Career Services update: Class of 2011 reports on jobs, grad school placements

Forty-one percent of Elon University alumni in the Class of 2011 had accepted a full-time position by the day they received their diplomas, the highest percentage in five years of students reporting employment at time of graduation, according to initial results from the Cap & Gown survey administered by the Office of Career Services to seniors prior to Commencement.

Eighty-nine percent of the Class of 2011 completed an internship during their studies.

With 84 percent of the entire Class of 2011 having reported on their post graduation plans:

41 percent have accepted a full-time position. By comparison, 32 percent of 2010 graduates at this same time reported having secured employment.

38 percent have enrolled or been accepted to graduate or professional school (6 percent of whom are concurrently working while going to graduate school).

• Of those employed, nearly 70 percent indicate that their position “is related to my career objective.”

89 percent of this class completed an internship (another record for the university).

67 percent reported that a career lead came from an internship (In 2010 it was 36 percent).

26 percent reported a career lead through alumni (in 2010 it was 19 percent).

• The median starting salary is $38,000 (for the Class of 2010 it was $37,000).

95 percent of all respondents reported having utilized career services while at Elon through appointments, career fairs, graduate school fairs, workshops, programs or virtual appointments. The most currently available benchmark puts this percentage at around 70% for seniors nationally, according to the National Association of College and Employers.

Elon Students Accepted to top programs in Medicine and Law

Elon students were again accepted at top graduate and professional schools throughout the nation in a wide variety of fields. Law schools that members of this class will attend include William and Mary, Wake Forest, Elon, Pace, Washington and Lee, Pepperdine, and Howard University.

Among the medical schools that these graduates will be attending are the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Drexel University College of Medicine, VCU School of Medicine/Medical College of Virginia Campus, East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine, Meherry Medical College, and the University of Colorado School of Dentistry.

Arts and Sciences Students well-represented in Top Graduate School Programs

Graduates with majors from the Elon College of Arts and Sciences found themselves accepted to a wide variety of master’s, specialist and doctoral programs at top graduate schools. Examples include, Columbia, Penn, Fordham, Rutgers, Clemson, Wake Forest, Washington University in St. Louis, NYU, Pitt, Notre Dame, Boston College, Ohio State, George Washington and Georgetown, among many others.

Many Elon Graduates Find Job Market to Their Liking

While the overall employment picture continues to be unsettling at best for many job seekers, Elon’s class of 2011 are finding themselves prepared to compete and succeed for the positions they seek. Among the diverse employers hiring Elon students thus far this year are top tier organizations such as Google, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, National Institutes of Health, SAP, Fox News Corp., Boston Symphony Orchestra, SPX Corp., Glen Raven, Volvo North America, ABC News, ESPN, US Commerce Department, UBS Financial, and the U.S. Census Bureau.