I don’t think colleges put anywhere near enough time and resources into, as you say, “how to get a job on your chosen field.” Professors don’t have the background to really help job-seeking students who don’t want to be professors. Just telling students the basics of networking could be of great value to many of them. Summer internships are a huge deal now for students who want to go into business. Work visa issues can be a big deal for many international students. I’m an econ professor at Smith College.
In the United States the kind of job you can get is strongly correlated with the college you graduate from and to a lesser extend your college grades, so high school students (especially before they determine what college they will go to) face enormous uncertainty over their future job market value.
I would be very curious about the average and quartile SAT scores (on percentile basis) for each job and job category. This may also let high schoolers predict their future earning potential and job fitness at an earlier age.
In my experience, at the under-grad level, the college you go to doesn’t really matter (and especially your grades). I know that when I am hiring, I personally spend exactly 2 seconds looking at what school someone went to (and exactly 0 seconds looking at their grades).
It may be different at the post-graduate level though.
Yes, I suspect the elite-college job premium comes less from that mechanism and more from (1) more-skilled students applying to higher-ranked colleges, (2) unofficial/semi-official cumulative advantage processes whereby current students at elite colleges benefit from past elite-college graduates becoming elites in external social networks, and (3) elite colleges having better official career services like interview practice sessions, job databases, and careers fairs.
I think the undergrad college matters, but on a three-bucket basis :-) The buckets are (1) the top tier; (2) the very large middle; (3) the bottom of the barrel.
I don’t think colleges put anywhere near enough time and resources into, as you say, “how to get a job on your chosen field.” Professors don’t have the background to really help job-seeking students who don’t want to be professors. Just telling students the basics of networking could be of great value to many of them. Summer internships are a huge deal now for students who want to go into business. Work visa issues can be a big deal for many international students. I’m an econ professor at Smith College.
I’m thinking more at the high school level, but I think you are correct.
In the United States the kind of job you can get is strongly correlated with the college you graduate from and to a lesser extend your college grades, so high school students (especially before they determine what college they will go to) face enormous uncertainty over their future job market value.
I would be very curious about the average and quartile SAT scores (on percentile basis) for each job and job category. This may also let high schoolers predict their future earning potential and job fitness at an earlier age.
In my experience, at the under-grad level, the college you go to doesn’t really matter (and especially your grades). I know that when I am hiring, I personally spend exactly 2 seconds looking at what school someone went to (and exactly 0 seconds looking at their grades).
It may be different at the post-graduate level though.
Yes, I suspect the elite-college job premium comes less from that mechanism and more from (1) more-skilled students applying to higher-ranked colleges, (2) unofficial/semi-official cumulative advantage processes whereby current students at elite colleges benefit from past elite-college graduates becoming elites in external social networks, and (3) elite colleges having better official career services like interview practice sessions, job databases, and careers fairs.
I think the undergrad college matters, but on a three-bucket basis :-) The buckets are (1) the top tier; (2) the very large middle; (3) the bottom of the barrel.