Recent Alumni Achieve Outstanding Employment and Grad School Acceptance Rates For new college graduates, lining up the right job or getting into the perfect graduate school can feel daunting at best. At Yeshiva University, however, that’s simply not the case: according to data from a recent YU Career Center survey, 90.5 percent of 2015 graduates were employed, in graduate school or both and 84.5 percent reported that their positions were strongly or moderately related to their career field of interest, an indicator that students are not just landing jobs—they’re landing the jobs they want.

The Career Center hosted two career fairs on campus this month.

The most popular fields of employment for recent graduates ranged from accounting and finance to the medical, research and non-profit arenas, while the top areas of graduate study included education, social work, rabbinic studies and law, among others. The Class of 2016 achieved impressive acceptance rates to medical, dental and law school in particular: 93 percent, 96 percent and 100 percent, respectively. “Our 100 percent acceptance is even more remarkable when you take into account the number of YU students who apply to law schools each year and the caliber of schools they’re accepted to, such as Harvard, Yale and Georgetown,” said Dina Chelst, director of pre-law advising at YU. “We achieve this high success rate by working carefully and personally with each student throughout their years on campus and by providing them with unique educational and networking opportunities, such as the ability to take graduate-level courses at our affiliated Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and intern with New York State judges as undergraduates.” Committed pre-professional and career advisors are key to student success at YU, and the University also provides students and recent alumni with many other opportunities to expand their networks and build their careers, from industry-specific job and graduate school fairs on campus to YUCareerLink, a system that gives students access to exclusive job opportunities, and alumni networking events. However, according to Marc Goldman, executive director of the Career Center, students have an especially invaluable resource in the caring and close-knit community of which they are part. “The YU community never ceases to impress me at how effective and supportive it is as a network for students in their job and internship searches,” said Goldman. “Not only do our alumni and employers educate and inform our students in such helpful ways, but also they serve as mentors and advocate on behalf of students, leading to further contacts and possibly interviews and job offers.” Max Shulman, who graduated Yeshiva College with a degree in economics and philosophy this May, found those mentors at every step of his academic journey. “The Career Center was very helpful in terms of my resume and I also appreciated the guidance of [Entrepreneur in Residence and Sy Syms School of Business Associate Dean] Michael Strauss, who did an independent study with me,” he said. Shulman is currently working in an investment research position with the credit research team at Goldman Sachs after completing an internship there last year. He felt the courses he took as an undergraduate helped him succeed in both direct and less obvious ways in his new job: “You’d be surprised how even my philosophy courses helped me develop critical thinking skills that are important in finance,” he said. Now, Shulman is paying it forward by sharing his experience and advice with other students interested in the field at YU; he recently spoke at a panel about the finance industry that connected current students with successful alums in the field. For senior Tzivya Beck, who is working with pre-law advising and the Career Center this year as she applies to law school, their support has been critical. “The Career Center and pre-law advisor on campus have really helped me in terms of internships, resumes and applications,” she said. “They sat down with me one-on-one to improve all the necessary parts of my application, and were so invested in my success that they even helped me find additional funding to pay for my LSAT course. I got a great score and couldn’t have done it without them.” Ultimately, Beck hopes to study international law and promote human rights advocacy. “As a woman growing up in a progressive time, I’m able to recognize how far society has advanced in terms of human rights but I also know there is still more to be done,” she said. “I want my law degree to be more than a tool for achieving a specific career goal or salary.”