assistants.
Assist in interesting research? Not as an undergraduate. And as a graduate student, you will more likely be working as underpaid grunt labor so the professor can fulfill his grant terms.
Hobnob with the scions of the rich, famous, and powerful? Not unless your family already falls into that category, or you have 99+th percentile social and self-marketing skills. Do you really think the sons and daughters of power brokers and gazillionaires hang out in the scholarship student dorm with the sons and daughters of elementary school teachers and bus drivers?
Real world practical experience? Nope, most of the professors have never held a job other than "student, grad student, postdoc, associate professor, and tenured professor".
At least in my field, the small state schools (none of which people from outside my 5 state area would probably even recognize the names) outperform the name brand institutions in the aspects of college education that prepare students for life as a practicing engineer.
In my experience as a hiring manager of engineers I found that young graduates from name brand institutions underperformed those from small state schools (bachelor's degrees, young people because after 10 years in the workplace the university generally doesn't matter any more).
Name brand schools, unless they are of the very few that deliberately keep their enrollments very small, have a lot of apparent advantages that are not actually available to the average student.
Name brand professors? They show up once or twice per semester. The rest of the time the course is taught by non-English-speaking assistants.
Assist in interesting research? Not as an undergraduate. And as a graduate student, you will more likely be working as underpaid grunt labor so the professor can fulfill his grant terms.
Hobnob with the scions of the rich, famous, and powerful? Not unless your family already falls into that category, or you have 99+th percentile social and self-marketing skills. Do you really think the sons and daughters of power brokers and gazillionaires hang out in the scholarship student dorm with the sons and daughters of elementary school teachers and bus drivers?
Real world practical experience? Nope, most of the professors have never held a job other than "student, grad student, postdoc, associate professor, and tenured professor".
At least in my field, the small state schools (none of which people from outside my 5 state area would probably even recognize the names) outperform the name brand institutions in the aspects of college education that prepare students for life as a practicing engineer.
By the way, I did attend a Name Brand U.
I think that your experience is not terribly relevant to the comparison; it certainly differs from mine, also as a hiring manager (not that being a hiring manager gives any special insight into the question at hand). Here's why:
Ivy League schools are not especially highly regarded for undergraduate engineering programs. Many students with Ivy League ability consider the low-level practice of engineering to be more or less a blue-collar trade, and consequently aim higher.
If you have engineering jobs to fill that require only a bachelor's degree, you should expect to attract only the bottom of the class from any really good school. Students from the best schools generally go on to graduate study, and then on to jobs that require advanced degrees (not necessarily the PhD). They are typically not interested in jobs that require only a bachelor's degree (logic design, cad jockey, coding, regression testing, et al.). For example, Bell Labs at its zenith would immediately send any new hire away, full-time at company expense, to a top university for a master's degree before considering him to be a productive engineer.
On the other hand, you may appeal to the top of the class from a no-name school, where students are generally satisfied to go to work in banal jobs straight out of the undergraduate program. So, your experience may be comparing the top of the no-name to the bottom of the truly good schools.
In general, the best engineering programs at any level are in the non-Ivy elites (MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, and the like), and the flagship state universities (eg: Illinois, Wisconsin, Cal, Purdue, Michigan, and so forth).
Now if one looks at other fields, is there any question that a typical math or science graduate from, say, Harvard or Princeton is far better qualified than the typical math or science graduate of no-name U? Anyone who thinks that the two groups are peers doesn't know much about the study of math at an Ivy school. Make the same comparison of Oxford and Cambridge grads with grads from a former polytech recently elevated to university status. The obvious disparity in outcome is why the top schools are so highly regarded.
Ivy League schools are not especially highly regarded for undergraduate engineering programs.
I should have been clearer, I was not talking specifically about strictly Ivy League schools but rather Name Brand U related to engineering (i.e., Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT grade of schools).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes
If you have engineering jobs to fill that require only a bachelor's degree, you should expect to attract only the bottom of the class from any really good school. Students from the best schools generally go on to graduate study, and then on to jobs that require advanced degrees
Not necessarily true. A lot of people are interested in being actual practicing engineers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes
They are typically not interested in jobs that require only a bachelor's degree (logic design, cad jockey, coding, regression testing, et al.).
As an actual engineer, I would not call those jobs engineering jobs, with the possible exception of "logic design". Also, to be clear, I am a mechanical engineer by background and have hired mechanical, electrical, industrial, and manufacturing engineers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes
On the other hand, you may appeal to the top of the class from a no-name school, where students are generally satisfied to go to work in banal jobs straight out of the undergraduate program.
The kinds of jobs I have hired for were things like:
Team member for designing, verification and validation testing, mass production launch, and after-launch ongoing support of a major subsystem of an electromechanical product intended for mass production and sale at a profit, with production rates ranging from a few thousand to 2,000,000 per year.
Team member for the design, procurement, installation, runoff, and after-launch support of a multi-million dollar automated assembly line for electromechanical products which were mass produced at a rate of 780,000 per year and sold at a profit.
If these sound like banal jobs to you, I suggest you rethink your image of an "engineer" and recalibrate it against reality.
The kinds of jobs I have hired for were things like:
Team member for designing, verification and validation testing, mass production launch, and after-launch ongoing support of a major subsystem of an electromechanical product intended for mass production and sale at a profit, with production rates ranging from a few thousand to 2,000,000 per year.
Team member for the design, procurement, installation, runoff, and after-launch support of a multi-million dollar automated assembly line for electromechanical products which were mass produced at a rate of 780,000 per year and sold at a profit.
If these sound like banal jobs to you, I suggest you rethink your image of an "engineer" and recalibrate it against reality.
I think that we have different ideas about the practice of engineering. The jobs that you describe above don't really require much in the way of education. Indeed, most of the list could easily be done by an intelligent person with an associate's degree.
In my view, the work of Bell Labs, Sarnoff, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, MIT Lincoln Labs, and so forth, certainly is the practice of engineering. But most jobs at these kinds of places cannot possibly be done by anyone without post-graduate education, with the possible exception of a stray genius here and there. These kinds of jobs appeal to the best students from the best schools -- you simply are not seeing such people when you interview.
I once worked for the Bell System, in particular Western Electric, before I went to graduate school. They had the kinds of jobs that you mention, in spades. Our plant drew enough number 22 plastic-insulated wire every day to stretch around the world at the equator. We had a deep-water port and an ocean-going ship called the Long Lines to install undersea cable, which we also made. The engineers were top notch.
Nevertheless, there was an obvious hierarchy in the house of Bell. The best students from the best schools went to Bell Labs -- they had no interest in Western Electric despite its virtues. The engineers with lesser credentials went to Western Electric, if they were good enough to get in (it was a fine company, and a privilege to work there). The engineers who really weren't much interested in engineering at all, often less-accomplished graduates from lower-rate schools, went to the telephone operating companies.
Many people don't appreciate the history of the Bell System. They invented much of today's technology -- for example the transistor -- and developed bedrock engineering theory. Bell Labs was largely responsible for developing control theory, in response to understanding the behavior of undersea communications, and information theory, which led to today's understanding of digital communications.
So yes, I think that the jobs that you have described are indeed banal by comparison, although I regret having used that particular word, and apologize for rubbing you the wrong way with it.
My child is pursuing a degree that is only offered at five universities in the US, none of them Ivy League schools. Graduates of the degree program have a 97% placement rate in the industry, something that deserves far more respect than simply attending an Ivy League school.
My child is pursuing a degree that is only offered at five universities in the US, none of them Ivy League schools. Graduates of the degree program have a 97% placement rate in the industry, something that deserves far more respect than simply attending an Ivy League school.
Congratulations to your kid. This is fine, and sounds to me like a very good choice. But remember that placement in industry is not the goal of an Ivy League school. Think instead of law, medicine, professorships, diplomatic service, congress, wall street, and things like that.
I'm not impressed as much. My first job out of college, all my bosses or higher bosses went to MIT, Yale, Princeton. In fact one was married to a Harvard professor. Thanks to them and their thinking, the company went down the tube. I think this is an East Coast thing. In California, we're less impressed with the Ivy League.
Disagree that this is an East Coast thing. Silicon Valley regularly recruits from elite schools. People in other parts of the US are just as impressed. And it's not just with east coast schools in the Ivy League, but also Stanford, U. of Washington St. Louis, UC Berkely, U. of Chicago.
Maybe, if one of your bosses had gone to Wharton, then the company would not have gone down the tubes. Bosses need to understand business, not just their product.
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