4 ms·

I had a similar situation less a local top-10 local university. I could go locally and walk out debt-free (actually ended up about $10k positive) or go to a bet

I had a similar situation less a local top-10 local university. I could go locally and walk out debt-free (actually ended up about $10k positive) or go to a better university (Illinois or Georgia Tech) and walk out with ~100k in debt. A bunch of very sharp people of modest means stayed local. Those that didn't had parents taking second mortgages to help pay. Suffice to say, I went local and things worked out in the end. I calculated that now, with a top job, I would have broken even in about two years. The only open question is if it will impact my future career prospects.

chris11 10y ago
Do you think going to a better college would have made much of a difference in job opportunities? It seems like some of the larger tech companies do a lot of recruiting at state colleges.
- jamesroseman 10y ago
  [Anecdote] Here in Boston Microsoft built an entire office just to offer a great internship program (Foundry, now Microsoft Garage) to Harvard and MIT students. I think on average recruiters view top tier schools as places where your ROI for headhunting is higher, because more prospects are more likely to make it through the recruiting process -- but that's just a hunch.
  - chris11 10y ago
    That's true I guess. I did transfer from a really small college to a big state school with a decent cs program. It's not a top college, but we do get a ton of money for research. And I did notice a huge difference in opportunities. But I don't see going here as being drastically worse than a better school. I've gotten interviews at a bunch of places, and every summer I have classmates that intern at highly competitive companies like Google/MS/Amazon/Palantir. I don't know some of what I'm missing because I'm not at Harvard or MIT but I don't know how my school would be a negative at most places.
    - jamesroseman 10y ago
      > But I don't see going here as being drastically worse than a better school. Honestly I'd be surprised if there are radical differences in how prepared you are for industry coming out of undergrad from Harvard, MIT, or an average state school because tech is much more of a meritocracy than a lot of other career paths, and because their undergrad programs are notably underwhelming (while their graduate programs are phenomenal). I think recruiters see top-tier college graduates as one of two things. Either they come from a good school so they must know their stuff so they must be able to pass (making the recruiter's ROI more secure) or they come from a good school so they know how to play the acceptance game, and their pedigree alone will legitimize our program by association (our internship program hosted 3 MIT students, 5 Stanford students, etc etc). I don't agree with either of these metrics, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were common thoughts among recruiters. > I don't know some of what I'm missing because I'm not at Harvard or MIT but I don't know how my school would be a negative at most places. I think if you were in a field other than tech or were relying on your academics alone you'd notice how easy it is to get that first phone interview. As is, I don't think it ultimately makes much of a difference. Also, your alma mater creates your post-graduate immediate network. Getting in touch with a "fellow" Stanford graduate is probably more valuable than your average state school graduate depending on the industry. However, I believe that if you were to do research at these top-tier places you'd notice a huge boost from being at a university that gets huge endowments and talented professors. That's the one other exception (to me). Note: I don't mean that Stanford students are smarter or more capable than state school students, only that the association of getting into a high pedigree high cost school probably means your peers are well connected and/or wealthy. Maybe that's not a fair assumption.
- tinduck 10y ago
  Yes. A top tier college will get you out in front of more employers. I did my undergrad at a lower tier state commuter school, and I got my master's at a top 10 school in CS. It's night and day difference in how recruiters will treat you.
  - jamesroseman 10y ago
    I would tentatively add a caveat to that. > A top tier college will get you out in front of more employers... ...when you don't have anything more impressive than your college choice on your resume. Harvard students will always beat out comparable state school students to get that Microsoft phone interview. But they won't always beat out the student who ran a full-scale web app after sophomore year to help students plan courses if they don't have comparable experience. Another thing I love about tech is as many strings as you can pull to get that initial phone interview, you're on your own from there. In my experience I've done general website applications and called up friends of friends and once you're staring at a whiteboard it makes no difference who you know or where you came from. The two part related problem to this is a recruiting one. If you use a resume as a litmus test for "smart programmers" as opposed to those faking it, you're undoubtably going to get a bunch of people who went to the best possible schools. This also means you wind up with a lot of candidates who had the means to go to really good schools. Maybe there's someone just as smart at your local state school who couldn't afford CMU who would bring a completely different mindset and style of thinking, but you'll never find them.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      >If you use a resume as a litmus test for "smart programmers" as opposed to those faking it, you're undoubtably going to get a bunch of people who went to the best possible schools. Yes, and that's exactly what happens at the most desirable companies. >Maybe there's someone just as smart at your local state school who couldn't afford CMU who would bring a completely different mindset and style of thinking, but you'll never find them. If you're really a stand-out, IQ-wise, you can go to the top tier schools even if you have no money. The people who get screwed are the people who are pretty smart but not exceptionally so.

chris11 10y ago

Do you think going to a better college would have made much of a difference in job opportunities? It seems like some of the larger tech companies do a lot of recruiting at state colleges.

jamesroseman 10y ago
[Anecdote] Here in Boston Microsoft built an entire office just to offer a great internship program (Foundry, now Microsoft Garage) to Harvard and MIT students. I think on average recruiters view top tier schools as places where your ROI for headhunting is higher, because more prospects are more likely to make it through the recruiting process -- but that's just a hunch.
- chris11 10y ago
  That's true I guess. I did transfer from a really small college to a big state school with a decent cs program. It's not a top college, but we do get a ton of money for research. And I did notice a huge difference in opportunities. But I don't see going here as being drastically worse than a better school. I've gotten interviews at a bunch of places, and every summer I have classmates that intern at highly competitive companies like Google/MS/Amazon/Palantir. I don't know some of what I'm missing because I'm not at Harvard or MIT but I don't know how my school would be a negative at most places.
  - jamesroseman 10y ago
    > But I don't see going here as being drastically worse than a better school. Honestly I'd be surprised if there are radical differences in how prepared you are for industry coming out of undergrad from Harvard, MIT, or an average state school because tech is much more of a meritocracy than a lot of other career paths, and because their undergrad programs are notably underwhelming (while their graduate programs are phenomenal). I think recruiters see top-tier college graduates as one of two things. Either they come from a good school so they must know their stuff so they must be able to pass (making the recruiter's ROI more secure) or they come from a good school so they know how to play the acceptance game, and their pedigree alone will legitimize our program by association (our internship program hosted 3 MIT students, 5 Stanford students, etc etc). I don't agree with either of these metrics, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were common thoughts among recruiters. > I don't know some of what I'm missing because I'm not at Harvard or MIT but I don't know how my school would be a negative at most places. I think if you were in a field other than tech or were relying on your academics alone you'd notice how easy it is to get that first phone interview. As is, I don't think it ultimately makes much of a difference. Also, your alma mater creates your post-graduate immediate network. Getting in touch with a "fellow" Stanford graduate is probably more valuable than your average state school graduate depending on the industry. However, I believe that if you were to do research at these top-tier places you'd notice a huge boost from being at a university that gets huge endowments and talented professors. That's the one other exception (to me). Note: I don't mean that Stanford students are smarter or more capable than state school students, only that the association of getting into a high pedigree high cost school probably means your peers are well connected and/or wealthy. Maybe that's not a fair assumption.
tinduck 10y ago
Yes. A top tier college will get you out in front of more employers. I did my undergrad at a lower tier state commuter school, and I got my master's at a top 10 school in CS. It's night and day difference in how recruiters will treat you.
- jamesroseman 10y ago
  I would tentatively add a caveat to that. > A top tier college will get you out in front of more employers... ...when you don't have anything more impressive than your college choice on your resume. Harvard students will always beat out comparable state school students to get that Microsoft phone interview. But they won't always beat out the student who ran a full-scale web app after sophomore year to help students plan courses if they don't have comparable experience. Another thing I love about tech is as many strings as you can pull to get that initial phone interview, you're on your own from there. In my experience I've done general website applications and called up friends of friends and once you're staring at a whiteboard it makes no difference who you know or where you came from. The two part related problem to this is a recruiting one. If you use a resume as a litmus test for "smart programmers" as opposed to those faking it, you're undoubtably going to get a bunch of people who went to the best possible schools. This also means you wind up with a lot of candidates who had the means to go to really good schools. Maybe there's someone just as smart at your local state school who couldn't afford CMU who would bring a completely different mindset and style of thinking, but you'll never find them.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    >If you use a resume as a litmus test for "smart programmers" as opposed to those faking it, you're undoubtably going to get a bunch of people who went to the best possible schools. Yes, and that's exactly what happens at the most desirable companies. >Maybe there's someone just as smart at your local state school who couldn't afford CMU who would bring a completely different mindset and style of thinking, but you'll never find them. If you're really a stand-out, IQ-wise, you can go to the top tier schools even if you have no money. The people who get screwed are the people who are pretty smart but not exceptionally so.