The "tier" thing pisses me off. Lots of "top tier" people go to "third tier" universities for various reasons. Eg, financial, family commitments, non-traditional circumstances, etc.
I was accepted to a top tier CS uni, but did not get financial aid. I came from a blue collar family with parents born in the depression era. So we saved every penny. Every dime my parents had went into paying off their (tiny) mortgage on their (equally tiny) house. Yet, back in the 80s, that was counted as an asset in the financial aid process. So I ended up going to a 2nd/3rd tier local state university on an academic scholarship, then a top tier place for grad school (fully funded).
It all worked out in the end, and I wound up at Google. While there, they tried to get me to go on a recruiting trip to my grad school. I demurred, and said I'd prefer to go to my undergrad school. So they signed me up to do outreach to long tail universities. Rather than sending people on site, like for Stanford, MIT, etc, this turned out to be a Google hangouts chat with multiple different state universities. It was better than nothing, but it was nothing like the effort they put into recruiting from the "top tier" places. I think they may be missing a lot of good people.
Google definitely lets top tier employees slip right through their hiring process, as does basically every other company. Is Google going to be reaching out often to students at universities near their campus locations? Probably not, and definitely not with the intensity that they go after students at first tier universities with middling CS programs.
Where you get your degree from is important, and will change your prospects of getting hired (eg. Many companies won't hire UBC graduates, even though they do better than candidates from tier 1 universities). Hopefully their loss & the graduate's gain, since there are likely other major issues lurking under the surface with many of those companies that self select not to hire those candidates.
I was accepted to a top tier CS uni, but did not get financial aid. I came from a blue collar family with parents born in the depression era. So we saved every penny. Every dime my parents had went into paying off their (tiny) mortgage on their (equally tiny) house. Yet, back in the 80s, that was counted as an asset in the financial aid process. So I ended up going to a 2nd/3rd tier local state university on an academic scholarship, then a top tier place for grad school (fully funded).
It all worked out in the end, and I wound up at Google. While there, they tried to get me to go on a recruiting trip to my grad school. I demurred, and said I'd prefer to go to my undergrad school. So they signed me up to do outreach to long tail universities. Rather than sending people on site, like for Stanford, MIT, etc, this turned out to be a Google hangouts chat with multiple different state universities. It was better than nothing, but it was nothing like the effort they put into recruiting from the "top tier" places. I think they may be missing a lot of good people.