Our insights on current dynamics in higher education and career planning.
Briefings on how admissions, hiring and work are changing — and what that means for how a student should prepare. Every figure is sourced, and every source is listed.
- Admissions & hiring
The New Arithmetic of Ambition
Getting in has never been harder — and getting in was never the hard part. The numbers behind elite admissions, elite hiring, and the widening gap between a credential and a career.
Read the briefing → - Latest ReportMajors & colleges
Major Decisions: Fields, Colleges and the First Paycheck
The federal government has released what federal-aid graduates of 38,301 college programs earn four years after finishing. What a student studies is more closely tied to that pay than where they study. And in computer science, economics and mathematics, pay differs far more from college to college than it does in engineering.
Read the briefing → - Internships & hiring
The Recruiting Clock
In banking, Big 4 accounting and the top consulting firms, applications for the junior-summer internship now fall 14 to 22 months ahead, in the second year of college. When each field recruits, how the process works, what campuses allow, and what families can do before the clock starts.
Read the briefing → - Finance careers
The State of Investment Banking & Private Equity Recruiting
The first job pays $110,000 before bonus, accepts fewer than one applicant in a hundred, and is decided in the second year of college. What these jobs pay, what they test, where the hires come from, and how early preparation now has to start.
Read the briefing → - Consulting careers
The State of McKinsey, Bain & BCG Recruiting
The three firms hire fewer than one applicant in a hundred, pay new graduates $110,000 or more to start, and now take internship applications in the second year of college. What these jobs pay, what the interviews test, where the hires come from, and how early preparation now has to start.
Read the briefing → - Credentials & skills
The Readiness Gap: Credentials vs. Competence
Elite colleges now certify talent better than they build it. Cornell’s own faculty say so, employers’ ratings of new graduates show it, and the people who run Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan say they hire for what a transcript cannot show.
Read the briefing → - AI & careers
Career Calculus: Human Judgment in an AI World
AI gives its biggest lift to the least skilled, and entry-level employment is falling in the jobs most exposed to it. What it cannot supply is judgment: the expertise to check it, the skepticism to catch it bluffing, and the trust that closes a deal or calms a patient.
Read the briefing →
Every number has a source.
Each briefing draws on published sources — company filings and job postings, peer-reviewed studies, surveys, university reports and news reporting — and lists every one. Each figure was checked against its source before publication.
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The briefings are free to read, print and pass on to students and families, and each one prints cleanly from the browser. For questions or corrections, write to welcome@entertheboardroom.org.
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