Was recently accepted to Bryant University for undergraduate and they gave me a lot of money (25k per year and their highest scholarship is 30k per year). It will be somewhat hard to turn down their offer. How are Bryant students and the university in general regarded in the investment banking world?
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nontarget
If I were you, you would be better off attending any of the following schools:
Don't fall for the 3 B's tactic (Bentley, Bryant, Babson) they are phenomenal schools, but have little to no presence on Wall Street. If you combine everyone from all 3 schools who make it to NYC Finance, it's a 1/20 of the number from any one of the schools above
I got deferred from Villanova so I have to wait and see what happens with them. Why is it that they tend to have little to no presence? Isn't Bentley's career services number one in the nation? So are you essentially saying it's impossible to break in?
Those career service stats are pretty meaningless. I have a few good friends that went to Bentley and all got good jobs out of college, but none of them went into banking due to their own personal interests. Also, Villanova and Bryant shouldn't even be in the same conversation. Just look at the acceptance rates (72% vs. 43%).
Bentley places rather well for a "non-target" in the past years. It is certainly trending into a semi-target . This year we sent 8 kids to IB, 6 to S&T roles, 4 to Capital Markets, 7 in equity research, 3 straight to HF, 5 in PE, and about 12 into asset management firms like wellington. So out of the 172 graduates majoring in finance placing 45 into target roles sound good to me. Bentley is what you make of it, get a good gpa, network and work hard. You can make it regardless of what may be said.
What about kelly
I didnt apply. wouldn't wanna go that far anyways
Hey how about considering Fordham Syracuse or Penn State. If you keep your grades up in Firdham, it's slowly becoming a upper semi target and I've seen at least 30-50 IB pepple in linkedinkn, Syracuse has the orange fund, penn state has some lion program. Honestly, you don't seem like a target level student in terms of academics. Don't take offense, if I were you I'd max out on applications to schools that are becoming targets which were once semi targets like the ones I mentioned in this post and the ones I posted in my other posts. Check out LinkedIn and WSO Power Rankings, and PoetsandQuants. These have been invaluable resources as I narrowed down my list from 10 schools to chapel hill and Kelly, then I chose Kelly just for the target presence if I get into the workshop.
Second the part about Fordham. Definitely helps that they are so close to NYC. I see a lot of Fordham kids at diversity events and I personally know of around 10 juniors this year who landed BB/EB/MMs SA. Fordham deserves more credit than most people give them.
I agree, I have heard many good things about Fordham, especially students there. I would have already committed to Fordham (I got in) but money is the issue. They only gave me $10,900 a year in grants and I need to bring the price down to at least $30,000.
No I do not take offense and based off of how I performed in HS, I didn't try as hard as I should've and I am not a target level student. I did apply to Fordham and I got into Gabelli at Rose Hill. However, they did not give me enough. Yeah I have been at LinkedIn as of late at different alums and where they work.
should have gone unc. Kelly only gives you a shot through the ib club. Unc gives you a better name brand for life and easier to recruit from unc.
I have some close friends that are Bryant alums and it is definitely not the place to be if banking, and more so VC, is your goal. I know of one guy who had to scratch and claw his way into IB and was finally able to break in as a 1st year analyst at 26. Bentley would give you a much better shot of breaking into a small boutique and if Bryant is your best option, go there for 1 year, absolutely kill it and look to transfer to a better school. Again, if it's your only choice, accept that fact and develop a plan of how your going to put yourself in a position to get to where you want to be.
Damn. I mean Bryant so far is the cheapest option but my other options are Fordham (accepted, but they didn't give me enough), Villanova (deferred, praying I get in), and Bentley. If I get a good amount of Bentley I would go. It's relatively decent, especially in comparison to Bryant. I have already started thinking of a potential transfer if I have to go to Bryant. Most likely would transfer sophomore/junior year.
Negotiate your scholarship, tell them that you want to attend and that they are your number one choice but Bryant has a cost of attendance of X and if they could give you enough scholarship aid to match that COA you'd go to Fordham.
Went there and currently work as an IB analyst. I can tell you from experience it is doable, but by no means easy. You will have to grind hard at networking to get your resume in front of the right people. The earlier you start, the better, if you have good grades, activities, and are pretty good with people you can make it happen at Bryant. In my personal opinion, the hustle you will go through trying to achieve it will make you better suited for the job than other available routes.
All that being said obviously if a top target was an option that is a better route...and your options to get into IB assuming you do everything right will likely not consist of GS/Top BB opportunities. But Bryant will get you enough to give you a chance, and at the end of the day that is all you can really ask for.
Time to clear some things up. Please don't settle for Bryant. It's not worth the hassle if you have other options. First of all, here are a list of targets, semi targets, and upper non targets in your range:
New Targets - new in terms of they just moved from semi to target level
Boston College Villanova Kelly SMU Colgate - might be hard to get in with your stats, but if you do, OCR Guarenteed for IB.
Semi Targets
Fordham - Yes, Fordham: GO HERE DONT THROW IT AWAY Ohio State - go for cheaper price than Fordham even if it's out of state UW Madison - hear good thins about it across the board U of Florida
Upper Non Targets
UGA - great if you want Georgia banking or just southern banking, em you can easily break into vc from here BYU - can't go wrong with its reputation Babson - in my opinion, better resources and alumni base targeted towards IB and vc compare to Bentley, but then again it's famous only for entrepreneurship
10 years from now I can promise you that Fordham will emerge as a sleeper target school like Colgate and SMU and Kelly.
Since you got into it, go there. Consider the other schools as well.
If you do end up going to Bryant, just transfer to NYU Stern or some good target school because VC is impossible from a school like Bryant. Bottom line, if you go to Bryant or Bentley, VC doors are probably closed. However I can see IB as a viable option.
The wealthiest Bryant alumni was a partner at Benchmark Capital
A bit a stretch to say those 5 are all "new targets." Pretty sure most would be considered solidly within the "semi-target" designation still.
Transferring is certainly an option and NYU Stern is a great school, but if cost of attendance is a factor then I'm not sure NYU Stern is going to be a real consideration for OP. By far the most expensive school listed and, reputation-wise, not all that generous with financial aid.
As far as Bryant goes...not a real factor in IB recruiting in NYC.
What about UCONN? Huge backup option if I really have nothing else.
How about someone who has done an ib internship / works in ib gives the advice? You just got into college as mentioned in your above post and you are giving a list of "new target" schools? You haven't even done recruiting yet you know the "new" targets? You are giving him horrible advice dude. It's possible to do any thing from anywhere. You don't know vc is closed off if he goes to Bryant, you haven't even made it into the Kelly ib shop.
Edit: Kelly is not and never will be a target. Kelly is the b school within an otherwise horrible lower tier big ten school.
What advice do you have for me? Anything you have to offer would be extremely helpful. Detailed and honest advice would be much appreciated.
I thought I'd chime in because you mentioned you were interested in venture capital. If you were looking to get into any of the Silicon Valley or even large West Coast VC firms, all of the schools mentioned above are non-starters. If you are looking at MA/NY VC firms it is also a complete outside shot. My friends in VC at places like Battery or Bessemer went to top target schools. A look at the team section for a lot of the top firms will show much the same.
If you are looking at corporate VC after a couple years in banking, then it's possible depending on the group you place into. VC generally places a much larger emphasis on relationship-building and networks so going to a top target school is a huge step up. Spending some time in a group and building a network inside the VC community is your most assured shot.
Consider growth equity as back door. They generally invest later stage and are sort of the middle ground between VC and PE but I've seen kids from non-target schools do better there.
To be honest, ideally I would like to go into VC after undergrad (but that is close to impossible). However, there is a venture capital firm up in Boston (invests primarily in biotech) that I have connections at and I could possibly get an internship and even a job there at some stage. And I feel if I do really well there then I could potentially try and work at a VC firm on the West Coast (after I get my MBA).
I mean I will consider all options in order to break in, including CVC (Google Ventures, Intel Capital, etc) and growth equity. Let me ask you this, is it difficult to break into VC if coming from growth equity?
I still want to consider banking because I feel like I can learn a lot from it and develop valuable skills, however VC is where I truly want to be. However, I don't want to be stuck at some MM bank initially because then it would be even harder for me to break into VC. If I go into banking, I want to try and be att a BB, EB, or a boutique.
It is much easier to break into VC from growth equity, especially if you are a smaller or mid-sized growth firm that is doing mostly minority deals. You'll be dealing with a lot of those VCs and will spend time in those circles. If you are at one of the mega-growth funds or even the upper-middle firms that take mostly majority deals it is going to be a little harder because there will be more structure and less time with GPs.
I don't know what application cycles look like for college because I am far removed but going to a school like San Jose State or Santa Clara University would be a much better fit for getting to West Coast growth/VC than a non target east coast school. At least VCs will have heard of your school then and interacted with people that went there. I don't know what your plans look like for moving to the west coast though.
should I consider consulting to break into IB as well? Like work at a place like McKinsey/Bain?
I know JMI, Bain Cap, and Golden Gate hire a lot of consultants but VC doesn't seem to have a ton of consultants. Generally speaking, VCs don't look at consulting experience as super valuable because you have neither operations experience nor investment experience. If you went to McKinsey for a couple years, crushed it at a startup in strategy/ops or product management for a few years and then pushed to be a VC associate I could see it happening. That's a slow route though.
Corporate VC will appreciate consulting experience a lot more.
Yeah, MBB will be pretty tough to get into from Bryant. Probably harder than IB tbh.
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If you have nothing useful to say then don't comment on this thread.
My brother went to Bryant and he still regrets his decision.. He is transferring to NYU next year
Literally no single bank recruits at Bryant University. From what i recall In last 5 years they sent 5 ppl in total to Nomura and 1 kid got healthcare boutique IB in Boston and thats pretty much it and all 5-6 got it thru networking. THERE IS NO BANKING OCR AT BRYANT.
PwC and CVS are the two big firms that recruits there.
VC is hard after undergrad from most schools but it is next to impossible to get into either IB or VC from Bryant.
PM me if you want to learn anything else.
good god
Target Schools Princeton, Harvard, Wharton Yale, MIT, Duke, Stanford, UChicago
Semi-Target Schools Columbia, UPenn (econ), Dartmouth Cornell, Brown, Ross, Georgetown Northwestern, UVA (McIntire), Vanderbilt Notre Dame, Stern, Boston College, Indiana (Kelly)
Non-Target Schools All the rest
Probably missing some schools here and there, also didn't include west coast schools.
I saw that you were interested in working in VC. I had a friend that interned with a search fund for their firs two summers and was able to land a VC job in NYC out of undergrad at Bryant. Not sure what their AUM is. But anyways, I don't think a school like Bryant is an obstacle to a hard worker.
Yeah I kind of feel that if I work really hard to get good grades there and if I network a lot then I could break in. However, if I get into Bentley or Villanova then I most likely won't go to Bryant. Only considering for financial reasons.
I'm sorry what university?
Either provide legitimate, helpful information or do not post on this thread. I ask this politely.
And how do you intend on preventing me from posting on this thread about some shitty school that no one's ever heard of? I'm curious to know.
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