Given these two kids, which one would you hire?

OMFG HOW COULD YOU EVEN ASK!??!?!?!!??!?!?!!!111111/////// HARVARD!!!!!!!!111one

SAT's dont matter for one unless youre going in to trading. Also, youre not even a freshman, stop thinking about this shit.

But seriously, Harvard kid hands down. In interviews you'll actually be asked, even if you went to Yale or Princeton, "Why should we take you over a 3.8 Harvard applicant?" No kidding.

winning 1 gold medal > winning 1000 silver medals

Neither

Thanks for humoring me guys. I guess unless you got in harvard, you are always behind no matter what. lol nice to know

Second kid. Plenty smart enough and he apparently works harder, and to the extent that he has a chip on his shoulder about having to answer stupid questions like, "Why should we choose you over a 3.8 Harvard kid," he's likely to want to prove himself. Not even a close decision. Not everyone in the industry is prestige-retarded (although the majority are).

John Hopkins kid

Whichever kid interviews better.

john hopkins is depressing

1

is this a hypothetical? i've forgotten more prestige whores than most will ever meet and i cannot imagine such a question ever coming out of an interviewer's mouth.

^ Are you serious? Almost everyone I know, from people at Cornell to those at Yale, has been asked this question. :o

having been on both sides of the desk, such a question is so douchey and unprofessional i cannot imagine anyone actually asking that. i seriously would take a junior guy aside and tell him to knock off the bullshit if he said such a thing to an applicant.

Whichever kid I'd rather drink beers with....they're both smart and obviously hard-working, so I could justify whomever to my boss. Just have to pick which one's cooler

I have absolutely been asked questions about why someone should hire me, a state school kid (back when I was actually a kid), over a kid from Harvard. It's a snobby, bull crap question, but I actually found it to be pretty easy to answer.

Sell your strengths and your story. As a farm kid, I took the approach to say that where I grew up people didn't ever consider going to those (HYP) types of schools (I wanted to include "because we aren't rich assholes"), but I was raised getting up at 5am to perform manual labor before school. I would then come home at night after football/basketball/track practice to face even more chores and farm work. This is simply what was expected.

Mr Interviewer, who do you think has a better work ethic and the will power to get it done after weeks and months of no sleep, me or that Harvard d-bag?

Considering both 2400 and 2200 are 99th percentile for SAT that information is meaningless given the variance on the exam's data. You have to look at the student's major as well (3.8 Business Admin generally does not equal 3.8 Physics) if GPA is to make a difference. All in all I seriously don't understand this top-tier school obsession. Academia has become so competitive that most schools (including mine which is a non-target for numerous reasons) are staffed with professors hailing from very prestigious graduate institutions. My school isn't even top 50 and the faculty in my department obtained Ph.D's from UCLA, Stanford, Duke, UMinnesota (top 10 combinatorics), Yale, etc. I understand that students at a top-tier school will generally be more driven and possess a higher intellectual capacity, but the quality of education shouldn't be denigrated arbitrarily. Students go to different schools for different reasons. I went to mine (over much higher ranked schools) because I was awarded full-scholarship and I liked the faculty in my major. Yet the perception would be that a student from Berkeley is smarter or more suited for the workplace?

3.8 at princeton would get pretty much anything they wanted.

www.gradeinflation.com

I'd hire the hungrier kid. In general, HR wants to do the pre-screening. Yes, they're prestige whores. A lot of actual bankers and traders you meet realize scrappiness counts and hail it when they see it.

If you do your job and network, you'll meet people who ought to be able to discern your character. Get them to go to bat for you, and you're in the short pile when it comes to selecting interviewees. Prove your worth in the interview, and it's yours to lose from there on.

harvard kid

First of all, the Harvard kid wouldn't even do a PWM internship so the whole question is moot. Not a valid scenario.

I'd hire the kid I'd rather sit next to for 15 hours a day

Second kid easily. He's harder working and based on his SAT scores, he's most likely smarter as well. Plus he has better finance internships.

I know this is a hypo, but a 3.4 gpa from harvard (unless it was math/sciences) is pretty bad since they have massive grade inflation. This kid is probably lazy and decided to just coast by while he was at harvard.

zzzzzz. if i just interviewed 5 other indians from harvard econ majors with subpar gpas and no soft skills and john hopkins kid can entertain ceo while i take a piss then

see what i did there

Can we just take a second and acknowledge how non-rigourous the academics at harvard are?

Harvard undergrad is about pedigree. They are famous for their grad schools and undergrad dropouts.

As my buddy at harvard once said, "its the hardest ivy to get into, but the easiest to graduate"

God, this board is so fucking out of touch it's not even funny. As long as they went to a reputable school, experience any day over pedigree of the school. I guess it may be different for a huge IB that just wants someone to crank but if you are looking for a candidate to actually grow with your firm, personality and fit followed by experience followed by education.

i still literally cannot believe these questions are asked.

I have absolutely been asked questions about why someone should hire me, a state school kid (back when I was actually a kid), over a kid from Harvard. It's a snobby, bull crap question, but I actually found it to be pretty easy to answer.

I've also been asked. While it's definitely a snobby question it's the perfect time to sell yourself on being the hungriest of the candidate pool. People love an underdog.

glad i am out of that fucking industry. it was already douchetastic enough as it was. it sounds fucking unbearable now.

These prestige threads are like nails on a chalkboard.

I'd hire the JHU kid. 3.4 sounds a lot like coasting.

I'm slightly biased but I'd take the 3.8-4.0 JHU kid any day of the week. A 3.8 at Hopkins is extremely difficult to get and it does show a lot of dedication and diligence. HOWEVER, there are a lot of people here that have a >3.8 and would not interview well, so it's a tough call.

Also the whole Harvard > all is pretty worthless. Getting into any top school is all about fit and great if you manage to get in. There is no meaningful difference between the average Harvard student and the kids at Princeton / Yale, and most of the top 10 / top 15 for that matter. As other people have said, the "top schools" are so saturated with talent is doesn't matter all that much. Now Harvard vs. Western Nebraska is a different story. The problem is people imagine Harvard to have this bastion of geniuses and if you don't go there you just don't have the skills, while in reality the SAT differential and other measures between top schools isn't nearly as large. It's the whole problem of the few (in this case Harvard students) taking a statistically large of the pie (in this case finance jobs) because they are perceived to be number 1. It goes back to the whole why would you buy the second best rock album if you can just buy the first one (ie. the 3.9 kid at Harvard over the 3.9 kid at CMU)

3.9-4.0 at a difficult undergrad school without grade inflation (Princeton, JHU, etc.) in a good major (financial economics and math for example) with good scores who has good work experience (BB IBD or the like) and interviews / fits well is probably the best candidate you can find. Not to mention if they are at a good but not top school they won't feel nearly as entitled to the job (in general).

Also, I will add that the value of a top school education lies in A) the quality of the peers and faculty B) the capital spent on students and available to them and C) the reputation of the school.

I think as people become more "open source" the value of a top school education will go down. The only reason a HYPSMetc. education is valuable is because you have a bunch of smart people in one place working on hard problems. The minute you make it easy for everyone to connect on a more even playing field, the more meritocratic society is going to become. The only reason businesses exist is to coordinate people to get at problems and provide a service, whether physically or intellectual.

Over time I think the value of a top school education will diminish. Don't get me wrong it will always be there, but with the advent of all sorts of new ways to communicate, learn, and share information, there won't be as much of a divide between the top and the bottom. IQs around the world are already compressing as people become more and more even and have access to more and more of the same information. A lot of courses are available for free online (MIT Opencourseware etc.) It won't happen in our lifetimes, but I can envision a day when college will become less and less of a necessity, a world where people get together to work on problems in a much more dynamic environment.

Any good interviewer from a firm you would actually want to work for would tell you that you have not provided nearly enough information to make a decision. By the way, what firm asks "Why should I hire you over the Harvard kid?" ?Maybe I can say this because I am "safely" employed, but who would want to work for a firm that exudes such snobbery? That truly is beyond the pale.

This line of question is just stupid. If this is for IBD it has nothing to do with how smart you are considering that the levels of math barely top what a 6th grader would need to know. The answer rests in who ever is more driven and hungry for the job.

This is ridiculous. Prestige is important but there's so much more to a candidate then the scores/schools your just listed. I go to a semi-target, and not one even ranked as high as Hopkins at that, and alumni from my school have worked at GS/MS/Blackstone/Lazard/etc. Prestige will only get you through the door. Both these kids would probably get an interview, the one who is the better fit would get the job

but, i have been asked "why you over the ivy league kids" before. I think it's a kind of dickish question, but it does give you the chance the sum up your strengths and touch on everything you want to touch on.

It's simple

Target (3.3) > Semi-Target (3.5) > Non-Target (4.0)

Adjust each GPA bps by .1 as you please Note that the non-target is capped at 4.0, so he gets f***** if the target has a 3.4 GPA.

Bottom line, attend target and semi target schools to maximize p, where p = probability of becoming a investment banking monkey.