BU ranked 17th in world, 7th in US by “Most employable students”

BU, General Economics, Jobs

Graduates from Boston University were  ranked 17th most employable in the world and 7th most employable in the US by the 2012 Global Employability Survey, published by the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. It was discussed in BU Today on November 1, 2012. Here is the results in table form from the NY Times.

This represents a huge improvement from their ranking 51st in the US by the same newspaper in 2011.  Is this big change believable, and why the big change? The biggest factor is that for the 2011 study, (http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/20/education/20iht-SReducEmploy20-graphic.html?ref=education) the NYT Survey polled only business executives and board chairs, and only surveyed them from the ten countries, while for the 2012 the international survey included 20 countries from all over the world, including Asia and Latin America. The new survey also explicitly included 1200 top business recruiters as well as 1500 chief executives and business managers, as in the past.

It makes a big difference whether you ask recruiters as well as than chief executives, since recruiters will care more about a very large number of potential candidates before they visit or give attention to candidates from a particular university.  Plus this new survey included Australian and Asian countries for the first time.

Boston University is not only one of the largest (28,000+) private universities but has also had a large number of international, and particularly, Asian students and alumni, for decades. It also has a rich set of graduate degrees with high proportions international.

The following table was generated from the US News and World reports using the 50 universities with the highest % international undergraduate students. It shows that Boston University had the ninth highest number of international students among all these universities. Moreover some of the other surprises also have much higher numbers than the ivies and other top schools. Hence these ratings from recruiters make sense, once one takes this into account.

Ranking of 50 Universities  with high international student percentages by number of international students.

Source: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/most-international/spp+50
Columns
A = ranking by largest number of international undergraduate students
B = University name
C = % internat.
D = # of Undergrads
E = Number of Internat. students
F = rank by # % Internat

Source: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/most-international/spp+50
A B C D E F
% internat. Undergrads Internat. students Rank by  % Internat
1 Purdue University–West Lafayette 15% 30,776 4616.4 8
2 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign 13% 32,256 4193.28 12
3 Michigan State University 9% 36,675 3300.75 36
4 University at Buffalo–SUNY 16% 19,334 3093.44 7
5 Indiana University–Bloomington 9% 32,543 2928.87 39
6 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities 8% 34,812 2784.96 50
7 University of California–Berkeley 9% 25,885 2329.65 35
8 New York University 10% 22,280 2228 29
9 Boston University 12% 18,140 2176.8 16
10 University of Southern California 12% 17,414 2089.68 15
11 University of California–San Diego 9% 23,046 2074.14 33
12 New School 27% 7,081 1911.87 1
13 Northeastern University 14% 12,913 1807.82 9
14 University of Iowa 8% 21,564 1725.12 48
15 University of Oregon 8% 20,623 1649.84 43
16 Cornell University 9% 14,167 1275.03 38
17 Stony Brook University–SUNY 8% 15,926 1274.08 44
18 Drexel University 10% 11,899 1189.9 31
19 Binghamton University–SUNY 10% 11,861 1186.1 28
20 Syracuse University 8% 14,671 1173.68 46
21 University of Miami 11% 10,509 1155.99 21
22 University of Pennsylvania 11% 9,779 1075.69 20
23 Carnegie Mellon University 17% 6,281 1067.77 6
24 University of Colorado–Denver 8% 12,674 1013.92 45
25 Emory University 11% 7,441 818.51 22
26 University of San Francisco 13% 6,051 786.63 10
27 Harvard University 11% 6,657 732.27 23
28 Florida Institute of Technology 26% 2,724 708.24 2
29 Brown University 11% 6,380 701.8 25
30 St. Louis University 8% 8,670 693.6 42
31 Columbia University 11% 6,027 662.97 19
32 University of Rochester 11% 5,643 620.73 18
33 Georgetown University 8% 7,590 607.2 47
34 Princeton University 11% 5,249 577.39 26
35 Illinois Institute of Technology 21% 2,714 569.94 3
36 University of Tulsa 18% 3,004 540.72 5
37 Johns Hopkins University 9% 5,980 538.2 37
38 Yale University 10% 5,349 534.9 27
39 Duke University 8% 6,680 534.4 49
40 University of Chicago 9% 5,388 484.92 34
41 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 10% 4,384 438.4 30
42 University of Denver 8% 5,453 436.24 41
43 Worcester Polytechnic Institute 11% 3,849 423.39 17
44 Brandeis University 12% 3,504 420.48 14
45 Rice University 10% 3,755 375.5 32
46 Lynn University 18% 1,619 291.42 4
47 Andrews University 13% 1,929 250.77 11
48 Polytechnic Institute of New York University 11% 1,939 213.29 24
49 Clark University 9% 2,311 207.99 40
50 California Institute of Technology 12% 978 117.36 13

The big jump in the ranking of Boston University’s rating by international recruiters into the “seventh most employable students” from last years ranking of 51 by mostly US business executives is probably mostly real.

2 thoughts on “BU ranked 17th in world, 7th in US by “Most employable students””

  1. BusinessMEN? How about some gender-neutral language, like business people? I’m sure they didn’t just ask men.

  2. Fair enough.

    The New York Times describes in its 2011 tables (that are linked) as having contacted “chief executives and chairmen” and it is summarized in the source I saw as “businessmen” but I have edited my blog to be more gender neutral.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *