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Comment by giarc | Hacker News Reader

One main caveat "graduates from three of the country’s top universities – University of Waterloo, University of British Columbia and U of T – were working outside Canada."

There are many other schools in Canada offering STEM programs.

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Oh great so they're only losing the best then?

As with most people from ivy league schools, they're certainly the best at believing they're the best based exclusively on where they come from.

Although I'm not arguing the fact that Canadian grads are going south, I'm just pointing out the specific details which are important. Not only the fact that the rates are for 3 schools in Canada, but also their techniques to find people were to view their linkedin profiles. Why not go to Alumni Affairs at these schools and get contact lists? Not everyone has a LinkedIn profile, and by only contacting those with a profile, you are potentially introducing bias into the selection.

> Why not go to Alumni Affairs at these schools and get contact lists?

Because of data protection laws?

Alumni Affairs conducts surveys of their members all the time. The researchers could have approached them, had alumni affairs send out a survey to particular students and received a much better representation of the student population.

You said why not 'get a contact list', not 'ask them to contact people for you'.

That's called "splitting hairs".

> Not everyone has a LinkedIn profile, and by only contacting those with a profile, you are potentially introducing bias into the selection

How? Are you saying Canadian graduates that go south are more likely to have a LinkedIn profile?

Pretty much. Which tells you what about those who remain behind?

At UVic, many of my upper-year friends went down to FB or Tesla.

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