InCISES and Missing Info: Decoding The Value Of A Postgrad Programme

Recently, at Essai we began exploring employment outcomes for international students after specialized Master’s degrees from the Top 50 US universities, as per the US News and World Report.

You might be wondering…why this? Because we have consistently observed, in our 10 years of operations, the importance of fully researching, decoding, and understanding the pros and cons of a major decision like pursuing a Master’s degree in the US. 

We came up with a novel post graduation program score called the InCISES, which stands for In-Country International Student Employment Score, specifically focused on the likelihood of international students finding jobs in the United States of America after their degrees. 

This journey was full of puzzles, dead ends and missing information. In the further sections, we’ll explain the InCISES database, our process and findings as well as the loopholes involved in getting information from the Top 50 US universities about relevant student questions (like employment outcomes), which we feel are crucial in making informed decisions about international higher education.

***

Specialized Master’s degrees are usually seen as career kickstarters in a specialized field, traditionally consisting of Finance, Marketing, Business Analytics, Management, and more. 

InCISES began as a simple mathematical score (percentage of batch getting full-time US work experience)/(percentage of the batch that do not have US work authorization, i.e, are non-US passport holders or do not have a permanent residence state). 

This score is intended to isolate, through easily obtained data, the answer to a single question: for any given program, do graduating non-US passport holders have a good chance to obtain work experience in the US?

For this project to be functional, we needed three things: 

Firstly, we compiled a list of Top 50 MA/MSc Specialized Business courses. We began with five types of Specialized business masters: 

• Masters of Finance

• Masters of Management 

• Masters of Marketing 

• Masters of Business Analytics 

• Masters of Entrepreneurship/Innovation

Secondly, we had to obtain the “class profiles” (admitted student profiles) for each course and university, looking at the percentage of International students in their latest cohort. This information is generally publicly available.

Thirdly, we had to obtain the "employment report" (graduating batch employment records) for the latest cohort, focusing on the percentage of the batch (US and non-US) which obtained full time work in the US. This information is occasionally available.

At last, we calculate the InCISES score. Given the lack of transparency in the employment reporting process, we have assumed for maximum generosity that all US alumnae receive in-US placements; we have also assumed that any shortfall in the in-US employment rate is possibly accounted for by the international student population.

Then we ran the numbers.

Ideally, the above information should be conveniently available on all the universities’ websites for their prospective students – but mostly, it was not.

 Our team emailed the Top 50 universities on the following critical info useful for prospective students:

• Percentage of latest batch that is international (ie non-US passport holder or permanent resident)

• Percentage of latest batch that got placements in US

Many universities obliged and provided us with the information, but some didn’t. Here are some excerpts from their responses:

“The percentages are not available to me, but I do know that these statistics will often change year to year” 

“ Unfortunately, we do not collect that data, however, we do have a combination of students staying in the states as well as some returning to their home country for work.” 

Though the responses focused on inclusive and diverse cohorts, it was surprising to see Top 50 universities not disclosing essential information that could be helpful for prospective students’ future employment decisions. 

Specialized business Master’s are a great alternative to MBAs to delve deeper into a particular field – but incomplete information makes it difficult, or even impossible, to engage with the kind of planning that is an important part of any master’s application process. 

At Essai, we believe in fostering values and skills related to honesty and communication. And this is exactly what we tried doing with InCISES - making crucial information accessible to prospective students.

InCISES Process

Enclosed, please find the total top-50 universities we researched and contacted; in each of the specialized Master’s domains, please find the list of programs we identified.

In the absence of accurate and reliable Master’s program rankings, we have favored the standard overall undergraduate institutional rank, which is commonly associated with perceptions of brand value. 

Total top-50 universities, per the US News and World Report: 

Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, UChicago, JHU, UPenn, Caltech, Duke, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Brown, Vanderbilt, Rice, WashU St Louis, Cornell, Notre Dame, UC Berkeley, UCLA, CMU, Emory, Georgetown, NYU, UMichigan, USC, UVA, UFlorida, UNC Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Tufts, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, Boston College, URochester, UC Davis, UT Austin, UW Madison, Boston University, UIUC, William and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western Reserve, GA Tech, Northeaster, Tulane, Ohio State, UGeorgia

Master’s of Finance: Princeton, MIT, JHU, Vanderbilt, WashU St Louis, Notre Dame, CMU, Emory, USC, UFlorida, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, Boston College, URochester, UT Austin, UIUC, Brandeis, Case Western Reserve, GA Tech, Northeastern, Tulane, Ohio State 

Master’s of Management: MIT, Yale, UChicago, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, Notre Dame, Georgetown, University of Florida, Wake Forest University, Tufts, Boston College, University of Illinois, Georgia Tech, Northeastern

Master’s of Marketing: JHU, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Georgetown, NYU, USC, UFlorida, URochester, UT Austin, Boston University, UGeorgia

Master’s of Business Analytics: MIT, JHU, Duke, WashU St Louis, Columbia, Notre Dame, UCLA, CMU, Georgetown, UMichigan, USC, UVA, Wake Forest, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, URochester, UC Davis, UT Austin, UW Madison, Boston University, UIUC, William and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western Reserve, GA Tech, Northeastern, Tulane, Ohio State, UGeorgia

Master’s of Innovation/Entrepreneurship: Stanford, Brown, Notre Dame, USC, University of Florida, University of North Carolina, UC Irvine

InCISES Results

Here, please find the disclosure rates, per discipline. Having given all universities the chance to disclose this data, we feel it is worthwhile to note the universities that, for whatever reason, did not disclose.

Note: we define “disclosure” as counting all programs who either publish the relevant information on their website, or provided answers to direct queries.

Note: we define “disclosure” as being relevant only for programs which revealed both pieces of information:

• % of the batch that do not have US work authorization 

• % of the batch that obtains full time employment in the US

Disclosure rates: 

• Total # of Master of Finance programs: 22

• Disclosure rate: 27.27%

• Total # of Master of Management programs: 17 

• Disclosure rate: 5.88%

• Total # of Master of Marketing programs: 13

• Disclosure rate: 7.69%

• Total # of Master of Business Analytics programs: 28

• Disclosure rate: 32.12%

• Total # of Master of Innovation/Entrepreneurship programs: 

• Disclosure rate: 0

Since the disclosure rates were pretty low, we had to re-work on our InCISES formula to include the Delta Employment rate and Domestic students percentage which is calculated as (percentage of domestic students subtracted from percentage of students who obtain full time work in the US) to arrive at our new InCISES formula which is stated as below:

Delta Employment rate and Domestic students percentage/percentage of international students*100

After running the numbers, we arrived at the following InCISES Rankings:

InCISES Rankings

Master of Finance InCISES Ranking:

1. Vanderbilt: 100.00

2. CMU: 77.27

3. Boston College: 63.75

4. Notre Dame: 57.14

5. WashU: 50.52

Master of Management InCISES Rankings:

1. Duke University: 79.07

Master of Marketing InCISES Table:

1. No Data Available

Master of Business Analytics InCISES Rankings:

1. William and Mary: 100.00

2. Georgia Tech:  98.15

3. MIT: 90.85

4.  Notre Dame: 85.45

5. Case Western Reserve: 85.07

6. Columbia: 83.78

Master of Innovation/Entrepreneurship InCISES Rankings:

1. No Data Available