How do you define what is considered a "good school"?

• sleeper

  

  DeyDurkie5;1056654 wrote:My question would be why do you care about the ranking's of schools?

  I'd prefer either there were no rankings, or that the current rankings were moved into the more objective category rather than the current subjective nature being paraded as objective.
  
  I really don't "care", just annoyed I suppose.
• DeyDurkie5

  

  sleeper;1056657 wrote:I'd prefer either there were no rankings, or that the current rankings were moved into the more objective category rather than the current subjective nature being paraded as objective.
  
  I really don't "care", just annoyed I suppose.

  If your school helps you get a good job, and it creates so many years of happiness, that's all that matters.
• sleeper

  

  DeyDurkie5;1056668 wrote:If your school helps you get a good job, and it creates so many years of happiness, that's all that matters.

  Sadly, a lot of people are duped into going to a "bad" school, taking a useless major, not finding a job, and then blaming the rich all because they were told how great a school's sociology program is by people who don't give a shit about them.
• DeyDurkie5

  

  sleeper;1056679 wrote:Sadly, a lot of people are duped into going to a "bad" school, taking a useless major, not finding a job, and then blaming the rich all because they were told how great a school's sociology program is by people who don't give a shit about them.

  LOL i agree...people go to school, get a shitty degree, and then blame other people because of their choices. It's funny, but fuck college rankings.
• rmolin73

  

  That's their first mistake majoring in sociology!
• Pick6

  

  sleeper;1056090 wrote:And chances are they don't really like Akron, they just couldn't get in anywhere else. They will tell you otherwise, but its all bullshit and is just a deflection from having to face the mediocrity of their life.

  I like Akron. Any kind of drug I'm in the mood for is always easily accessible.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  I'll hire a St. Franny or St. John's grad over a Libbey grad 100% of the time, and you can take that to the bank.
• Sonofanump

  Oh no, William and Mary won't do.
• dlazz

  rmolin73;1056686 wrote:That's their first mistake majoring in sociology!

  I majored in a sociology-based major and got a good job.
• fan_from_texas

  Sonofanump;1056492 wrote:Does this really exist? I'd think if you could get an interview, you have just as much chance at the job as a Kent, Toledo or Akron grad as you would as a OSU, UM or Northwestern grad if you impress with the interview. It's not where you go, it's what you get out of it.

  In my industry (law), it's where you go and how you do that matters. We hire from 14 national schools and then whatever the top regional school is in our market. We have firm grade/class rank cutoffs at each school. This is how every top law firm hires, and it's a system that seems to work. We don't interview someone from a school outside of our feeder schools, period.
  
  Here's the reasoning: we're going to hire 5-10 people each year for my office. There are 40,000 or so people graduating each year from law school. There's no realistic way we're going to review them all. If we limit ourselves to the top 14 schools + a regional school, our 5-10 are coming from a pool of 3,000-4,000 or so. That's a big enough number to find our 5-10. Are there great students at crappy schools who could add value? Probably. But how do we identify those people? Getting into a top law school is largely a function of having a high IQ (resulting in a high LSAT score). Doing well is a combination of being sharp, efficient, and putting in long hours. So if we just take people who do well at top schools, we know that we're picking from a pretty heavily culled field and can find 5-10 good people. Why bother going over resumes from some crappy school to try to identify some star that chose to go to a bad school, even though they know or should know that good firms only hire from a handful of schools?
  
  Different industries are, of course, different, and I don't claim to speak for all industries. But this is how we do it, and it works out pretty well for virtually all good law firms.
• fan_from_texas

  sleeper;1056679 wrote:Sadly, a lot of people are duped into going to a "bad" school, taking a useless major, not finding a job, and then blaming the rich all because they were told how great a school's sociology program is by people who don't give a **** about them.

  TRUTH
• Sonofanump

  fan_from_texas;1056949 wrote:In my industry (law)

  OK, so your employer in your industry is one of the few exceptions and those going from undergraduate to law school would be aware that the law school name does have the prestige for this type of employment. Would it matter where the undergrad is from or just the law school.
• fan_from_texas

  Sonofanump;1057076 wrote:OK, so your employer in your industry is one of the few exceptions and those going from undergraduate to law school would be aware that the law school name does have the prestige for this type of employment. Would it matter where the undergrad is from or just the law school.

  Undergrad doesn't really matter.
  
  I suspect there are huge variations across industries, with a general rule that the more selective/lucrative the profession, the more the school rank matters. I don't think Target has hard-and-fast school rank and class rank cut-offs when it's hiring middle management trainees, but I'm certain that Goldman Sachs does.
  
  My point, I guess, is that in some industries, the name/rank of your school is about the only thing that matters, while in others, it doesn't matter at all. Prospective college students should have some sort of idea about this before forking over six figures to go to school, and high school guidance counselors are (anecdotally) far too often providing advice that was true 15 years ago but may not be true today.
• dlazz

  fan_from_texas;1057097 wrote: Prospective college students should have some sort of idea about this before forking over six figures to go to school

  Propsective college students willing to fork over six-figures are fucking dumb.
• fan_from_texas

  dlazz;1057106 wrote:Propsective college students willing to fork over six-figures are ****ing dumb.

  Tuition plus living expenses at many schools are probably north of $25,000/yr.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  dlazz;1057106 wrote:Propsective college students willing to fork over six-figures are fucking dumb.

  Wouldn't they be "forking" dumb?
• OSH

  

  fan_from_texas;1057097 wrote:Undergrad doesn't really matter.
  
  I suspect there are huge variations across industries, with a general rule that the more selective/lucrative the profession, the more the school rank matters. I don't think Target has hard-and-fast school rank and class rank cut-offs when it's hiring middle management trainees, but I'm certain that Goldman Sachs does.
  
  My point, I guess, is that in some industries, the name/rank of your school is about the only thing that matters, while in others, it doesn't matter at all. Prospective college students should have some sort of idea about this before forking over six figures to go to school, and high school guidance counselors are (anecdotally) far too often providing advice that was true 15 years ago but may not be true today.

  That's the biggest problem with kids entering college. They rely on the guidance counselors who know nothing. They are lousy -- not all, but most. There are so many resources out there in choosing schools, it just takes time and effort to do the research. Not many want to do that.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  Sonofanump;1057076 wrote:OK, so your employer in your industry is one of the few exceptions and those going from undergraduate to law school would be aware that the law school name does have the prestige for this type of employment. Would it matter where the undergrad is from or just the law school.

  The only exception is if the undergrad is the same school that a very high ranking partner graduated from and there is some connection. Anecdotally, at my last firm there were a couple of guys that were hired that graduated from undergrad at Hampden-Sydney. My guess that is because the CEO of the firm graduated from there undergrad, but this was also in 2006 and when we hired 50 summer associates a year. In 2011 unless you went to law school at William & Mary or University of Virginia (or in the top 5, not top 5% but top 5 at University of Richmond) you aren't getting hired or even interviewed. Hiring has decreased by about 80% at this firm and they aren't taking the time to even review resumes from Harvard, Penn, NYU, etc. when they have 500 applicants for every position. They haven't hired a lateral associate since mid '09 (and that didn't work out since the partner left after a few months).
  
  If anything, it looks worse if someone graduated from a higher ranked undergrad and attended a lower ranked law school.
• I Wear Pants

  Yeah I've heard law school is probably a bad idea right now.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  I Wear Pants;1058378 wrote:Yeah I've heard law school is probably a bad idea right now.

  If FFT's firm is only hiring 5-10 summers a year, that's in line with my experience, about an 80% reduction since '05 or '06.
• ohiotiger33

  

  Clemson Grads find jobs at almost twice the national rate for college graduates. Good schools are basically based on reputation and word of mouth. Whatever will look good to a perspective employer is what is important. But to be honest, work experience and internships go much further.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "Clemson Grads find jobs at almost twice the national rate for college graduates. "
  
  So sayeth the Clemson career services department. Nothing against Clemson, always enjoyed going to football games there and have some friends (most are housewives now) who are alums. Colleges lie, about the employment rate and the effective expected salary and pretty much about everything else as long as they get their federal funding. I don't think Clemson is different in this regard. The statistics that U.S. News spouts out is unadulterated crap.
• Classyposter58

  

  As a current student I can tell you that Big 10 schools are brutal to get into. I got a 25 on my ACT and a 2.6 in HS, not good but not horrible and have a 2.9 in college. Anyways I don't come close to being able to transfer to a Big 10 school except maybe OSU. I applied to Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky and got into everyone easily:laugh:. They're working to catch up down there but remember they basically had to restart in 1870 completely so they're a little behind up north
• Tobias Fünke

  

  dlazz;1055809 wrote:That would make it best school in the county by default.
  
  Use your head.

  I'm saying your school is a shitty one, and only the best in the county.
  
  Use your head.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  ernest_t_bass;1056791 wrote:I'll hire a St. Franny or St. Johns grad over a Libby grad 100% of the time, and you can take that to the bank.

  I like how you misspelled St. Francis, St. John's, and Libbey. I get the Franny part, but Jesus Christ durrrrrkie.