Colleges for iBanking

so i am a rising senior who eventually wants to get into ibanking. as i am starting the college process, what schools are the clear standouts to recruiters. I have gotten different advice from people ranging from you dont actually learn anything at harvard and only get the brand recognition (from harvard ugs) to people saying dont ever go to stanford if you want to get into this field.

The biggest names that i can think of (in no particular order) are harvard, williams, stanford, yale, princeton, MIT, columbia and amherst. am i leaving anyone out?

I guess my top 3 choices would be williams, yale, and princeton because they all seem more intimate than the other schools (i didnt really like amherst though). what are your thoughts on these schools in terms of relative prestige in the industry and best education offered in math and economics, which i plan to major in (probably just math when the school doesn't allow double majors).

thanks guys.

Does any of this change for private equity, where i ultimately see my self going?

 

Wow, I didn't even find out about i-banking till i got to college... but since you asked... How dare you put williams and amherst in the same sentence as harvard. Shame on you.

Here's my take:

Harvard: Best. Brand name alone makes this shit worth it Wharton: Best Ugrad b-school...period. Yale: A bunch of dirty fucking hippies Brown: Should not be an ivy. No GPA school=equality for all=socialism=obama.. need i say more? MIT: Top banking school, if you are willing to put up with a ton of asian engineers. Stanford: Best of the west. Best school for banking outside NY, good looking chicks too. Princeton: Arrogant, WASP types, but top 3 target.
Columbia: Boring school in the epicenter of everything Dartmouth: Shit MBA program, but good banking target.

Biggest Target myths:

UVA: recently ranked #2 b-school, but good luck having a goldman recruiter on campus...but hey its a top STATE school.

UMichigan: If i hear one more statement of "ross b-school is the shit bro.." ill just hang myself.

Boston College/University: Both of these schools are NOT targets. Recruiters will occasionally drop by on thier way back from harvard to look at some pretty chicks and to interview a couple 2nd tiers for operations.

 

thanks for your opinion monkeykingdom. i disagree with it, but always good to see what everyone thinks. where did/do you go to college and what do you do now?

given your incredibly stereotypical views of all the colleges, i cannot have faith in anything you wrote above. I am assuming your a harvard/wharton guy? this is the type of views i seeing coming know-nothing hot shots right out of college. i have interned at gs, merrill, and my father's boutique firm before, so i know exactly what i am talking about.

you listed all the ivys even though i did not ask for an opinion of all of them, only the ones i listed or other schools i was overlooking.

I would really like to hear opinions from other people on all these schools, especially williams and amherst or other schools that are GOOD for ibanking that i might have overlooked. (duke anyone? - john mack and david rubenstein)

 

I did go to a target. An ivy that I did not mention...pretty clear to decipher which one I am talking about. I work in M&A for a top BB here in NY.. number 2 on the league tables...again pretty simple to figure out which one. My stereotypical views are simply what most would observe.

Duke is a nice balance between a nice campus and a good athletic program with a semi-target school. I personally snicker at a blue-devil, but hey my best freind is a duke alum, so I can't hate too much.

Again, whoever told you williams or amherst is a banker school is a moron. Let's do an SAT analogy so you'll understand,

Willams and Amherst : Banker as..

a) Painter : Brush b) Luxury : Rolex c) Prestige : M&A d) light : Black

if you chose d you are right! Williams or amherst are totally the OPPOSITE of a "banker school". Do yourself a favor and apply to a decent school.

 

something you may want to know is that they discontinued the analogy on the SAT a few years ago.

i have never heard of your school as a target, although i know a few good people who have flowed out of there. however, i know some good people who have come from michigan, too. i have also never heard ANYONE in the business even remotely suggest that your school is as good or as prestigious as either Williams or Amherst for IB. you guys have some great engineering though. something you may want to ask yourself is if you are adjusting for the roughly 3 fold difference in student size between amherst and williams and these other schools.

given that your views are so stereotypical, they offer me no real insight into how intelligent, accomplished people view colleges. i thought that i would get some interesting information form this board, but i could find the very same by talking to cab drivers who read the business section.

 
Best Response
redpen1:
something you may want to know is that they discontinued the analogy on the SAT a few years ago.

i have never heard of your school as a target, although i know a few good people who have flowed out of there. however, i know some good people who have come from michigan, too. i have also never heard ANYONE in the business even remotely suggest that your school is as good or as prestigious as either Williams or Amherst for IB. you guys have some great engineering though. something you may want to ask yourself is if you are adjusting for the roughly 3 fold difference in student size between amherst and williams and these other schools.

given that your views are so stereotypical, they offer me no real insight into how intelligent, accomplished people view colleges. i thought that i would get some interesting information form this board, but i could find the very same by talking to cab drivers who read the business section.

You're in high school. Please, please, please don't talk shit when you haven't even APPLIED to college, much less had any experience on Wall Street. You can't even fucking buy cigarettes. You don't know jack. Know your place.

Come back to us in 10 months when you know what your options are. Until then, keep you mouth shut. Just so you know, while Williams and Amherst are very strong schools, they are not well-represented in banking. They're semi-targets at best.

Let's end this "discussion." There's no point in taking this further.

 
DontMakeMeShortYou:
redpen1:
something you may want to know is that they discontinued the analogy on the SAT a few years ago.

i have never heard of your school as a target, although i know a few good people who have flowed out of there. however, i know some good people who have come from michigan, too. i have also never heard ANYONE in the business even remotely suggest that your school is as good or as prestigious as either Williams or Amherst for IB. you guys have some great engineering though. something you may want to ask yourself is if you are adjusting for the roughly 3 fold difference in student size between amherst and williams and these other schools.

given that your views are so stereotypical, they offer me no real insight into how intelligent, accomplished people view colleges. i thought that i would get some interesting information form this board, but i could find the very same by talking to cab drivers who read the business section.

You're in high school. Please, please, please don't talk shit when you haven't even APPLIED to college, much less had any experience on Wall Street. You can't even fucking buy cigarettes. You don't know jack. Know your place.

Come back to us in 10 months when you know what your options are. Until then, keep you mouth shut. Just so you know, while Williams and Amherst are very strong schools, they are not well-represented in banking. They're semi-targets at best.

Let's end this "discussion." There's no point in taking this further.

Hilarious.

@redpen - I went to Cornell, and I am pretty sure my school is a fucking target. Amherst is a semi-target at best for shit banks like UBS (U've Been Served) or ShittyBank (or should I say U.S. Government). You are in highschool, I hope you get in Williams so I can call you if my printer runs out of ink..

 

You really could go to any of those schools for banking. But the education will be different. i personally think your best bet, if you could get in, is Wharton. You get a great finance education, its close to NYC, and its one of the most prestigous schools. But if you want a more liberal arts experience go to one of the other schools, its reallly based on your preference. You have close to 4 years before youhave to start worrying about banking. In the meantime, learn finance. Don't listen to radicals who say don't go to Stanford etc. its a great school, great location, very prestigous etc. if your thinking about banking already as a junior, you will definitely get banking no matter which school you went to.

 

Redpen, you come off as a douchebag, which might be good if you're thinking about going into banking.

I-banking recruiting is getting more diverse as the service becomes more commoditized (think of it like accounting in the future?), but here's where most analysts go to school as undergrads.

New York -- Harvard, Wharton, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Duke, MIT, Williams, NYU

Midwest/South -- Northwestern, Chicago, UT Austin, U Mich

West Coast -- Stanford, UC Berkeley, USC

Assuming you can get into the schools you mentioned, I would rate it 1) Harvard 2) Stanford and 3) Princeton.

 

best school for west coast ibanking is easily uc berkeley. the undergraduate business is usually around top 5 in the nation and has a good track record of sending ppl to ibanking. my year, i know ppl that got into gs tmt, ubs la, cs la, moelis, etc. two ppl i know even went to blackstone pe straight out of undergrad. check out some of the top pe firms on the west coast, like leonard green, and you'll see most of the associates are from uc berkeley. you can talk to a lot of banks on the west coast - they'll interview stanford ppl, but i havent seen many get offers

 
ledger123:
best school for west coast ibanking is easily uc berkeley. the undergraduate business is usually around top 5 in the nation and has a good track record of sending ppl to ibanking. my year, i know ppl that got into gs tmt, ubs la, cs la, moelis, etc. two ppl i know even went to blackstone pe straight out of undergrad. check out some of the top pe firms on the west coast, like leonard green, and you'll see most of the associates are from uc berkeley. you can talk to a lot of banks on the west coast - they'll interview stanford ppl, but i havent seen many get offers

Gee wonder where you went...this is the biggest lie I've ever heard. The reason you don't see a ton of Stanford grads in Cali IB is they're working on Wall Street or they're at Google or doing other tech stuff instead of banking.

 

Williams and Amherst are fairly well-represented in banking. They may not have the same numbers as an Ivy, but keep in mind that they are much, much, much smaller.

All schools will have recruiters come for banking. Obviously, some will have more than others, but you will have the opportunities available to you at any of these places. Go where you feel is the best fit for you. Williams and Amherst will have plenty of alums in banking, and I bet they'd be more than willing to help you out if they like you - it's the attachment a lot of people will get when they go to a smaller, more intimate school. A few of my friends have parents or parents' friends who are in high finance that are Williams grads, and some of the things I have heard about those guys going to bat for current/recent Williams grads are pretty ridiculous.

By the way... Cornell is much more of a target than Williams or Amherst, and it's not close.

 

I've also seen a lot from Georgetown actually. I was talking to a Goldman MD and she said that Georgetown kids are some of the best interviewers she's seen (she's an MD from my school, not Gtown). This might just be GS's perspective though.

Beyond that, I've see a lot of Berkeley as well. People who think Ross is the shit don't see how badly they place at many firms.

 

I was definitely in the same position last year, all concerned about even slightest variation in supposed "prestige." Really, though, I think the differences are terribly overblown. No, I don't have a job or an SA gig, but I do know plenty of friends who have amazing offers (and I don't go to Harvard or Wharton).

My take on things is that recruiting and placement among different schools depend very much on a self-selecting student pool. The students who are dead set on going into banking will probably shoot for Wharton, and those who might not be so sure may look elsewhere. If a student is so motivated to succeed in finance, however, would said student really not have made the cut at a school like Duke, Dartmouth, Columbia, UCB etc? My point is, I find it hard to believe that there is such a big difference in recruiting among all these great schools- I think it really depends more on the individual's intelligence and motivation to succeed.

 

thanks everyone for their comments. many of them have been thoughtful answers.

Ganthor: "Why not wharton?" In short I should have and it had nothing to do with it not being a big name. I don't think wharton is for me just because I really value a traditional liberal arts education (I just think MIT is awesome) and I want to get out of philly.

CNI: after looking at this board, i am starting to agree with you about how little it looks like it matters. so where did you end up if you feel comfortable sharing?

 

yeah i did go to cal - did you figure that out on your own? and how is this is a lie? if you go to berkeley, you know where your peers get offers. reread my post - i said uc berkeley is the best for WEST COAST ibanking. west coast banks/offices will hire mostly from uc berkeley - certainly more berkeley kids than stanford. and its not even close. im pretty sure uc berkeley is far better represented than stanford on wall street as well.

 
ledger123:
yeah i did go to cal - did you figure that out on your own? and how is this is a lie? if you go to berkeley, you know where your peers get offers. reread my post - i said uc berkeley is the best for WEST COAST ibanking. west coast banks/offices will hire mostly from uc berkeley - certainly more berkeley kids than stanford. and its not even close. im pretty sure uc berkeley is far better represented than stanford on wall street as well.

Presumably you're not a social science major - correlation is not causation. There are more Berkeley kids in West Coast banking for the following reasons: 1) There are more graduates from Berkeley than Stanford by about 3:1 2) Most Cal grads are from California and prefer to stay there so apply to jobs in state 3) Most Stanford grads are not from California and generally prefer to move to the center of whatever industry they are interested in 4) Stanford better known nationally and internationally, so its graduates can be more geographically mobile.

West Coast IB does not prefer Cal grads to Stanford grads. There are more Cal grads, more of them apply, thus more of them are working in that area. Outside of NYC you would always expect to see local schools more highly represented in regional offices. That's fairly obvious. Are you going to say that if you go to Harvard, Princeton, or MIT you can't get West Coast because of Cal?! The world is bigger than California.

And BTW I did go to Stanford and I'm from NY. I also worked at a BB and in my GLOBAL analyst class there were several Stanford grads and zero Cal grads.

 

Presumably you're not a social science major - correlation is not causation. There are more Berkeley kids in West Coast banking for the following reasons: 1) There are more graduates from Berkeley than Stanford by about 3:1 2) Most Cal grads are from California and prefer to stay there so apply to jobs in state 3) Most Stanford grads are not from California and generally prefer to move to the center of whatever industry they are interested in 4) Stanford better known nationally and internationally, so its graduates can be more geographically mobile.

West Coast IB does not prefer Cal grads to Stanford grads. There are more Cal grads, more of them apply, thus more of them are working in that area. Outside of NYC you would always expect to see local schools more highly represented in regional offices. That's fairly obvious. Are you going to say that if you go to Harvard, Princeton, or MIT you can't get West Coast because of Cal?! The world is bigger than California.

And BTW I did go to Stanford and I'm from NY. I also worked at a BB and in my GLOBAL analyst class there were several Stanford grads and zero Cal grads.[/quote]

It is rather upsetting that it took a Stanford grad to have an educated comment. There is no way in hell UC-Berk has a better rep in banking than Stanford. In our M&A group, we don't have anyone from either school (although we did have an intern from berkeley..no offer). I always hold a bit of recentment towards Stanford, since they waitlisted me when I applied.

 

On my limited time on the Street, I haven't met all that many kids from Williams/Amherst/MIT. I know they're around but I think it's because they're smaller schools. I haven't met many kids from MIT either. Most of those kids end up in S&T, it seems.

I think it's absolutely insane that you're thinking about banking as a high school senior. With the way things are going, who knows what banking will be like 5 years when you ultimately graduate from college. Well, that, and you haven't been accepted to any of these schools yet. Knowing this, I'd go with the one you feel most comfortable in. These are all great schools. You'll have options to pursue other things if and when banking doesn't work out. Then again, what do you care? You are clearly well connected enough to have interned at all those places as a high school kid.

As for the Cali stuff, I just spoke to friend who just moved out to LA. "It's all UCLA and USC finance kids here" were his exact words. Agree with FP175 that all the Stanford kids are back east or in Silicon Valley.

 

first of all, i never said that if you're not from uc berkeley, you cant get west coast banking. all i said was that uc berkeley sends more kids to banking out west than any other school. i apologize if my prior statements were misleading.

i may have been wrong when i said that uc berkeley is better represented than stanford on wall street - it was a guess, as i am not on wall street. regardless, i am certain cal still has great representation over there.

i will, however, stand by my original statement and say that cal sends more kids into west coast ibanking than any other school out here in the west.

 

look man, come post up here when you actually get into some of these. most of these schools on here are competitive to get in and just because you say you have a good chance at getting into Cornell doesn't mean anything

 

Right now I'm mostly trying to figure out which schools I should spend a lot of time on and which ones I shouldn't. I am the first to admit I am not a guarantee at Cornell or Brown or Uchicago, in fact, the odds a probably against me, but I have to make informed decisions in the application process.

 

1) I hope this is trolling. There are so many issues with some of things you say, from how you're perceiving college admissions working to overvaluing petty matters like rankings.

2) How well you do at wherever you go to college matters more than any marginal benefits in how recruitment works. Someone who goes to Dartmouth with a very high GPA and successful social life (in this case, being involved with Dartmouth's Greek life) will have better odds at landing an IB gig than someone with a mediocre GPA at Yale who never socially developed like you're supposed to in college. Look at the top colleges and look at the ones you actually think you'd enjoy going to. Believe me, once you're actually there, you'll realize how petty this entire post is.

2) Discussions of which colleges do best in recruiting very easily comprises of a plurality of threads/posts on this forum. I encourage you to learn to use the search function or Google if you plan on attending and thriving in one of these research intensive universities.

 

I think Brown gets a bad rep from a lot of uninformed kids on this board. It is the least represented ivy on wall street by far, but that is definitely due to selection bias. I have never met anyone here who has wanted to ]work in IB that has been unable to do so. As long as you get a decent GPA in a non-idiotic concentration, you're fine.

Honestly, I feel like people here place a bit too much emphasis on undergrad rankings. Yes, HYPS clearly dominates places like Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, etc. But after that, when you're choosing between top ~15ish schools, its a lot more worthwhile to go to a school that you'll enjoy more. Choosing Cornell over Duke even though you know you'll be miserable in Ithaca for four years just because placement might be marginally better is incredibly stupid. You only get 4 years of undergrad.. enjoy it.

 

Penn (Wharton) Columbia NYU Duke UVA Vandy

... IMO the rest are a waste of your application fees to apply to for transfer. Given the selection I'd suggest you apply to Ross at Michigan.

‎"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns or dollars."
 

I'd do Michigan instead of Vandy. I don't work in the industry (yet) but I'll be a FT BB and went through multiple SA and FT superdays. Never saw a single person from Vandy, saw Michigan kids all the time.

I don't know why Cornell is a waste of time. I'd still apply and go there if you get in. Basically apply to all the targets, semi targets, and go to the best place you get in...

 

The first list is shit. Most of those schools will give you a good shot at a job in finance; the ones that are underrepresented (such as Dartmouth) verse those overrepresented (such as Cornell) represent self-selection, rather than intentional discrimination by banks. The only ones I'd cross off are Northwestern, Tufts, Colgate and Rice. You can get in from those schools, but it will be harder than from the others.

 

These schools are good, but don't really belong in the same category as the others:

Tufts Colgate Vanderbilt Virginia Rice

Of the remaining schools, your best shot at recruiting will come from Wharton / Columbia / NYU. Wharton because it's Wharton, and Columbia / NYU because of the on campus recruitment advantages of being in New York.

 

i can only comment on consulting and s&t...

erase: Georgetown Tufts Vanderbilt Colgate Virginia

The rest are great schools that will provide you opportunities to get into the industry if you want them, and I'm sure you'll get into some of them with that GPA.

And if you are wondering particularly about Rice, in my S&T interviews 2 MD's I spoke with had math degrees from Rice.

 

Michigan, Berkeley, CMU, Chicago, and MIT also belong on that list. Rice is a great school, but it doesn't place quite as well into NYC banking- might be good though if you want to work in TX.

In particular, Chicago isn't quite as selective as its US News ranking would have it appear. If you can get into Columbia, you can probably get into Chicago- and come out pretty darned competent as an employee (hence the high US News ranking).

Wash U also belongs on that list if we're going to put Tufts on there. Both are great schools, but placements into banking that I've seen aren't quite as strong as say NYU, Chicago, or Michigan.

 

Princeton doesn't accept transfers and I feel like I wouldn't be able to get into HY.

I don't have a lot of money and I'm paying for these apps with all of the money I got from working over the summer. Since each app costs about 80 in all, I can't really apply to more than 8 or 10 schools. That's why I'd like to distill the list to the lowest risk (of not getting accepted)/highest reward schools.

All of your responses are very informative. Keep 'em coming.

 

Georgetown and NYU should not be cut at all - at least not for NYC recruiting. Both have strong representation at the BBs (depending on which BB, it may be more or less. This is from the people I've met at several BBs this past summer.

Serious people - let's offer some decent advice, this is not a prestige game. Obvi H/Y/P/W are the best, but there are other schools that places really well.

 

Wharton is THE school for U-grad business, however the liberal arts in the Universities of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford are on par and if not better.

Translation: Get into one of these schools and then only YOU can stop yourself from entering IB.

"Show me a person without an ego, and I'll show you a loser!" -Trump
 

Nice, cack and johnp.

Seriously, a huge part of being a banker in the lower ranks (analyst/intern/etc.) is the ability to come up with accurate and relevant information for the higher-up people. If you can't exhibit that trait at this level (i.e. not being familiar with the "search" function), then just give up on banking altogether.

Wharton's undergrad's great (I did it), so is any other Ivy. But you realize that your Ivy diploma doesn't come with an offer from a bank attached, right? To answer your original question, "what's better than Wharton?", the answer is "Bust-Your-Ass-Wherever-You-Go" U.

 

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"Show me a person without an ego, and I'll show you a loser!" -Trump

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