CodeSignal Announces First Annual University Ranking Report Based on Technical Skills

CodeSignal, a technical assessment platform dedicated to helping companies #GoBeyondResumes in tech recruiting, today announced its first annual CodeSignal University Ranking Report, which reveals the top 30 universities nationwide where recruiters will find the most skilled technical talent to meet their hiring needs. 

Companies tend to rely on pedigrees when it comes to university recruiting, reinforcing an uneven distribution of opportunities—the students who go to the “best” schools are often the ones who get access to the prestigious internships and new grad jobs that lead to more career opportunities later on. However, the talent landscape is changing. Competition is hotter than ever for technical talent, and with remote work, companies are able to consider more diverse candidates based all over the U.S. 

CodeSignal analyzed the results of CodeSignal’s General Coding Assessment (GCA), a widely adopted standardized test for core programming and computer science knowledge, and ranked universities based on the percentage of students who took the GCA that scored over an 800 (equivalent to the 84th percentile).

Here are the top 10 universities (please download the full report to see the top 30 list):

High-level results:     

• Only two out of the 10 schools (MIT and Carnegie Mellon) from CodeSignal’s list were in the US News & World Report Best Undergraduate Engineering Program Rankings top 10.

• Miami University of Ohio and California State University, Sacramento aren’t included at all in the US News & World Report’s ranking (which has over 200 schools).

• SUNY Stony Brook is ranked #65 by US News & World Report.

• Drexel is ranked #94. 

• UC Berkeley and Stanford, tied for #2 in the US News & World Report ranking, don’t make CodeSignal’s top 10. 

Tigran Sloyan, co-founder and CEO of CodeSignal, explained the value of the report. “Our mission at CodeSignal is to help companies go beyond resumes and pedigrees to identify and hire candidates who demonstrate real on-the-job skills,” said Sloyan. “The goal in releasing this report is to show the discrepancy between the schools traditionally targeted for university recruiting and the ones overlooked that actually house some of the best tech talent in the industry.”  

He added, “We hope this report stands as a guide to encourage hiring managers to allow job candidates to showcase their skills and go beyond resumes in recruiting.”

CodeSignal’s GCA consists of four code writing tasks in a cloud integrated development environment and is language-agnostic. This means the test takers can choose a programming language that they feel most comfortable in. GCA measures the test taker’s code-writing skills, problem-solving skills, and ability to write clean code at a reasonable speed. 

Methodology:

CodeSignal’s GCA is used by over 150 top tier companies such as Facebook, Asana, Uber, and eBay as their primary technical assessment for early talent. GCA has been completed by over 95,000 students who are seeking new grad software engineering opportunities in their senior year or summer internship software engineering opportunities in their junior year. More than 50% of undergraduate students completing their computer science programs in the US take the GCA, with over 9,000 students taking the test per week at the height of the recruiting season.

For this analysis, Codesignal inferred the name of educational institutions from the email domains associated with the GCA takers. To support valid comparisons, CodeSignal adopted U.S. News & World Report’s grouping of colleges and used the “National University” group to create their CodeSignal University Rankings. 

The download the full report please visit: https://codesignal.com/university-ranking-report/2021/ 

About CodeSignal

CodeSignal is how the world discovers and develops the skills that will shape the future. Our skills platform empowers teams to go beyond skills gaps, with hiring and AI-powered learning solutions, and helps individuals cultivate the skills they need to level up. Wherever you are on your journey, CodeSignal’s technical hiring and learning & development solutions meet you there and get you where you need to go.

Having powered millions of skills evaluations, CodeSignal is trusted by leading companies like Netflix, Capital One, Meta, and Dropbox, and is used by learners across the globe.

For more information, visit www.codesignal.com or connect with CodeSignal on LinkedIn.