Employers Are Souring On Ivy League Grads While These 20 “New Ivies” Ascend

[Music] hi everyone I'm Maggie McGrath senior editor at Forbes and joining me now is my colleague Emma witford staff writer at Forbes who has some provocative new reporting out about where recruiters are hiring from when it comes to our nation's universities Emma thank you so much for joining us thanks so much for having me let's break this down you have basically written and I have a quote here the ivy league is losing its standing as American producers of great talent what is is going on here I I think we all know that on campus recruiters flock to the nation's top universities to find talent for entrylevel jobs is that not happening in 2024 we've been hearing some frustration for a while from students donors alumni employers just that the ivy league isn't quite what it used to be um and they set a myriad Reasons from reports of gr inflation at some of the campuses to how the officials have handled recent campus events student protests and also just frustration with the admissions policies that it's been become sort of a a black box if you will and no one's quite sure how they're admitting students into their classes um so I will note that the recruiters are definitely still hiring from the ivy league but it has sort of lost its credibility of being sort of the golden ticket um employers are no longer looking at it like it's a sure thing that graduates from the ivy league are are definitely qualified for those positions and they're just giving them more of a a closer look is this part of a broader reexamination of higher education in the US I mean there was a Gallop poll last summer kind of indicating Americans as a whole are questioning the value and efficacy of our nation's higher education institutions there's definitely some um concern I would say amongst the general public about higher education it's due to so many different things rising cost being one of them people are questioning the value of a college degree generally um I'm not sure if I can say how much of that is related to sort of the ivy League's changing reputation but I'm sure it does play a part now one of the stories you've published this week looks at the 20 new ivys explain this cuz I know there there's 10 and 10 so can you break it down what are these 20 schools and how did you determine them yeah so when we were hearing that employers are sort of looking beyond the IBS we wanted to figure out exactly which schools they're most excited about these days and to to determine that we looked at a few things one was test scores we wanted to know where the smartest kids are applying where they're getting into so we looked at schools that both have had a high percentage of students that were submitting test scores so even if they're not required for admission they're still sending them in and then we looked at schools where the media test scores were pretty high so I believe at our public universities we were looking for SATs above like 1390 and acts above 30 and then the private schools the threshold was a little higher we were looking for SATs above a400 and acts above a 31 um and so we landed on 10 different public schools and 10 private schools that both met these testing requirements they had at least 4,000 undergrads we wanted to um look at schools that were were relatively similar in size there are a lot of great small liberal arts colleges but they're sort of a different Beast so we didn't want to directly compare them to some of the other schools on our list so let's run through briefly because I looked at the list but I don't have it memorized on the private school list what are the 10 new IV or what are a few of the 10 that stand out to you yeah so the the private schools that we identified were John's Hopkins was a very clear um new Ivy it's already well known as a great private school but it's definitely one that employers are going to more and more often we also identified Rice University Northwestern University Vanderbuilt Emory Boston College and then on the public schools any surprise rises in what made your top 10 I think the biggest surprise for us was probably Binghamton University in New York um it's definitely a school that people in New York already know is great but it doesn't quite have the national reach that some of the other schools on our list like say University of Michigan or University of Virginia have um so it was really exciting to see that they that they landed on there what have these schools been telling you are they saying yes this makes sense that we landed at the top because we've been investing in oncampus recruiting or have they been adding certain classes that add to a level of pre-professional ism on campus that is in turn attractive to recruiters yeah they've been really excited to be recognized for the work that they've been doing um I think they all recognize that they're well known within their Geographic areas especially but they're starting to build more of a national brand name recognition um and they've they've made big strides in connecting with recruiters and employers all over the country um Georgia Institute of Technology For example is a a great tech school in the South and they've they've really been working on building those career paths and are starting to have sort of the same sway that a school like Stanford or MIT might have what tipped you off to these Trends in the first place was it just a several weeks months and possibly even years of hearing from your sources is that these schools were beefing up their recruiting abilities and seeing a higher level of interest from hiring managers yeah yeah the um interesting thing that we were hearing from employers and and hiring managers recently was that during the pandemic when everyone was forced to bring their recruiting online they really had to take uh a wider look at the places they were recruiting Talent from so in the past they may have invested their resources in going to campuses nearby their headquarters uh tabling there talking to students there but now that they can post a job ad or post on a site like handshake and access students from all over the country they're they were sort of realizing oh there's this great talent that has has um is a good fit for our company over in Nevada or in California or in New York somewhere far away from where they may have looked in the past so it sort of allowed them to broaden their lens and find schools that they want to forge a path with so May 1st is National decision day which is just around the corner less than 24 hours from this moment so most kids have probably made their choice in school what do you want our nation's 18year olds to take away from your reporting this week a lot of students when they're deciding to go to school having a an institution where they can get a degree that they know is going to set them on a path for a great career is really important I mean a lot of students choose to go to college in general because they want a great job so knowing which schools employers are really confident in and really optimistic about I think is really important for students when they're when they're deciding between their final schools and what's the message for kids students who have already chosen their University might be sophomores or Juniors or seniors at these schools that you have identified are now less favored by recruiters are are they doomed they're definitely not doomed and I would say that the ivy league is still very much looked at by recruiters there are still lots of companies that like ivy league graduates I would not say that employers are abandoning them altogether they might just be taking a closer look so if you're a student at an ivy league university that is working hard and learning a lot that's great and you're probably going to do fine are there any other big takeaways or statistics that you have uncovered this week in the stories that you've published that our audience should be aware of and that you think really helped tell this story I think one of the most interesting things that we found was in surveying the uh employers with our future of work newsletter we did find that hiring managers these days are less likely than they were 5 years ago to hire from the league but at the same time they're more likely to hire from public colleges and state universities so public schools are just sort of rising in employer eyes as producing top talent so if you had to make one prediction for the application cycle for 2024 into 2025 do you think these public universities and some of the new IVs on your list will see more people applying for entrance I hope so we were looking at application Trends over the last five years or so and almost all of the schools on our list have seen their applications grow already I'll add that you know we aren't the first to say that these are amazing schools people have known these are amazing schools for a while they're just starting to get even more recognition so I would imagine that Trend will continue excellent Emma thank you so much for taking time out of your day to speak with us we really appreciate it thanks Magie

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Keywords: Forbes, Forbes Media, Forbes Magazine, Forbes Digital, Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Investing, Personal Finance, College campuses, college kids, College Students, New IVies, The ivy leagues, best colleges to go to, what college should I go to, picking colleges, best colleges for a good job, Harvard, Columbia University, Northwestern University, Rice

Id: Q8iDRLyTFIo

Length: 10min 5sec (605 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024