UW Madison, Ridiculous Placement

Apparently they placed two kids in GS TMT and Blackstone M&A this past summer and into full-time. Also a bunch more at MS, JPM, CS, DB, etc. How are they not considered a target?

53 Comments
 

Well...from what I've read on here real "targets" send larger amounts of kids to whatever bank they are a "target" for...certainly more than two, although those are no doubt respectable placements. It sounds like UW might be a lot closer to a semi target (on campus recruiting, info sessions, only taking a select few). And I'm not hating, I'm at UNC which is generally considered a semi target as well.

 

UW currently has a few BBs recruiting on campus through our career center. I'd probably consider it a semi-target. The majority of our placements are through the Investment Banking Club, which is highly selective (which I know of first-hand, unfortunately) and provides great learning and networking opportunities. I know the students you are speaking of and can tell you their resumes are stellar. I'd say we send about a dozen kids to the street every year. I agree with panther that targets do send a larger amount which is probably why we are not considered a target.

 

I go to a target. Numbers from this year should be lower, but last year my school sent almost 50 to Goldman, 20 to Morgan, and 9 to Blackstone. Plus, about 10-15 to each of the top consulting firms.

 
zex7012I go to a target. Numbers from this year should be lower, but last year my school sent almost 50 to Goldman, 20 to Morgan, and 9 to Blackstone. Plus, about 10-15 to each of the top consulting firms.

You are a liar. I doubt Blackstone had 9 in total, let alone from one school. Also, the notion that Goldman would take 50 kids from one school is absolutely absurd. I've never understood why people lie without any clear incentive to do so; perhaps you could explain....

 
zex7012I go to a target. Numbers from this year should be lower, but last year my school sent almost 50 to Goldman, 20 to Morgan, and 9 to Blackstone. Plus, about 10-15 to each of the top consulting firms.

Ya right, Blackstone has about 12-15 M&A analysts nationally. Goldman would never take 50 from one school. I go to a target and the numbers are nowhere near that.

 
gocalifornia
zex7012I go to a target. Numbers from this year should be lower, but last year my school sent almost 50 to Goldman, 20 to Morgan, and 9 to Blackstone. Plus, about 10-15 to each of the top consulting firms.

Ya right, Blackstone has about 12-15 M&A analysts nationally. Goldman would never take 50 from one school. I go to a target and the numbers are nowhere near that.

That is because 45 were in Middle Office, 4 in Compliance, and one in HR. Sorry, Human Capital that is.

 
Best Response

The guy that was placed in Blackstone M&A had a stellar resume, and he told the club that there were ~14 undergrad interns (if I didn't remb wrongly) total in Blackstone (M&A, PE, Real estate & some group). Your school sending 9 kids to blackstone would be really unlikely, unless you're including back/mid office positions

We had three people in Goldman for SA, but I'm certain that two of them aren't in TMT. One person went to MS, and a couple to DB, CS, all for summers.

But truthfully, UW-Madison is not a target school since we don't get on-campus interviews by the BBs. It's arguably even a semi-target based on HR perceptions. All our recruiting successes are owed to our alumni base.

 
chankyThe guy that was placed in Blackstone M&A had a stellar resume, and he told the club that there were ~14 undergrad interns (if I didn't remb wrongly) total in Blackstone (M&A, PE, Real estate & some group). Your school sending 9 kids to blackstone would be really unlikely, unless you're including back/mid office positions
ChelseaFC85You are a liar. I doubt Blackstone had 9 in total, let alone from one school. Also, the notion that Goldman would take 50 kids from one school is absolutely absurd. I've never understood why people lie without any clear incentive to do so; perhaps you could explain....
gocaliforniaYa right, Blackstone has about 12-15 M&A analysts nationally. Goldman would never take 50 from one school. I go to a target and the numbers are nowhere near that.

I know for certain that there were 5 full-time Penn analysts (pretty much all graduated magna or summa) for M&A alone, which includes the Structured Products Advisory specialty group. I actually am not sure how many Penn analysts are in Restructuring, PE, Real Estate, or BAAM, but given the placement of 5 Penn alumni in the M&A group alone, it's not difficult to imagine an additional 4 for the remaining front-office groups.

 

I go to zex's school and actually all 9 sent to Blackstone were fast-tracked to partner level. As far as Goldman goes, I think my roommate from freshman year is now next in line to become CEO after Blankfien (he interned there last summer... was pretty much a total rockstar).

 

Lol. Look at all the hate on zex, poor dude. He never claimed that all 50 got into FO.

I like how he backed up his statement with numbers and owned all of you. Good Job.

 

The numbers he gave seem to be the combined 07 and 08. However, I will say that having been an SA at JPM last year, I noticed there was a very large number (and seemingly disproportionate number when compared to other schools, even the other targets) of Quakers in the S&T summer class.

Disclaimer: I don't go to Penn...or any target for that matter.

 

Met some Wisconsin students at a recent Goldman event and boy do those UWM ladies live up to their reputation of being sexy.

 

Madison would be ok if all the disgusting fatbodies there would stop drinking ranch dressing all the time and throw away the briq weed.

 

For reference, there were 16 kids from Penn in my bank's class this year in IBD, and probably a comparable number in S&T and then a few others in middle office / HR / etc. 50 is probably high, but 30-35 is definitely possible to have from one school, especially Wharton.

 
thefunsterUW Madison has produced more F500 CEOs than any other school. I am not surprised by this at all.

that wouldn't necessarily increase the schools likelihood of being a target school or a BB feeder. i too agree though that UW..much like any big10 will send about 10graduates/yr into wallstreet. however, those 10 probably networked extremely hard, graduated top of the class, had stellar resumes, etc. in my honest opinion, i dont believe going to an IVY or target for that matter makes you more qualified do M&A, BB, PE, etc. i think students from UW are just as capable of becoming excellent BBs as are graduates from Wharton.

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” - Albert Einstein
 

I have close friends who go/went to the UW, so let me break it down for you:

-between 10-20 kids go to BBs for FO IBD or Asset Mgmt in either NYC or Chicago (historically more Chicago than NYC, but thanks to investment banking club, more are getting into NYC) -another 10 or so get into middle market investment banks in Chicago/Minneapolis- BMO Capital Markets, Houlihan Lokey. Piper Jaffray -maybe 5 get into random boutiques in Chicago/Milwaukee -another 3-5 into prop trading shops in Chicago (Chicago Trading Company, Wolverine Trading) -another 10-20 kids go to top real estate firms (Jones Lang LaSalle, Tishman Speyer, Heitman LLC) for either development, acquisitions, or investment management (usually Chicago) -back in the boomtimes, 5-10 would get into CMBS type roles with banks in Chicago (LaSalle Bank which is now Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase) -the rest do either commercial banking, F500 corp fin/corp dev roles, go to grad school, or remain unemployed. -there are definitely some rockstars who attend the UW- kid at Blackstone, kid who interned with Houlihan as a sophomore and MS M&A in NYC as a junior, Goldman Sachs NYC who later went on to a top hedge fund, kid at Credit Suisse TMT NYC, etc.

given the above, I think it's safe to say that the UW is a semi-target for Chicago banks and a target for Chicago real estate companies, it's an up and coming semi-target for NYC. I think it's ranked 13th in the USNWR undergrad b-school rankings, which I think is about right. All in all, not bad for a school known for being populist, liberal, borderline socialist and staunchly anti-capitalist (which makes me wonder, how does Cal-Berkeley manage to have a good business program?)

 
FembertonSo what are your chances if you are not at a "Target"?

Depends a lot on where you are and where you're trying to go. I went to a private undergrad ranked somewhere around 100 and knew several kids who got bb ib offers (50/50 regional office/ new York) with another handful who ended up hlkz, and other mm. Those are pretty good numbers on a % basis. Obviously it took great grades and some networking but it happened (and continues to happen...I graduated 05).

I think the target/ semi-target definition is correct though. Schools like mine send 10 on the high end, while schools like upenn send 50 or whatever on average.

 
YourWorstEnemyMight as well major in art history or underwater basket weaving, NEEEEXXXXXT

Seriously don't listen to this moron, he has the same snide comments for everyone. You should be fine just grind out good ec's, good gpa, and network.

 

I currently go to UW-Madison and am majoring in econ. You'll be fine, we get pretty much all the BBs for OCR. Granted, it'll be tough to distinguish yourself given the fact that the BBs don't take more than a couple people here every year, but have a solid GPA, a good pre-Junior internship, and maybe a contact or two at one of the BBs and you can do it. I know of at least two econ majors here who got jobs at Goldman, granted they had 3.9s, but it shows that it's very possible.

 

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