HYP vs GS/JPM/MS
Just for some speculative fun, what would you say is harder: getting into Harvard, Princeton or the likes out of high school or landing a job at a top BB after university?
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HYP......BB is something you can network and practice for and have some control over or influence on that is direct where as HYP is still out of your control beyond numbers/essay
HYP hands down is my best guess. Reason being you could land a job at a top BB out of non-target schools or with relatively low GPA's etc, through networking/pure hustle etc- we've all read stories of it happening. However, good luck getting into HYP from some random high school with no real achievements grade-wise (and otherwise).
1.) Brady is that you? 2.) GS/MS/JPM generally speaking, but obviously subject to your situation, the group you are considering, etc. etc.
I think I and a few other people scared away a lot of the H/Y/P/Chi/S/M but struggling to land at a BB crowd from WSO. So we have a lot of folks here that are very good at what they do, but don't necessarily have amazing undergrad backgrounds. And WSO tends to serve as a magnet for people who would want to work at those firms and might have a shot at those firms but aren't necessarily from H/Y/P.
I can also tell you that a lot of people at H/Y/P struggle to get into banking.
I think there are a lot of different dimensions to this. I think that for the average person:
-If you factor in ANY route into any of these banks (including anything in the front office) and ANY of these schools (including grad school) -If you get as many applications at different points in your life for undergrad or grad school as you get job applications to these firms (until you are too old for grad school).
It is easier to get into YSOM or HKS than it is to get into Morgan Stanley Portfolio Research.
It is easier to get into a Harvard Econ PhD program than it is to become chief economist at GS.
It is easier to get published in the Journal of Finance than it is to earn $10 million in a year at any of these firms.
Those of you who know my story know that I made six or seven attempts at the FO but only three at elite schools. I consider JPM IBD a much bigger accomplishment than Harvard Econ, even Harvard Math/Stats. (Maybe not as big of an accomplishment as MIT CS, but that is another story.)
getting into HYP out of HS is extremely, extremely hard. Getting into a BB requires good grade from a decent college and a bit of preparation. There's no comparison.
This. Everyone I knew from my high school who ended up going to HYP was pretty exceptional. In contrast, tons of people that went to BBs in FO roles from my college seemed relatively "ordinary" to be honest.
I would disagree. Getting a high GPA in high school is cake. Laughably easy. Killing the SAT is even easier. Write a good personal statement and BAM, you're accepted.
GS/MS/JPM have require a good college GPA, awesome networking skills, and multiple rounds of interviews. Plus, from a pure acceptance rate standpoint, I'd surmise the rate of acceptances for jobs at GS is lower than HYPs, while the overall caliber of applications is higher. You have a lot of extremely unqualified kids that apply to HYP just to see what happens.
But I guess we can all say HYP is harder - maybe that will make us feel better when we get beaten out for jobs.
lol you sound like a high school freshman, everything you said is either very misleading or just wrong.
HYP is harder and more impressive.
No, I'm instead someone from a target who has already summered. Maybe my personal experience is atypical, but I found getting into college from high school to be much easier than landing GS/MS.
And, as far as being "just wrong" goes, I believe mtntop990 provided numbers. I'm not looking to engage much further because I don't think any of us should have time for Internet flame wars.
Not discounting anything by any means -- obviously these are all incredible achievements.
But, to add some numbers to what SmokeyG says: 15,000+ people apply for BB's (IBD). That would be at best a 1.3% acceptance rate vs ~6% for HYP
Pretty sure the college-level achievements trumps the high school ones. Getting into top BBs are like 1-2% no? Even harder getting into the top groups too. I'd say HYP has more prestige.
HYP since there is more competition for one spot.
Would your answers change if we compared HYP to a top group (ie. BX, gs tmt/fig, ms m&a)?
Stupid thread, but I agree with this guy:
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/this-is-not-college-confidential-…
I think there is a strong correlation between knowing a lot of people from GS/JPM/MS and thinking it's easier to get in.
I think there is a strong correlation between knowing a lot of people from H/Y/P and thinking it's easier to get in.
High school and undergraduate education in the US is a joke.
Nope.
...and George is from Connecticut.
Why is it that nobody outside of France except for a few people in finance have heard of Ecole Polytechnique (probably France's best school except the weird place Hollande went to) but folks in Europe and China have heard of Illinois and Berkeley?
India has IIT. China has Tsinghua and Fudan. These guys are smart but not that smart, and they're not as good as kids from Berkeley, UIUC, and UT Austin. Not to mention MIT and Stanford. Polytechnique graduates a bunch of ORFE folks in six years who come out amazing at stochal which isn't all that useful these days, and then struggle with something useful like programming, despite having six years of a STEM education.
Then, when the Frenchies come to complain about Americans online, it's always about us not having something that is generally useless. Americans don't know French, don't have culture, don't know stochastic calculus, don't know European history, could never win a trivia game on Jeopardy. But I can't program, I can't work, I'll strike if I don't get a 35 hour workweek, and I'll whine about 20% unemployment.
70% odds you're French or you're Asian. 100% odds you're pissed off by the outcomes from our system relative to the outcomes for yours'.
.
Prime example of American arrogance, and in your case- outright ignorance and stupidity. If there are any other Asians on this forum who are familiar with IIT, it's sub 2% acceptance rate, and the exceptional math / physics skills of those who are admitted to it, then please take a moment to laugh at this clown.
LOLOL! Tsinghua guys are smart BUT NOT THAT SMART? not as good as UT AUSTIN or UIUC? dude, you're joking. gtfo. you have no idea what you're talking about.
I would agree for some places. If you come from Europe the undergraduate and high school education has much higher standards on average. My high school in Europe expected much more than american high school but on the other hand my college in the US expects and teaches me more than university back home.
then again the people i know at my school (hyp) are on average, less impressive than the people I meet at BBs. but i agree that i probably worked harder to get into college than a bank
how is this even a comparison? the 6-7% acceptance rate for hyp towers over the acceptance rates for ibd at GS/ms/JPM. Secondly, success in college is more meaningful than success in HS.
One could also make the claim that the lower acceptance rate for GS/MS/JPM is even more meaningful because the applicant pool is generally of a higher caliber.
All those people who say getting into GS/MS/JPM is harder than getting into HYP is wrong. Stop trying to make yourself feel better about getting or being close to have gotten an GS/MS/JPM offer but being FAR away from getting accepted to HYP as a high school senior.
You can't use the statistics that is being used in this thread because no one taking into account who is applying to HYP and who is applying to GS/MS/JPM, which would most likely skew the "stats" in HYP's favor. There is a strong selection bias here that is working against HYP.
Almost everyone who is interested in banking/S+T drops a resume to GS/MS/JPM - after all, why not... it's not difficult to drop a resume. Even if I didn't have a chance at GS/MS/JPM, I would still drop a resume. This would not be true in HYP's case. Can you imagine what HYP's acceptance rate would be if almost everyone who is interested in going to college applied?
I think a lot of unqualified people still apply to Ivies because they are Ivies. Everyone going to college knows what Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are. Everyone going into Finance or a tangential field [Accounting, Consulting] doesn't necessarily know the rankings/relative prestige of GS/MS/JPM. I think the CalTechs/Harvey Mudds on the education side, and maybe the Stifels/[a lot of the elite boutiques] will have more self-selecting talent pools, despite maybe not being the most selective colleges/firms themselves.
Ultimately, the recruiting needs and processes are different which, of course is the easy answer. I would say that it is a more meritocratic process to get into a top firm, given that there is a larger degree of control over recruitment (mainly networking and past work experience). This is compared to a mostly submit and pray process that most Ivy league schools employ, given the reduced amount for adcoms to look through your application compounded with extreme limitations if you don't have a certain hook [URM, athlete, legacy] to get in.
How is it more meritocratic to get into a top firm? Meritocratic means based on your ability to perform the job well, not based on your family connections or small-talk with an MD. I'd say there are a lot of people in top banks who did not have adequate ability to perform the job but got in, using some of the things I listed above. These things happen in college admissions too, but to a lesser extent. I think that a committee comprised of academics and experienced people makes a better judgement based on persons achievements than a group of bankers interviewing about DCF or brainteasers.
I mostly agree with you.
I would say that although a lot of unqualified people still apply to the Ivies, the proportion of that group of people out of the entire base of college applicants is very small. Also note that I did not say "Finance or a tangential field" but purely banking and S+T, in which I think most applicants, qualified or not, apply since it's so easy to do so. This point I am trying to make is mostly me trying to say that using the acceptance statistics isn't very fair or accurate. If you included most of college-interested students as the denominator for H's acceptance rate (rather than just those who applied), the rate would be much, much lower.
From my perspective, given that getting into a top firm is a "more meritocratic process" in which you have a "larger degree of control over recruitment", it is actually easier to get into GS/MS/JPM. Please note that I am not saying you have complete control or that it is completely meritocratic. Because it is mostly a "submit and pray process that most Ivy League schools employ" (esp. HYP), you have to be way incredibly above the top tier of students to get a good chance at these schools. This is why it's more difficult. You don't have to be way above and beyond your peers at your given college (even though it may be a target) to get into GS/MS/JPM.
PS: HYP adcom can choke on a fat one because I beat nearly all of their students to get my preftigious job.
How do you measure the prestige of a job? Because it pays well? That's it? Some of these guys from HYP might end up discovering things which actually serve a purpose to bigger population, whereas the most sophisticated thing you'll do in your job will be learning new excel shortcuts. I really don't get how people put themselves above others so easily. I think the comparison is pretty stupid, the admission process differs and there are different criteria for selection.
Take a deep breath and unclench your asscheeks. The conversation is about which is harder to get into, not which is more prestigious.
I know quite a few people who got into IIT who elected to go to universities abroad. Apparently there are quite a few people who take the IITs who aren't that qualified.
Comparing HYP to GS/MS/JPM is a little problematic, because they're really different... one group are banks and the other group are universities. HYP students are interested in many things other than finance too..
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