Penn State U. is the best college to attend in the nation for students hoping to be recruited for a career, a survey published by The Wall Street Journal said Monday.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) received feedback from 479 professional recruiters on the nation’s top 100 colleges. The WSJ.com survey stated that “the nation’s largest public and private companies, nonprofit organizations and federal agencies across every region of the country and spanning nearly two dozen industries,” were asked to assess the list of 100 colleges the website compiled.
After six months of collecting data for the survey, the results placed Penn State at the top of the list of 100 colleges, said Jennifer Merritt, WSJ.com’s careers editor, said.
Merritt said many students deciding on a college feel the need to attend Ivy League schools if they hope to get a job.
“What we’re trying to find out is if that’s true,” Merritt said. “Is that what you need to do to get a professional job?”
The survey’s results show a large public university is more likely to help students find a job after college.
Penn State spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz said she is not surprised by the ranking.
“[The ranking] is because the education that students get here is the kind of education that employers are looking to hire,” she said. “Our education goes beyond just the book learning.”
Connections Penn State faculty are making with researchers turn into jobs for students, Mountz said.
Tanna Pugh, director of Penn State’s Industrial Research Office, said the National Science Foundation ranks Penn State third in the country in industry-sponsored research, bringing in $100 million annually for research, Pugh said.
Pugh said the connections her office creates between faculty members and companies sponsoring research projects grow into opportunities for students to get involved with the research.
Since 1995, 49 companies have signed research agreements with Penn State — 80 percent of them in the last five years, Pugh said.
Recruiters also ranked the colleges based on what majors they recruited from and which schools produced the best graduates in those majors, Merritt said.
According the 479 companies surveyed, Penn State ranked No. 5 in accounting, No. 6 in finance, No. 7 in computer science and No. 9 in engineering.
Overall ranking for a school was done by a point system. Recruiters were asked to rank their top schools overall.
The survey required a college to have at least 60 companies out of the 479 say they recruit from that institution to be considered for rankings. Penn State saw recruiters from 187 companies — the most of any school listed, according to the survey.