Breaking into IB from Rice
Hi all, recently received my college decisions and at the moment my only prestigious option is Rice. In terms of going to a top top school I did everything right (3.94 GPA, 1590 SAT, school president, some national awards, etc) but just wound up being really unlucky and got waitlisted at 12 schools including a couple of ivies ( Dartmouth, Yale, and Princeton). I wanted to ask if y’all thought breaking into bulge bracket/EB investment banking was still feasible from Rice. I don’t really care about location, but would prefer to avoid O&G due to the lack of exit ops. Do y’all think IB is doable out of rice or should I try and transfer after my first year? Would love to get some color on the situation from alums, current students, or folks in banks who might have an idea of the school’s reputation. Thanks!
Decent amount of Rice alums on the street saw a guy get Liontree this year among others
I’m a student at Rice. That kid was the only nondiversity to get into a decent firm outside of Houston this year, which is really sad. It was really rough this year for the nondiversities.
Has the UG business program helped at all or nah?
what's recruiting like at Rice? Do you see some kids try to recruit to ny? diversity/nondiversity? how many kids actively recruiting and such
lmao same at an ivy league school. 4/5 diversity for GS
Houston is pretty much all O&G so would focus on NYC... that said should be doable. Transferring is not a walk in the park either, both with getting into top schools and losing credits/having to take extra courses.
Just get some internships early on, you have the benefit of being in a fairly big city so you can track down a freshman summer or offcycle internship.
What are your other school options? Some of the "non-prestigious" schools may be strong NYC IB placers - i.e. if you have a full ride to some of the finance-oriented flagship state schools I might consider that as well.
Boston college arts and sciences and swarthmore were my only other notable acceptances. ik BC would be a walk in the park for me academically but transferring to CSOM is done by lottery there so moving over to business would be almost impossible. You think I should take BC arts and sciences over rice business?
Geez, sorry man. Hopefully at least one of those waitlists come through, make sure to be reaching out hard (I'm sure you are)
BC would be a no-brainer if in Carroll, but the transfer odds are so low. I'd stick with Rice in this situation unless you love BC as a school, there is a path to NY you just need to work for it. Also even if you don't want Houston, that is pretty easy from Rice so you could have it in your back pocket if NYC really doesn't work out
Wouldn’t shut down your NYC IB odds from Swarthmore. Question is could you see yourself there?
CSOM Student here. A lot of MCAS kids break into IB. It's all about getting into a club your soph year. If you keep a high GPA in MCAS you should be fine getting an offer.
As a rice alum, it’s certainly doable to get nyc or sf banking, look on LinkedIn at alums. There’s students going to BX, Bain cap, and hedge funds as well.
But if you got UT austin then just go there, they place everywhere (nyc, Chicago, even PE/HF and obviously MBB) their placement is the same as the ivies
Thanks for the response man. And to be clear, I’m very grateful to have been admitted to rice and I’m excited about attending the school. Unfortunately I didn’t apply to UT as I’m from PA and I thought I had my EA school in the bag so I was waiting to design my rd school list based around the expected acceptance. When I got my denial, UTs deadline had already passed. Are there good opportunities for MBB in Houston out of rice? I feel like that would give me way better exit opps and not potentially pigeonhole me in O&G, which is my fear ab Houston IB.
Yes, know people from Rice at Bain now.
Rice places a significant number of people at Texas MBB offices (Houston, Dallas, Austin) as well as non Texas offices such as Seattle, Miami, Atlanta, as well. Certainly better for MBB than it is for IB.
In my class alone there were 6 Mckinsey that I know of, and way more Bain/BCG.
Since when does UT place similar to ivies?
The WSFM program has lights out placement. Placement at every BB and EB, heavy presence at EVR and MOE. Buyside placement was also great, few kids going to BX, KKR, P72, Citadel and some MM PE analyst programs as well.
UT has top 5 placement in the country, it’s certainly on par with Ivies.
They have placement at every BB/EB and top groups such as GS TMT as well as at places like citadel, P72, MFPE like BX, Bain cap, etc. Just search on LinkedIn
Recent Rice alum here as well, based in Houston. From this past recruiting cycle, the business major has definitely made it more competitive, but all top notch business programs are - Ross, McCombs, Wharton, and all.
Rice still benefits from the “big fish in a small pond” effect, where the top-notch students tend to go to extremely selective firms. For a class as small as Rice, they have incoming analysts to Blackstone PE and Vista.
It is also true that a lot of Rice students self-select into Texas, but that definitely does not mean that those who put the effort into NY/SF do not get offers. Just my two cents.
Will have to disagree here. Aside from diversity or nepotism, if you are a very good Rice student, you are likely ending up in Houston IB. I do not think it is self-selection - many kids from all over the country at Rice intend on eventually moving to NY/SF/CHI, but settle with what they have (that is, a Houston IB offer).
Yes, there are exceptions like the Blackstone PE and Vista PE guys, who also each run the university's only investment funds, so I would not base Rice's placement on the exceptional ones, I would base it on the 10-15 other students going to regular Houston investment banks, as that is the likelihood most students face.
I still do think Rice is a great school for IB placement though, I do not think there are very many schools out there where you are guaranteed an IB role (yes, but in Houston) as long as you don't fuck up.
If you’re diversity, getting placed into a city outside of Houston shouldn’t be difficult at all. If you’re nondiversity, good luck.
With stats like that, how is Rice your best option? Man, times have changed.
Truly insane
If you don't have generational wealth going forward, you're going to get fucked. Everything that defines the path to an upper-middle class life is getting increasingly more competitive
PE/VC being crowded inadvertently benefits the business owners themselves, so I'm long entrepreneurship as a way of becoming extremely wealthy. Rich will get richer, and that will trickle down to the people involved in the investments they make
I graduated from wharton last year, and stats don’t matter for getting into ivies lol. They reject thousands of perfect SAT or valedictorians every year. Gotta have some national awards to get in if you’re non-minority/not ultra wealthy/non legacy. Even then, I know plenty of kids with many National awards and perfect stats who got rejected (such as my little sister unfortunately)
Honestly not even that bad. 19 hires at bulge/ EB is significantly higher than the 40 over 4 years peak frameworks says we have (peak doesn’t count a bunch of those as bulge/EB). Thanks for the info!
Total offers came out to about 28 out of a recruiting class of roughly 40ish
Rice placed 2 at Moelis Houston this year
You're the guy that keeps track, huh?
You’re missing 1x BofA (Houston) and 1x RBC (NYC).
Not bad at all, honestly.
Very strong local placement.
1 just got GS NYC and another Barclays Houston as well
Non diversity? Honestly over 20 hires is pretty crazy. That’s almost 2% of undergrads. These are target school numbers and there’s probably still more to go. Very encouraging
D
Rice grads look decent on paper and continuously underwhelm thereafter. Not a fan, esp their “athletes” who always try to enter finance.
Go somewhere else, Vandy or Emory MUCH better in my book.
Rice and UT benefit from Texas amazing economy and job market, otherwise they would be just avg schools in nearly all areas
Must’ve struck a nerve. Lol
Sorry you got waitlisted big dawg.
Didn’t apply buddy, got into MIT as undergrad. Nice try though.
Youll be fine..
a couple of things people are ignoring here
1- rice students want to stay in texas, theres this weird thing i noticed with texas kids, and that is that they will try to stay in texas. Many will simply not try for nyc.
2- rice did not have a ug business degree until 2021, so you had alot of kids who would simply self select out of finance and go where their ug degree was. One of my friends did that, he ended up just using his engineering degree to get into engineering instead of using his minor to het into ib.
3- with the previously said thing, it also means you’re likely to see less rice grads on wall street but the school packs way above its weight and its numbers should go up. And they have.
Thanks dude. The other replies with this years placement #s are definitely encouraging and I do really like the culture of rice so it has made me feel a lot better. Do you happen to know when the first UG buisness cohort graduated?
They graduate this year.
Yea its placements look great tbh. first class would be 2025.
Another thing to consider is that rice does have good mbb recruiting too so some kids go to consulting.
To put it short, rice is the type of school that you can make ib easily if you want it. Its a respected school.
Rice places so well at BB houston this year. Not sure about nyx.
as a guy who did analyst stint in htx. year after yr Rice kids were the weakest in superdays.
school just doesnt prepare them
Expect some intern handle to MS this 5 times
What would you recommend doing to compensate for that lack of preparation?
You can definitely place into a great IB in NY/SF coming from Rice. There are more students going outside of Houston each year and our alumni base in these locations is growing. Business clubs at Rice are starting more initiatives to help more students break into IB overall, and especially if you put in the work, you can land an amazing offer!
Cumque amet laudantium ratione voluptate. Quis id incidunt aperiam aliquam natus eos aliquid. Doloribus nisi omnis maxime natus amet eos.
Sed consequatur molestiae eum quo quo numquam. Nihil cumque dolor laboriosam voluptas saepe quasi quia. Eos repellat eos voluptas dolore officiis. Suscipit quis alias maiores eligendi sed fuga beatae. Reiciendis consequatur enim incidunt dolorem. Laboriosam est at aperiam ut.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Laborum commodi voluptas qui consequuntur. Sunt delectus sed autem recusandae aut. Recusandae consequatur quod ab quia suscipit delectus. Aut voluptatem ut dolore corrupti illo dolorum. Et sed officiis et mollitia iste alias alias. Ab esse ad a temporibus.
Temporibus in vitae qui harum cumque minus. Inventore quo mollitia rerum mollitia dicta sit facere. Rerum illum culpa maxime qui atque quisquam. Iusto qui necessitatibus voluptas ipsa. Est in cupiditate facilis. Et doloremque quos ut aliquam odit aut maxime incidunt.
Repudiandae doloremque atque aut provident et sapiente. Id delectus occaecati explicabo veritatis. Eos laudantium molestias quia optio.
Vel similique atque odit dicta eos ut reprehenderit. Quis facilis eum eius aperiam. Molestias voluptatem esse deserunt quo. Inventore saepe aut unde similique similique aliquid. Ullam voluptatem exercitationem beatae debitis veritatis dolor doloremque.
Animi a illum quae quia corrupti dicta quos. Iste ad et quo sunt repellat. Praesentium fugiat reiciendis explicabo rerum error.