[bengl]

I agree. I work in a team with alumni from many different universities and I think the differences between the schools add to the diversity of the team and increases the number of angles at which we tackle problems. A good fit is important, but preferentially hiring your own university's alumni seems like a good way to prevent building the best team you can.

Yes, you're going to have some culture differences, but so what? Every company I've worked for has made it's own culture.

[csallen]

As with many other things in life, this seems to be an area where the Goldilocks principle applies. In other words you want to avoid extremes (too similar, too diverse) and strike a perfect balance.

[sounds]

Skipping the experiences that lead to this conclusion:

A _team_ from the same uni will be extremely productive if they focused on that type of project in their courses. If the team only has undergrad degrees, look at the undergrad projects, of course. But their strength will be in bootstrapping such a project, not maintaining it. (Work done for courses is perpetually being re-invented and never maintained, by its very nature.)

And the flip side of the coin is: break up that team and mix them up in your other teams, and they will learn a lot about the real world. As long as they're closeted together, they'll have that laser-focus and high productivity, but lack the real-world perspective.

If you only have one team of developers, you need the diversity! My small company really benefits from the variety of backgrounds we bring.

Then there are those 10x players who may have gone to the uni but worked outside the uni as well. They aren't vulnerable to this kind of thinking, but will work really well with other guys from their alma mater.