[slowhandluke]

I picked my college based on how close it was to home and price. A degree from one is the same as any other. Employers do not care where you graduated as long as you did and interview well.

There are employers of last resort, as well as colleges of last resort. A PhD from Podunk U isn't going to get you a job at Google. Google does rank some schools as more reliable developers of talent than others.

Of course, if you got a degree in Lit Crit, maybe things are different.

[Borges]

“Of course, if you got a degree in Lit Crit, maybe things are different.”

Whaddya mean by that?

[SoftballMominVA]

Depending on what your post-grad plans are, the choice of college can make or break you. We have a friend whose son went to Roanoke College in Virginia - a good school, but not at all on the level academically as the big name public schools here. He majored in bio on a pre-med track with about a 3.2 GPA and average MCATS. He has tried for 2 straight years to get into med school and cannot. He is told over and over that his academic resume is just too thin.

My own daughter has been warned that since she is not attending a top-tier university (and is also a pre-med major) that she will need a higher GPA and MCATS than someone from an ivy league university. The expectation is that someone from Harvard with the identical GPA and MCATS is more qualified and will be given the nod before her.

Forewarned is forearmed....she currently has a 3.975 GPA

[Gondring]

Undergrad and grad are different, first of all.

Secondly, having attended both state and Ivy League schools, I’d take a good candidate from a state school in a heartbeat, if the Ivy Leaguer couldn’t demonstrate good effectiveness.

[Zack Nguyen]

My undergraduate degree is in Speech Communications. I received it from a major four year public university. I did not know then, and I do not know now, precisely what that degree was intended to teach or what it allegedly qualified me to do. I took numerous classes in things like Conversation Analysis. I took Interpersonal Communication three or four times, or at least significant components thereof, under different course names. It was not a serious degree.

Thankfully my first three jobs required only a college degree to be considered. No one cared what that degree was, or the GPA I earned. Frankly none of those jobs required a college degree to perform, though they were precisely what I wanted to do and I am thankful to have that opportunity.