Do kids from mid and lower tier colleges get jobs in Chicago? (Alma: schools, move)

[UrbanCheetah]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

I believe that was a rank of undergraduate universities only. That list would change dramatically if it was for MBAs, because Loyola's and IIT's programs are unranked, but DePaul's isn't.

In general rankings, Loyola and I believe DePaul are both climbing for undergraduate universities. Not certain about IIT's program. All three schools are currently ranged from numbers 101 to 121 on US News' most recent rankings. Loyola at 101, IIT at 109, and DePaul at 121.



A tad off topic, but did you guys have an opinion of Edwardsville? I only ask because you hear people in the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis sometimes talk about Edwardsville's growing prominence in the area.

Yes, Loyola and DePaul are climbing fast. They both have been investing a lot in expansion of their programs and the campuses. They also market heavily and attract a lot of top out of state students. IIT has actually declined in the past couple of rankings.

Those three are actually better ranked than LSU, Kansas State, Washington State, Arizona State, Oklahoma State and Ole Miss. Then U of: Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Oregon, Arizona and Kentucky are all ranked closely to Loyola, IIT and DePaul.

I think that actually says a lot of those three schools.

[ChiNaan]

The whole comparison of IIT to DePaul and Loyola is a perfect illustration of what previous posters said about the university prestige being largely dependent upon the program. For engineering, IIT is obviously going to be most respected of these three, for education probably DePaul, for psych or social work Loyola, etc.

[chet everett]

DePaul has a tremendous network of folks that earned undergrad in finance, IT, music/arts as well as education. Graduate business , technology and law have great alumni networks...

Similarly Loyola has great range of connections to the broad health related fields including nursing and administration as well as fairly well respected programs in the natural sciences. LU grad schools in law in medicine are very clout heavy in the region.

IIT has a fairly well regarded undergrad departments in things like graphic arts and applied / industrial pscychologically beyond its well known engineering , quantitiative science and architecture programs (though arch is pretty much a professional / grad schools at this point...)

[UrbanCheetah]

Originally Posted by chet everett

DePaul has a tremendous network of folks that earned undergrad in finance, IT, music/arts as well as education. Graduate business , technology and law have great alumni networks...

Similarly Loyola has great range of connections to the broad health related fields including nursing and administration as well as fairly well respected programs in the natural sciences. LU grad schools in law in medicine are very clout heavy in the region.

IIT has a fairly well regarded undergrad departments in things like graphic arts and applied / industrial pscychologically beyond its well known engineering , quantitiative science and architecture programs (though arch is pretty much a professional / grad schools at this point...)

I would say out of the three:

DePaul is the best for business type degrees like Finance, Accounting and also they are top notch for the Fine Arts, like Music, Acting.

Loyola is the best for the natural sciences and medicine sciences as well as social sciences.

IIT is the best for engineering, architecture and all that technology stuff.

Each seems to fill in an area really well that the other two wouldn't. Perhaps that is why they are all ranked so close to each other.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

A tad off topic, but did you guys have an opinion of Edwardsville? I only ask because you hear people in the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis sometimes talk about Edwardsville's growing prominence in the area.

I really liked the accounting classes that I took at SIUE. I was impressed that the professors were far more engaged with the students than professors at Mizzou.

When I was recruiting, we focused a lot on SIUC, Missouri, Illinois and occasionally a HBCU. We had pretty negative experiences at Ohio State.

After a while, you realize that you are hiring an individual with skills, not the university itself.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by UrbanCheetah

I would say out of the three:

DePaul is the best for business type degrees like Finance, Accounting and also they are top notch for the Fine Arts, like Music, Acting.

Loyola is the best for the natural sciences and medicine sciences as well as social sciences.

IIT is the best for engineering, architecture and all that technology stuff.

Each seems to fill in an area really well that the other two wouldn't. Perhaps that is why they are all ranked so close to each other.

There are professional groups that the various colleges / universities use to further their role. At the top tier are the national research universities and in the region that includes UofC, Northwestern and various UofI campuses -- Meeting the Global Demand for Higher Ed

The next tier includes schools with a more regional / speciality scope that do award PhDs -- NACUBO: Comp/Doc Institutions Council

The history of the smaller schools is also quite interesting -- The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association

[marothisu]

There are also organizations which rank colleges and universities by research type of activities that include not only ivy league schools or ivy league-esque schools (i.e. MIT, Cal Tech), but also ones you may think don't have as much influence. Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about:

Association of American Universities - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Universities Research Association - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Frank the Tank]

Another thing to note is that all of the Big Ten schools, on top of having large enrollments outright, generally have very strong undergrad business and/or engineering programs. These programs happen to fill direct needs at the types of Chicago businesses and firms that disproportionately hire lots of college grads every year at affluent salaries (i.e. trading firms, IT and management consulting firms, Big Four accounting firms, banks, etc.), so the pipeline between the Big Ten firms and those businesses is extremely well-oiled and strong. Those college grads then disproportionately choose to live in affluent neighborhoods like Lincoln Park and Lakeview, which means that it's not an accident that it feels like everyone went to Big Ten schools in those areas. Simply put: the Big Ten churns out lots of grads that are great fits for the Chicago businesses that hire lots of high-paying recent grads that are exactly the types of people that want to and can afford to live in affluent neighborhoods.

Now, grads of nationally-ranked elite private schools like the University of Chicago and the Ivies are certainly going to get their pick of plumb jobs that they want to go after, but it's just simply not at the same scale in number as the Big Ten schools. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (disclosure: I'm a business alum from there) has over 9000 students in just the business and engineering programs at any given time (we're not even getting into the liberal arts students), whereas the University of Chicago has only 5000 undergrads across all majors total. U of I ends up sending more grads from only its business and engineering schools every year (once again, not even consider liberal arts grads) than the entire enrollment of U of C. All of the other Big Ten schools have similar enrollments as U of I and those grads disproportionately end up moving to Chicago, so the numbers multiply very quickly.

[ravivg]

Originally Posted by UrbanCheetah

I would actually put IIT and DePaul and Loyola together. If anythung DePaul and Loyola tend to be more known their reputation than IIT. What I meanis you hear a ton morethings about DePaul and Loyola than IIT.

edit. My bad saw you were talking about mbas.

Nonsense. Like others have told you, IIT is mainly an engineering school. Open the most recent USNEWS ranking and you'll see it's ranked #64 in the country for engineering schools that offer PhD. Do you see DePaul and Loyola in the top 100 of this list?
UIUC is also on the list, top 10 I believe, Northwestern is #20, and UIC is very close to IIT.

[snoylekim]

Originally Posted by Frank the Tank

Another thing to note is that all of the Big Ten schools, on top of having large enrollments outright, generally have very strong undergrad business and/or engineering programs. These programs happen to fill direct needs at the types of Chicago businesses and firms that disproportionately hire lots of college grads every year at affluent salaries (i.e. trading firms, IT and management consulting firms, Big Four accounting firms, banks, etc.), so the pipeline between the Big Ten firms and those businesses is extremely well-oiled and strong. Those college grads then disproportionately choose to live in affluent neighborhoods like Lincoln Park and Lakeview, which means that it's not an accident that it feels like everyone went to Big Ten schools in those areas. Simply put: the Big Ten churns out lots of grads that are great fits for the Chicago businesses that hire lots of high-paying recent grads that are exactly the types of people that want to and can afford to live in affluent neighborhoods.

Now, grads of nationally-ranked elite private schools like the University of Chicago and the Ivies are certainly going to get their pick of plumb jobs that they want to go after, but it's just simply not at the same scale in number as the Big Ten schools. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (disclosure: I'm a business alum from there) has over 9000 students in just the business and engineering programs at any given time (we're not even getting into the liberal arts students), whereas the University of Chicago has only 5000 undergrads across all majors total. U of I ends up sending more grads from only its business and engineering schools every year (once again, not even consider liberal arts grads) than the entire enrollment of U of C. All of the other Big Ten schools have similar enrollments as U of I and those grads disproportionately end up moving to Chicago, so the numbers multiply very quickly.

One factor for U of C grads is a significant number of those receiving baccalaureate degrees do not enter the job market immediately . I haven't seen a recent figure, but that last I recall was 65-70% go directly to a graduate program , or to professional schools that typically admit students directly from undergraduate programs ( Medical or Law School) . They don't have an undergraduate program in business or engineering, where grads that have aspirations for higher degrees or MBAs are encouraged to gain some solid work experience before applying (and maybe even get an employer to fund some of it) . So, the pool that U of C sends into this layer of the job market is even smaller compared to the schools you've mentioned . Those that do choose the work first track are recruited by some top-tier firms, as you'd expect .