I edit the WSJ's career coverage, so I was in charge of the college rankings the WSJ published on Monday. For the past six months, I worked with a team of reporters, data analysts and survey gurus to pull this report together. And as the mother of two children who, I hope, will go to college in the future, I found the results compelling.

The companies we surveyed had plenty of choices of where to find new hires. Many of them reported recruiting from both Ivy League schools and elite privates. But when it came down to choosing the best graduates overall, they didn't make those elites their top choices. Instead, many recruiters preferred hiring from large state schools.

Some commenters have (incorrectly) reduced the results to something like this: Ivy league grads get the plum leadership jobs and the rest of the hires get the, well, worker-bee jobs. Or, that we just surveyed engineering and accounting or other large business firms.

Not so. There were 29 industries represented and two of the largest were banking and consulting. The respondents were a veritable who's who of companies. Most were large, yes. But most of these companies also hired for a broad array of positions in their firms, beyond their specialties. An engineering-focused company, for example, might hire a significant number of engineers, but it would also hire grads for spots across the company-financial analysis, business development, marketing, human resources, sales, operations, etc.

Business doesn't run on cachet and prestige. It doesn't even run on intellect. At its heart, businesses run and grow with smart people who know their stuff and who are creative, have bright ideas and can get things done-be it as a revenue analyst behind the scenes or a marketing assistant whose idea is brilliant and who understands the metrics of marketing.

Those are some of the qualities that led recruiters to name non-elite colleges as their favorites. To be sure, in their assessment of individual majors, companies often named elite private colleges as best. But when it comes to overall recruiting, overall preparation and other top qualities like leadership, companies want to go to schools where grads from more than a few majors stand out. (The New York Times columnist David Brooks recently wrote how at elite colleges these days, 'America's brightest minds have been abandoning industry and technicalenterprise in favor of more prestigious but less productive fields like law, finance, consulting and nonprofit activism. It would be embarrassing or at least countercultural for an Ivy League grad to go to Akron and work for a small manufacturing company.')

What was also interesting, though, is that when we looked at the colleges attended by CEOs and board chairs of the S&P 500 and other top companies or nonprofits, we found very few who attended an elite or Ivy League school.

So, would I steer my kids away from an elite school to go to a state school? I'm not sure. But I'd definitely ask them to think hard about what they want to do before we sign on the dotted line. I wanted to be a journalist. So for me, it was worth it to go to Northwestern University, a top j-school, because I knew that I'd get the best preparation and that the network and reputation of the program would help me land solid internships and a job.

And, by the way, kids these days have to know that a lot sooner since internship hiring starts days after students return to campus sophomore year-at both the elites and states. Our research found that many companies look to their interns for new hires and most plan to do so even more in the future.

The bottom line: If you take advantage of a what you can get at a strong state school or private university and you make certain you arm yourself with both the academic know-how and the ability to problem-solve and work in teams, you're going to be among the grads employers most want to hire.

Readers, would you steer your kids away from an elite school in favor of a state school, even if you could afford the former? How important do you think it is to be career-focused from the get-go in college?

Jennifer Merritt

• career [kə´riə] n.经历；生涯；职业 (初中英语单词)
• charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
• survey [´sə:vei] vt.&n.俯瞰；审视；测量 (初中英语单词)
• league [li:g] n.同盟；社团 (初中英语单词)
• analysis [ə´næləsis] n.分解；分析(结果) (初中英语单词)
• assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
• brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
• preparation [,prepə´reiʃən] n.准备；预习(时间) (初中英语单词)
• enterprise [´entəpraiz] n.企业；雄心；胆识 (初中英语单词)
• productive [prə´dʌktiv] a.生产的；富饶的 (初中英语单词)
• finance [´fainæns] n.财政；金融 vt.资助 (初中英语单词)
• definitely [´definitli] ad.明确地；绝对 (初中英语单词)
• program [´prəugræm] n.说明v.为...安排节目 (初中英语单词)
• campus [´kæmpəs] n.大学校园；学校场地 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• advantage [əd´vɑ:ntidʒ] n.优势；利益 (初中英语单词)
• ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
• leadership [´li:dəʃip] n.领导(能力) (高中英语单词)
• engineering [,endʒi´niəriŋ] n.工程技术；工程学 (高中英语单词)
• significant [sig´nifikənt] a.重要的；意义重大的 (高中英语单词)
• revenue [´revinju:] n.税收；收入 (高中英语单词)
• technical [´teknikəl] a.技术的；专门性的 (高中英语单词)
• banking [´bæŋkiŋ] n.银行业 (英语四级单词)
• prestige [pres´ti:ʒ] n.威望，威信；声望 (英语四级单词)
• intellect [´intilekt] n.智力；有才智的人 (英语四级单词)
• creative [kri:´eitiv] a.有创造力的；创作的 (英语四级单词)
• northwestern [,nɔ:θ´westən] a.西北的；自西北的 (英语四级单词)
• network [´netwə:k] n.网状物 vt.联播 (英语四级单词)
• reputation [repju´teiʃən] n.名誉；名声；信誉 (英语四级单词)
• academic [,ækə´demik] a.学术的 n.大学学生 (英语四级单词)
• veritable [´veritəbəl] a.真正的；确实的 (英语六级单词)