We always hear about the all-stars at places like Wharton and Harvard landing gigs at Blackstone and Silver Lake. Obviously, this is what you would expect from the cream of the top schools on earth. But what about the average kid at Wharton or Harvard wanting to get into Finance? What do kids who graduate from Wharton with 3.0's do? Obviously these kids exist (curve and all) but I was wondering what roles they take up? Also, when a kid graduates from Wharton with a low-ish GPA is he/she also screwed when it comes to MBA admissions because it looks like they can't handle the workload? Just intrigued to know what happens up there at the top...
Discuss
they work at boutiques
Gridley and Co Livingston Securities Piper Jaffray Bank of Ameria Gold Mansacks Super Lehman Brothers JT Marlin etc.
It is very common to go into a "Financial Analyst" position in a corporate setting, say, for a Fortune 500 or 1000 company. It may not be as prestigious or difficult to obtain as the IBD- or S&T-type positions, but they are still solid jobs, especially if you are at a company that offers strong job security.
I go to a top target where the median GPA is 3.2 overall and about that for the majors that are the biggest feeders into IBD/S&T/MBB/PE/etc.. A large percentage of graduating seniors (want to say >50%, but it may be right around there) right now do not have jobs (including many that are well above the median) and probably 1/3 to 1/2 of the people that do have offers are unhappy with them and/or settled for something quite low-level and/or very low paying just to ensure they aren't broke for the next 12-24 months. A lot of people are pissed. It is kinda hard to convince someone who graduated well above the mean (and with honors) and plenty of ECs that it was worth it to come to the school and drop a couple hundred thousand when they still don't have a job. Life's tough.
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i hear ya. i left penn a few years ago (before recruiting totally tanked), and even back then a LOT of people in may were either still without jobs or were unhappy with the jobs they accepted. the percentages were obviously lower than what you provided, but were still surprising to people back then. too much attention is generated by the upper quartile of candidates that it provides a skewed perception.
it's the same phenomenon when it comes to college placements for your exeters and thomas jeffersons of the world. trust me, despite perception, not everyone from those schools is going to ivy-caliber schools. not even close.
Anyway, what do people do?
Good question--a bunch of the people that have the most respected FT offers from top places are actually not superstars at all and well below the median, but due to very well connected families and whatnot, will likely always have a job of some kind. I am sure people here could attest to this--I know of at least 3 individuals substantially below a 3 GPA wise that have gotten FT offers @ GS, for example, based predominantly on connections (certainly not their intellectual brain power). It is especially common with foreigners and in offices outside of the US. Many others are pursuing graduate school of some kind and may be doing research within the University or another university in business/math/economics/etc. to maintain an employment history. Others have taken jobs that are simply what they could get--some F500 FA type positions, but just as many are doing research for large companies as well (a lot of quantitative researchers and the like). Some people are working for non-profits for relatively low pay or going off to do something completely atypical (lots of TFA and foreign teaching/volunteering/research abroad type stuff).
If you are well below the median, you probably just don't have a job unless you're connected in some fashion.
They go back to be associates on the sell-side at investment banks.
Seriously, look around your office at the post-MBA associates. They've all got MBA's from good schools, but think hard - do you think they got 3.9's when they were there? Do they really seem like the type?
For the most part, regardless of school, people that do mediocre in school do mediocre in life. I'm not saying you have to have a 3.75+ to do well in life, but the successful people tend to be the ones that got a 3.3+ AND did a lot while they were there as far as ECs are concerned.
THERE ARE HOWEVER EXCEPTIONS TO EVERY RULE. You could be a late bloomer or have a parent that happens to be the CEO of a bank.
And keep in mind when I say that, that there are tiers of mediocre. Mediocre from HBS is different then mediocre from Podunk Community College.
I could not think of anything in life which would suck more than to go to one of the best schools in the country and get a corporate finance position at a F500 company. That is like having a Ferrari and losing a race to a kid in a Honda. Absolutely nothing wrong with F500, accounting, whatever, but with the prestige/brand/education quality/network/ etc that comes with going to a top school you should be able to break into whatever you want.
Graduate school
Yeah I just always wondered about this. We always hear about the kids at the top of the class but never those near the bottom. I'd assume a 3.0 at a place like Wharton still sets you up pretty nicely and being able to still put that name on your resume must account for something. Going back to b-school from a place like that must be utterly awful though.
I knew bunch of kids from ivies and likes (UPenn/Wharton, Columbia, Cornell, etc.) doing BB BO/MO (pre-2008 too). Don't know their GPAs, but I assume it was not 3.8.
A lot of investment consultants at Mercer, Cambridge and Willshire are ivy grads (not Harvard or Wharton, from what I have seen). Every consultant or relationship manager I have met from Factset and Bloomberg came from at least a target school. I know a few 3.3 – 3.5 GPA Wharton kids who went to work for lesser know niche consulting firms doing things like real estate or public planning.
PWM is a good landing spot for a “mediocre” Ivy leaguer – PWM is actually perfect for someone with more “brand” than brains.
Quote “I could not think of anything in life which would suck more than to go to one of the best schools in the country and get a corporate finance position at a F500 company. That is like having a Ferrari and losing a race to a kid in a Honda. Absolutely nothing wrong with F500, accounting, whatever, but with the prestige/brand/education quality/network/ etc that comes with going to a top school you should be able to break into whatever you want”
Good point. I think F500 is a great start to a career but I would consider it a failure for a Harvard/Wharton/MIT type. Imagine spending $200K on an education and entering an LDP program with a bunch of state school kids who spent WAY less money and had WAY more fun.
Well the thing is most kids at these schools didnt actually drop 200k because of the amazing financial aid programs they have. Also, some people just be content with F500 jobs. I will say that if you are at a Wharton whats the point of studying Finance at a place like that if you don't aspire for high finance? To each his/her own. Also, once they get out into the world and maybe discover they want to do something else, having Harvard/Wharton on your resume even with a low GPA is sure to get you into at least one T15 MBA school.
i worked with a penn guy with a 2.9 in 2005 in my analyst class with a f500 firm... he traded for one year then went to harvard law.... he said he just could not keep up and choose penn over mich(his state school) but was behind the whole time
How in the hell do you get into HLS with a 2.9?
He probably scored high enough on the LSAT; law schools care much less about your past GPA or work exp
dude was very smart and had high sat;s so guessing he also had high lsat;s coupled with some work exp and good essays..
You know, this is what the other sections of the forums are for:
//www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/EntrpreneurialEcstasy
//www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/theotherroad
All you young kids here need to keep in mind how much luck is involved in where you end up. And by "luck" I'm including macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions.
If you got an MBA at H/W/etc. in 2004, then yes, even the laziest and or dumbest kids found stellar jobs.
But if you graduated in 2009 then even some of the smartest and hardest-working couldn't find what some earlier posters seem to classify as jobs that are prestigious enough, for lack of a better term.
One thing I've learned the further I get in my career is that while hard work matters most, and brains is a close second, luck and timing trump both. If you speak to enough highly successful people, you'll notice a trend--most of them had a specific turning point in their careers where someone much more senior gave them a opportunity they could not have gotten on their own. They took it, they capitalized on it, and it launched their career upward multiple notches. If you get one of these opportunities you can use it to leapfrog past your peer group. For some people these come right away, while for others it takes much longer, if it ever comes at all.
But even in 2009, i think 95% of HBS students got full-time jobs within 6 months after graduation. The difference may have been that they got fewer offers than they would have in a better job climate or that they had to "settle" for working at barclays rather than goldman sachs.
The highly coveted "elite" firms, like paulson, moore, SAC, citadel, blackstone, etc., only hire a few from HBS and wharton, regardless of how good the economy is. The sectors that get impacted the most seem to be banking and consulting.
Like said before many kids at top schools go work at F500 companies. Not necessarily in their financial analyst program, but they can also work their way into strategy positions.
The main difference between the state school kids and the "top target" kids is that USUALLY (not always) the top target kids are more prepared for the work and they end up climbing the ladder faster. My friend who graduated from wharton undergrad went on to work for a F500 company. After 3 years he had been promoted twice and was way ahead of where the rest of his leadership development or whatever they call it class was.
How did he differentiate himself?
^ He had to be given opportunities to do so. I work in corp finance at a F500, and you can try to "raise the bar" all you want to, but you're still competing with managers and directors that have way more experience and know the business 10 times better than you.
The only way you can make moves like that is if you have a VP or higher executive that decides to put you on the fast track. That would give you an outlet for your ideas and work to be more meaningful and thereby move up quicker. If not, you'll just be doing a lot of analysis and building models that people are going to look and laugh at.
To be honest a lot of it had to do with his attitude and maturity.
He worked very hard, he understood the importance of networking and having good relationships with his boss and other higher ups. So while other people were checking in and out when they were told, he made an effort to stick around a bit longer, talk to some people, basically the networking doesn't stop once you land your first job.
He was also a smart kid and tried being creative and come up with suggestions. He worked hard outside of work to really understand the business and when he felt comfortable with his understanding of the business he was able to provide suggestions to his boss that were well thought out and actually made sense.
Once he was done with his "leadership program" he was headed to a strategy group within the firm while others were headed to finance, operations, marketing, etc.
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