University | 1:52 pm | October 28, 2012 | By Matthew Lloyd-Thomas

For employers, Yale grads rank second in desirability

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Photo by Sage Ross/Creative Commons.

A new survey published in The New York Times claims that among employers, Yale graduates are the world’s second-most desirable, falling behind Harvard but ahead of Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, MIT and Princeton.

Asian schools made a strong showing this year, with several Chinese universities ranked in the upper echelons of the list. Peking University jumped to 11th place from 109th just last year, and three others Chinese universities also made it into the top 100.

“A lot of employers are looking for global players,” said Tony Chan, president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, to The New York Times. “China being the second-largest economy in the world is a huge factor.”

The study, which is published annually, was conducted in two waves. The first wave included interviews with 2,500 recruiters in 20 countries who were asked to describe their ideal hire. In the second wave, 150 follow-up interviews were conducted in 10 countries, where Emerging and Trendence — the two firms conducting the survey — compiled the published list of universities.

According to the survey, respondents emphasized the importance of “soft skills like adaptability, communications and the ‘ability to work in a team.’”

While Yalies may be upset at Yale’s failure to top Harvard, they can at least take comfort in knowing they attend the country’s best-value university and one that ranked sixth this year for safe-sex programs.

Below is a list of the top 20-ranked schools:

1) Harvard

2) Yale

3) University of Cambridge, Britain

4) University of Oxford, Britain

5) Stanford

6) MIT

7) Columbia

8) Princeton

9) Imperial College London

10) Goethe-Univ. Frankfurt am Main, Germany

11) Peking Univ., China

12) Univ. Heidelberg, Germany

13) H.E.C. Paris, France

14) Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

15) London School of Economics, Britain

16) Univ. College London, Britain

17) Boston University

18) Univ. St. Gallen, Switzerland

19) CalTech

20) Ècole Normale Supérieure, France

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