LinkedIn, a popular social media website for professional networking and career development blogging, has recently published their first-ever “Top Colleges” list covering what the platform has assessed to be the best academic institutions in the United States. Accounting for several different factors, primarily data specific to what LinkedIn collects from its users, the list places 50 colleges and universities in quantitative order— and Bucknell was ranked 21st.
Sandwiched between Carnegie Mellon University at 20th and Boston College at 22nd, Bucknell is highlighted for its alumni’s frequent placement in the top industries of Technology & Internet, Financial Services, and Legal Services. The list places Bucknell alumni as concentrated in industry hubs like New York City and Washington, D.C., and names the school as “top 5” for job placement.
Though the practical specifics of some numeric figures are a bit off—LinkedIn lists tuition as $69,976 yearly, which is true in isolation, but the full cost of attendance without financial assistance is over $90k per year—and the listed “skills” do, definitionally, veer closer towards “major” territory, the significance of the list for Bucknell’s public image at large cannot be overstated. Employers and head-hunters look to LinkedIn as a core necessity in the white-collar world, a bastion of professional truth; attending and graduating from an institution so highly ranked on such a public list, with nationwide (if not international) readers, will hopefully give students a boost in this ever-competitive job market as they enter the workforce. Beyond their sphere of influence on the East Coast, Bucknell is not as popularly known, so a citation as one of LinkedIn’s Top Colleges may help to boost the university’s name recognition as well.
“This [acknowledgement] from LinkedIn affirms what our students, alumni and employers already know— that a Bucknell education provides both the depth of knowledge and the practical skills needed to excel over a lifetime,” University president John C. Bravman said of the ranking. “Our graduates leave Bucknell ready to make an impact from day one and to grow into leaders.”
To arrive at their final rankings, LinkedIn analysts stacked five factors—job placement percentages within a year of graduating, internships and recruiter demand, career growth into C-suite or entrepreneurial success, network strength among alumni and knowledge breadth across graduates of a given cohort—from each school to create a numerical score for comparison against other eligible institutions. Data was pulled from LinkedIn-accessible engagement and profile statistics, and is representative of what was and is available about a given school and its LinkedIn-active alumni to LinkedIn at this time.
Independent from its rankings of all eligible four-year institutions in the United States was LinkedIn’s assessment of liberal arts colleges specifically. Bucknell once again topped the charts, this time rising even further; among all liberal arts universities in the United States whose data was analyzed by LinkedIn, Bucknell was ranked number one. Evaluated on largely the same factors used for the “Top Colleges” list, Bucknell outscored Washington and Lee University and Colgate University for the spot at the top.
