1) Yield is a big issue. At larger companies, they track how many people they get from different universities, how long they last, how far they go, etc. Most recruiting efforts are then focused on the few schools that give the most graduates that are the best fit for the company. And yes, there are all sorts of long-term issues with this.
Speaking as a former hiring manger, it was just a lot of work to go some of the other schools (especially some of the large state schools with non-top-tier CS programs) because even though we would find 1-2 candidate, we would have to filter through a huge number of candidates to do so. For those schools, we generally relied on personal recommendations from faculty to recent alumni.
2) I went to and am now a PhD student at a very expensive private university. Many of the students, like myself, are middle class, getting very little aid (other than merit) while their parents are forced to share the living-on-ramen experience during college. But, those huge loans (I think I had somewhere between 60-80k when I graduated many years ago) are quickly paid off if you continue living on little money working for a top firm. Most of my peers' loans were all paid off in the first 2-3 years of working. It's a huge worry, but in practice turns out not to be a big deal for CS majors from top schools.
Certainly, it drives many job decisions, though. A low-pay startup job was not in the cards while I had all that debt hanging over my head, and I assume that's true for other middle class folks.
I think it's also worth mentioning that financial aid at most Ivy League schools ar incredible. Look at Princeton - the goal of their financial aid office is to make sure that everyone who needs financial aid (middle class or not), get financial aid. It's very common that graduates come out of school without any debt at all.
I also know from having worked at Harvard that most Harvard students these days graduate with little or no debt due to a generous financial aid system there.
I wish it had been like that when I went to MIT. (MIT did have plenty of financial aid, but not to the no-debt level.)
I understand the yield idea. You're 100% right, and I believe I acknowledged it somewhere in there. Since you're a former hiring manager, any advice on how to get around that impediment, beyond just submitting a resume and waiting?
Use your faculty and alumni network. In particular, scan the alumni network for people who work at a company where you want to work and contact them --- even if they're not in your role. Take advantage of the fact that most people are quite nostalgic for their college days. Almost all of them will be delighted to help you get your resume into a hiring manager's hands.
And some of your faculty should have contacts. If you ask early enough (e.g. at the start of the school year instead of middle/end), particularly from a faculty member that you've done some work for, they may be able to help you get in touch with someone. But the alumni are usually a better bet unless you have faculty who came from industry originally.
Both career services and blind job submission will have much lower acceptance rates. At least where I was, all resumes submitted through those mechanisms went into a sort of recruiting purgatory where they had to make it through non-technical screeners before I could even get a look at them.
1) Yield is a big issue. At larger companies, they track how many people they get from different universities, how long they last, how far they go, etc. Most recruiting efforts are then focused on the few schools that give the most graduates that are the best fit for the company. And yes, there are all sorts of long-term issues with this.
Speaking as a former hiring manger, it was just a lot of work to go some of the other schools (especially some of the large state schools with non-top-tier CS programs) because even though we would find 1-2 candidate, we would have to filter through a huge number of candidates to do so. For those schools, we generally relied on personal recommendations from faculty to recent alumni.
2) I went to and am now a PhD student at a very expensive private university. Many of the students, like myself, are middle class, getting very little aid (other than merit) while their parents are forced to share the living-on-ramen experience during college. But, those huge loans (I think I had somewhere between 60-80k when I graduated many years ago) are quickly paid off if you continue living on little money working for a top firm. Most of my peers' loans were all paid off in the first 2-3 years of working. It's a huge worry, but in practice turns out not to be a big deal for CS majors from top schools.
Certainly, it drives many job decisions, though. A low-pay startup job was not in the cards while I had all that debt hanging over my head, and I assume that's true for other middle class folks.