Why do banks recruit at "Semi-Targets" if there are too many apps from Harvard, Wharton and Princeton??

I always hear that at Wharton, Harvard and Princeton it's super hard and competitive to land an ibanking job as there're many students fighting for limited spots. If this was the case, then why would these same banks recruit at Semi-Targets such as Stern, Ross and Northwestern? If they want the best talent possible and they think that the best talent are at the top Ivy's, why wont they just recruit there...ONLY? If you don't understand what im staying, I'll put it like this...
Goldman Sachs has 200 spots open for potential 1st year analyst.
Wharton, Harvard and Princeton altogether has about 2000 students who want these spots at Goldman. But instead of filling these spots up with just "the big 3", they only sign up about 100 from these schools and go recruit at the "Tier 2" schools such as Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Stanford, Yale and MIT. At these schools, they sign up about 65 or 70 in total and move on the the "Tier 3" schools such as Ross, Stern, UVA,etc and take about 25 to 30 kids. And the rest are filled with people from schools such as U of T, UCLA, KU and other NON TARGET SCHOOL cold callers.
I was wondering why don't they just recruit at the 3 main schools if they think that they're the best talent and they want only the best?

 
EngPhD:
LOL at Stanford, MIT and Yale being "Tier 2."

Edit: Can't believe I fell for this. I know better than to feed the trolls.

they're the same quality, but from what I've read they are not as well represented on wall street and banks don't recruit there as heavily as wharton,harvard and Princeton.

 

Because they don't want to recruit "target school" idiots like you??

I don't accept sacrifices and I don't make them. ... If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade at all. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud.
 

Different factors.....one that comes to mind is maybe based on high level alumni that work at the company.

You give me a gift? *BAM* Thank you note! You invite me somewhere? *POW* RSVP! You do me a favor? *WHAM* Favor returned! Do not test my politeness.
 

the top of a "tier 2" is just as good/ better than a middle of the road "tier 1"

the very top of a "tier 3" is just as good/ better than a middle of the road "tier 1"

etc.

so there are more "tier 1"s but to get the best they get smaller fractions from "lesser" schools.

this was too serious of an answer.

what i meant was fuck you prestige whore. or something.

 

because not everyone wants to do banking because not everyone from HYP needs money because they are wealthy scions and can afford to be anthropologists and philanthropists and philosophers and philanderers and sexual deviants for the rest of their lives

 

thanks every1 who actually answered my question without unneeded remarks, and to the guys who said some negative stuff about me, calling me a troll and saying im an idiot...well im guessing you're just a bitter 29 year old analyst who went to a non target and is mad at me for mentioning the top colleges that you were rejected at. or didn't make it to associate or VP. Im 15 and im asking an innocent question. as i wanna become a banker one day(And i actually want to go to Duke, im not a "prestige whore" )

 

let me tell you a little story...

last year I went to a tier 3 school non-target (complete shit school) I had a 3.97 at years end while being involved in many clubs without even studying. No banks or top companies recruited at that school.

I then transferred to an IVY for my sophomore year. It is an obvious target with HEAVY bank recuiting I have a 3.8 after one semester and as of now I have a 4.0 this semester so it will probably go up.

If a bank decided to recruit at my shitty school, I would have been a worthy candidate since I am obviously smart enough to get a high gpa with more difficult work.

Now since I go to a target I will probably land a gig in the future and it had nothing to do with my school. I was smart at the other school as well.

School doesn't always reflect a person's intelligence. I went to that school because I was poor and needed the scholarship and my dad was sick so I stayed close to home.

"Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In twenty years, if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house to watch the Patriots games, still workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill you. That's not a threat, that's a fact.
 
jbert112:
Is this a serious thread?

And how the hell are Yale, NYU, NW, and Stanford not "target schools"

i didn't say they weren't, i just said that they were a -->step below
 

Banks recruit outside of HYPS because there are lots of incredibly smart, hard working, and dedicated students at other schools, and they would be doing themselves a disservice if they didn't look at Michigan, U of Chicago, UVA, Wash U, Duke, Vanderbilt, Cal, and other schools of that caliber. Not to mention all of the extremely smart kids who don't go to top 25 schools for whatever reason.

 

Also, i was wondering if you attend a target school that banks recruit from(and have a good gpa), do you need connections(such as knowing someone at the top of the ranks) to get the interview? I at first though you did as the banks wont have enough time to interview everyone who wants an ibanking job so they mainly interview the well connected people first and then got to the others. But now i think that they interview everyone thats qualified(even if they don't have connections). Which is true?

 

3.8 in Bronx Science huh?

I know several 3.0 -unheard of public school- alums in banking now. I also know several 4.0 Stuyvesant alums that are GMs in Foot Locker/CVS.

Doing well academically does not immediately mean you can succeed in a corporate setting.

I don't want to attack your ideas, but just wanna let you know theres a lot more to a person than their GPA.

Banking.
 
MrV:
3.8 in Bronx Science huh?

I know several 3.0 -unheard of public school- alums in banking now. I also know several 4.0 Stuyvesant alums that are GMs in Foot Locker/CVS.

Doing well academically does not immediately mean you can succeed in a corporate setting.

I don't want to attack your ideas, but just wanna let you know theres a lot more to a person than their GPA.

you're right, and I've never said it did. I was responding to an earlier post made by someone. My intentions were never to brag about a 3.8.
 
kendall:
MrV:
3.8 in Bronx Science huh?

I know several 3.0 -unheard of public school- alums in banking now. I also know several 4.0 Stuyvesant alums that are GMs in Foot Locker/CVS.

Doing well academically does not immediately mean you can succeed in a corporate setting.

I don't want to attack your ideas, but just wanna let you know theres a lot more to a person than their GPA.

you're right, and I've never said it did. I was responding to an earlier post made by someone. My intentions were never to brag about a 3.8.
It's something to brag about, but develop the rest of yourself as well. True story: I had terrible grades but got a far better job than the valedictorian simply because the guy was so tired by the end of school and so bookish that he didn't understand the concept of networking and tanked the few interviews he had. Aside from quant / trading, most of this stuff is not all that tough, there's just a lot of it and the more important factor is your ability to successfully interact with people.
Get busy living
 

But on a less serious note, you're on sophomore in HS! go frolic in the park, go hangout! do fun things. No need to waste your time on WSO so early on in the game, although its harmless to lurk around a bit. :P

Banking.
 
kendall:
Lol, i know that. I have friends and a Gf. Just thinking about the future. Im not saying i want to do banking now, just had a question related to banking so I posted it.

Why dont NBA teams just draft kids from Duke/UNC and ignore everyone else? think about that and you'll know why. go have some fun.... get laid with your gf... you're 15, you shouldn't be on WSO 24/7 its fine to browse around and wanting to know more about the industry.. but u're asking for it for asking retarded questions like this on the board.

Do a quick search and you'll realize that topics such as "Rank these BBs", "Which of these PE firms are considered to be the most prestigious?", "Which Business school gives a the best shot at GS?" get shit on the most

 
J15:
kendall:
Lol, i know that. I have friends and a Gf. Just thinking about the future. Im not saying i want to do banking now, just had a question related to banking so I posted it.

Why dont NBA teams just draft kids from Duke/UNC and ignore everyone else?

LOL - I was going to say the exact same thing...

 

Because a lot of the try hard high school kids become burn outs at a target college and a lot of burn out high school kids become try hards at a non target college. And unless youre some GS prestige whore faggot, you should hire the latter.

 
SpencerMakesBank:
Because a lot of the try hard high school kids become burn outs at a target college and a lot of burn out high school kids become try hards at a non target college. And unless youre some GS prestige whore faggot, you should hire the latter.

i would give you a silver banana if i knew how to(or had one).

 
thedose:
seriously, go ride a skateboard
why do you continue to post in this thread if you're going to make these petty comments. What the fuck do i look like riding a skateboard?
 

kendall, I don't know why everyone is hating on your thread. I think you bring up a great point that I've always wondered myself. I always hear that top colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are very competitive and difficult to get into. If this is the case, then why do they accept students from Tier 2 high schools such as Bronx Science? If they want the best talent possible, and they believe the best talent is at Tier 1 high schools such as Stuyvesant, why won't they just accept students from there ONLY?

 
Steelo:
kendall, I don't know why everyone is hating on your thread. I think you bring up a great point that I've always wondered myself. I always hear that top colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are very competitive and difficult to get into. If this is the case, then why do they accept students from Tier 2 high schools such as Bronx Science? If they want the best talent possible, and they believe the best talent is at Tier 1 high schools such as Stuyvesant, why won't they just accept students from there ONLY?

Not to mention it would be a stretch to even call Bronx Science a tier 2. I'd say stuy, hchs, dalton, etc. would be more tier w/ Exeter, Andover a step above

Oh god hs tiers... what have i unleashed upon this world :P

 
econ:
OP, are you kidding me? Why does everyone assume that all the students at the top schools are better than all the students everywhere else?
I have NEVER said a school is better than another school. I was trying to ask if Goldman Sachs THINKS that the students at Wharton ARE BETTER than at lets say NYU, why wont they accept the most Wharton students that they can before going to recruit at NYU.
 
kendall:
econ:
OP, are you kidding me? Why does everyone assume that all the students at the top schools are better than all the students everywhere else?
I have NEVER said a school is better than another school. I was trying to ask if Goldman Sachs THINKS that the students at Wharton ARE BETTER than at lets say NYU, why wont they accept the most Wharton students that they can before going to recruit at NYU.
* Some kids at a state school are smarter than some kids at HYP * Not everyone at HYP wants to do banking * Companies don't want too many alumni from any one school because they form informal power blocks that cause an imbalance within the company * Some kids fuck up in high school and then are much better in college * .....there's a lot of good reasons.

I've worked with several people from Ivies and honestly, we were sitting in the same office, doing the same thing, getting the same pay and I found it funny. Granted, their had an easier time landing a job, so I will be pushing for an Ivy for grad school. In all seriousness, some of the brightest people I've ever met went to state shcools and do just fine.

Get busy living
 

Kendall, these things are beyond your control. I come from a similarly challenging background and was lucky enough to make it to HYP. It's good that you're looking and planning ahead. I think you'll do well if you're playing chess while others are playing checkers. My advice is to just work hard, learn, and enjoy life. If you do those things you will do very well no matter where you go to college.

 
Best Response

Here's the real answer to your question.

One day, when you're a bit older, you'll take a course on logic, and you'll learn that to defeat an argument, you must either attack the predicates or the logic itself. Your logic is reasonable, but I reject your predicates.

One of your main assumptions is that Goldman believes kids from H/P/W (by the way, Yale is certainly a top target in the States) are better than kids from all other schools. That's simply untrue. If they thought that way, then they would recruit almost exclusively from those schools. But Goldman doesn't recruit solely from those schools. And it's for all of the reasons people highlighted above.

I live with two GS traders. Neither of them went to HYPWS. In London, that list would look like: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL (since undergrads cannot attend LBS). Even at Lazard (who bums pedigree more than just about anyone), about half of the analyst class came from outside of those schools.

The quality of your education is only an indicator of your intelligence, but you don't have to be particularly clever to be an investment banker. You have to be willing to work VERY long hours doing exceedingly remedial accounting, spreadsheet work, and powerpoint presentations (pitch books). Moreover, at a senior level, you're eventually going to have to be able to convince C-level executives at major corporations to go through with a deal (that's how you get paid in investment banking--it's based on deal flow). That's the real reason there is a skew toward HYPWS kids on Wall Street. In 20 years, those kids will--in all likelihood--know a larger number of high-level executives than kids that go to SUNY.

Just about anyone that graduates with a 3.75+ GPA from a top 100 school can do the work of an investment banking analyst or associate. But there is a serious difference between doing the job of an analyst and doing the job of a director or MD. You'll never make it to MD based on your spectacular Excel skills. You need to know people, and be generally likeable (in the end, you're selling the exact same product every other I-banker is selling). That's why you need to relax and go hang out with your friends. Your 15-years-old for Christ's sake! I currently do business with people I knew when I was 15, and I didn't know anything about I-banking until my senior year in college.

And I did my undergrad at a 'tier 2' target, and I still got better offers than just about anyone on this board. And I went to a MUCH worse high school than you do. That's why I can guess why Duke is your first choice--they are the best school that offers merit scholarships. But that shouldn't matter for you based on how poor you claim to be. With a 3.8 at Bronx Science, if you get a 2300+ SAT, and do some solid extracurriculars, you'll get into a top Ivy, and you won't have to pay for it (it's called financial aid). Moreover, if you live in the projects (apologies for the generalization), I suspect there is a good chance you are an ethnic minority (think African-American or Hispanic). If that's the case, you'll get in everywhere. If it's not, and you happen to be a poor white kid living in the projects, you do need to work harder than minorities in your situation. Affirmative action really blows for socioeconomically disadvantaged Caucasians.

Either way, you need to work hard, relax a bit, and focus on having a good time in high school and getting into a good college. And one day, many years from now, maybe you'll sit across the table from me, and I'll ask you why you want to be a trader, and why I should pick you over all of the other kids from HYPWS. And you'll tell me that you're hungrier than they are, and I'll believe you.

 
brotherbear:
Here's the real answer to your question.

One day, when you're a bit older, you'll take a course on logic, and you'll learn that to defeat an argument, you must either attack the predicates or the logic itself. Your logic is reasonable, but I reject your predicates.

One of your main assumptions is that Goldman believes kids from H/P/W (by the way, Yale is certainly a top target in the States) are better than kids from all other schools. That's simply untrue. If they thought that way, then they would recruit almost exclusively from those schools. But Goldman doesn't recruit solely from those schools. And it's for all of the reasons people highlighted above.

I live with two GS traders. Neither of them went to HYPWS. In London, that list would look like: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL (since undergrads cannot attend LBS). Even at Lazard (who bums pedigree more than just about anyone), about half of the analyst class came from outside of those schools.

The quality of your education is only an indicator of your intelligence, but you don't have to be particularly clever to be an investment banker. You have to be willing to work VERY long hours doing exceedingly remedial accounting, spreadsheet work, and powerpoint presentations (pitch books). Moreover, at a senior level, you're eventually going to have to be able to convince C-level executives at major corporations to go through with a deal (that's how you get paid in investment banking--it's based on deal flow). That's the real reason there is a skew toward HYPWS kids on Wall Street. In 20 years, those kids will--in all likelihood--know a larger number of high-level executives than kids that go to SUNY.

Just about anyone that graduates with a 3.75+ GPA from a top 100 school can do the work of an investment banking analyst or associate. But there is a serious difference between doing the job of an analyst and doing the job of a director or MD. You'll never make it to MD based on your spectacular Excel skills. You need to know people, and be generally likeable (in the end, you're selling the exact same product every other I-banker is selling). That's why you need to relax and go hang out with your friends. Your 15-years-old for Christ's sake! I currently do business with people I knew when I was 15, and I didn't know anything about I-banking until my senior year in college.

And I did my undergrad at a 'tier 2' target, and I still got better offers than just about anyone on this board. And I went to a MUCH worse high school than you do. That's why I can guess why Duke is your first choice--they are the best school that offers merit scholarships. But that shouldn't matter for you based on how poor you claim to be. With a 3.8 at Bronx Science, if you get a 2300+ SAT, and do some solid extracurriculars, you'll get into a top Ivy, and you won't have to pay for it (it's called financial aid). Moreover, if you live in the projects (apologies for the generalization), I suspect there is a good chance you are an ethnic minority (think African-American or Hispanic). If that's the case, you'll get in everywhere. If it's not, and you happen to be a poor white kid living in the projects, you do need to work harder than minorities in your situation. Affirmative action really blows for socioeconomically disadvantaged Caucasians.

Either way, you need to work hard, relax a bit, and focus on having a good time in high school and getting into a good college. And one day, many years from now, maybe you'll sit across the table from me, and I'll ask you why you want to be a trader, and why I should pick you over all of the other kids from HYPWS. And you'll tell me that you're hungrier than they are, and I'll believe you.

absolutely amazing post. silver banana for you.

"Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In twenty years, if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house to watch the Patriots games, still workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill you. That's not a threat, that's a fact.
 
brotherbear:
Here's the real answer to your question.

One day, when you're a bit older, you'll take a course on logic, and you'll learn that to defeat an argument, you must either attack the predicates or the logic itself. Your logic is reasonable, but I reject your predicates.

One of your main assumptions is that Goldman believes kids from H/P/W (by the way, Yale is certainly a top target in the States) are better than kids from all other schools. That's simply untrue. If they thought that way, then they would recruit almost exclusively from those schools. But Goldman doesn't recruit solely from those schools. And it's for all of the reasons people highlighted above.

I live with two GS traders. Neither of them went to HYPWS. In London, that list would look like: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL (since undergrads cannot attend LBS). Even at Lazard (who bums pedigree more than just about anyone), about half of the analyst class came from outside of those schools.

The quality of your education is only an indicator of your intelligence, but you don't have to be particularly clever to be an investment banker. You have to be willing to work VERY long hours doing exceedingly remedial accounting, spreadsheet work, and powerpoint presentations (pitch books). Moreover, at a senior level, you're eventually going to have to be able to convince C-level executives at major corporations to go through with a deal (that's how you get paid in investment banking--it's based on deal flow). That's the real reason there is a skew toward HYPWS kids on Wall Street. In 20 years, those kids will--in all likelihood--know a larger number of high-level executives than kids that go to SUNY.

Just about anyone that graduates with a 3.75+ GPA from a top 100 school can do the work of an investment banking analyst or associate. But there is a serious difference between doing the job of an analyst and doing the job of a director or MD. You'll never make it to MD based on your spectacular Excel skills. You need to know people, and be generally likeable (in the end, you're selling the exact same product every other I-banker is selling). That's why you need to relax and go hang out with your friends. Your 15-years-old for Christ's sake! I currently do business with people I knew when I was 15, and I didn't know anything about I-banking until my senior year in college.

And I did my undergrad at a 'tier 2' target, and I still got better offers than just about anyone on this board. And I went to a MUCH worse high school than you do. That's why I can guess why Duke is your first choice--they are the best school that offers merit scholarships. But that shouldn't matter for you based on how poor you claim to be. With a 3.8 at Bronx Science, if you get a 2300+ SAT, and do some solid extracurriculars, you'll get into a top Ivy, and you won't have to pay for it (it's called financial aid). Moreover, if you live in the projects (apologies for the generalization), I suspect there is a good chance you are an ethnic minority (think African-American or Hispanic). If that's the case, you'll get in everywhere. If it's not, and you happen to be a poor white kid living in the projects, you do need to work harder than minorities in your situation. Affirmative action really blows for socioeconomically disadvantaged Caucasians.

Either way, you need to work hard, relax a bit, and focus on having a good time in high school and getting into a good college. And one day, many years from now, maybe you'll sit across the table from me, and I'll ask you why you want to be a trader, and why I should pick you over all of the other kids from HYPWS. And you'll tell me that you're hungrier than they are, and I'll believe you.

great post, I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm black(which makes me a URM). Ima print out that post and hang it up, really inspirational.
 
kendall:
brotherbear:
Here's the real answer to your question.

One day, when you're a bit older, you'll take a course on logic, and you'll learn that to defeat an argument, you must either attack the predicates or the logic itself. Your logic is reasonable, but I reject your predicates.

One of your main assumptions is that Goldman believes kids from H/P/W (by the way, Yale is certainly a top target in the States) are better than kids from all other schools. That's simply untrue. If they thought that way, then they would recruit almost exclusively from those schools. But Goldman doesn't recruit solely from those schools. And it's for all of the reasons people highlighted above.

I live with two GS traders. Neither of them went to HYPWS. In London, that list would look like: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL (since undergrads cannot attend LBS). Even at Lazard (who bums pedigree more than just about anyone), about half of the analyst class came from outside of those schools.

The quality of your education is only an indicator of your intelligence, but you don't have to be particularly clever to be an investment banker. You have to be willing to work VERY long hours doing exceedingly remedial accounting, spreadsheet work, and powerpoint presentations (pitch books). Moreover, at a senior level, you're eventually going to have to be able to convince C-level executives at major corporations to go through with a deal (that's how you get paid in investment banking--it's based on deal flow). That's the real reason there is a skew toward HYPWS kids on Wall Street. In 20 years, those kids will--in all likelihood--know a larger number of high-level executives than kids that go to SUNY.

Just about anyone that graduates with a 3.75+ GPA from a top 100 school can do the work of an investment banking analyst or associate. But there is a serious difference between doing the job of an analyst and doing the job of a director or MD. You'll never make it to MD based on your spectacular Excel skills. You need to know people, and be generally likeable (in the end, you're selling the exact same product every other I-banker is selling). That's why you need to relax and go hang out with your friends. Your 15-years-old for Christ's sake! I currently do business with people I knew when I was 15, and I didn't know anything about I-banking until my senior year in college.

And I did my undergrad at a 'tier 2' target, and I still got better offers than just about anyone on this board. And I went to a MUCH worse high school than you do. That's why I can guess why Duke is your first choice--they are the best school that offers merit scholarships. But that shouldn't matter for you based on how poor you claim to be. With a 3.8 at Bronx Science, if you get a 2300+ SAT, and do some solid extracurriculars, you'll get into a top Ivy, and you won't have to pay for it (it's called financial aid). Moreover, if you live in the projects (apologies for the generalization), I suspect there is a good chance you are an ethnic minority (think African-American or Hispanic). If that's the case, you'll get in everywhere. If it's not, and you happen to be a poor white kid living in the projects, you do need to work harder than minorities in your situation. Affirmative action really blows for socioeconomically disadvantaged Caucasians.

Either way, you need to work hard, relax a bit, and focus on having a good time in high school and getting into a good college. And one day, many years from now, maybe you'll sit across the table from me, and I'll ask you why you want to be a trader, and why I should pick you over all of the other kids from HYPWS. And you'll tell me that you're hungrier than they are, and I'll believe you.

great post, I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm black(which makes me a URM). Ima print out that post and hang it up, really inspirational.

You're black? Focus more of your efforts on becoming on getting recruited by the NBA, than wall street. Either that or jail haha

 
kendall][quote=brotherbear:
Here's the real answer to your question.

great post, I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm black(which makes me a URM). Ima print out that post and hang it up, really inspirational.

This entire f**king topic screams troll.

 
brotherbear:
Here's the real answer to your question.

One day, when you're a bit older, you'll take a course on logic, and you'll learn that to defeat an argument, you must either attack the predicates or the logic itself. Your logic is reasonable, but I reject your predicates.

One of your main assumptions is that Goldman believes kids from H/P/W (by the way, Yale is certainly a top target in the States) are better than kids from all other schools. That's simply untrue. If they thought that way, then they would recruit almost exclusively from those schools. But Goldman doesn't recruit solely from those schools. And it's for all of the reasons people highlighted above.

I live with two GS traders. Neither of them went to HYPWS. In London, that list would look like: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL (since undergrads cannot attend LBS). Even at Lazard (who bums pedigree more than just about anyone), about half of the analyst class came from outside of those schools.

The quality of your education is only an indicator of your intelligence, but you don't have to be particularly clever to be an investment banker. You have to be willing to work VERY long hours doing exceedingly remedial accounting, spreadsheet work, and powerpoint presentations (pitch books). Moreover, at a senior level, you're eventually going to have to be able to convince C-level executives at major corporations to go through with a deal (that's how you get paid in investment banking--it's based on deal flow). That's the real reason there is a skew toward HYPWS kids on Wall Street. In 20 years, those kids will--in all likelihood--know a larger number of high-level executives than kids that go to SUNY.

Just about anyone that graduates with a 3.75+ GPA from a top 100 school can do the work of an investment banking analyst or associate. But there is a serious difference between doing the job of an analyst and doing the job of a director or MD. You'll never make it to MD based on your spectacular Excel skills. You need to know people, and be generally likeable (in the end, you're selling the exact same product every other I-banker is selling). That's why you need to relax and go hang out with your friends. Your 15-years-old for Christ's sake! I currently do business with people I knew when I was 15, and I didn't know anything about I-banking until my senior year in college.

And I did my undergrad at a 'tier 2' target, and I still got better offers than just about anyone on this board. And I went to a MUCH worse high school than you do. That's why I can guess why Duke is your first choice--they are the best school that offers merit scholarships. But that shouldn't matter for you based on how poor you claim to be. With a 3.8 at Bronx Science, if you get a 2300+ SAT, and do some solid extracurriculars, you'll get into a top Ivy, and you won't have to pay for it (it's called financial aid). Moreover, if you live in the projects (apologies for the generalization), I suspect there is a good chance you are an ethnic minority (think African-American or Hispanic). If that's the case, you'll get in everywhere. If it's not, and you happen to be a poor white kid living in the projects, you do need to work harder than minorities in your situation. Affirmative action really blows for socioeconomically disadvantaged Caucasians.

Either way, you need to work hard, relax a bit, and focus on having a good time in high school and getting into a good college. And one day, many years from now, maybe you'll sit across the table from me, and I'll ask you why you want to be a trader, and why I should pick you over all of the other kids from HYPWS. And you'll tell me that you're hungrier than they are, and I'll believe you.

Great stuff. Write a book.

- Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered. - The harder you work, the luckier you become. - I believe in the "Golden Rule": the man with the gold rules.
 

well if st. pauls would give enough finacial aid, i could be there instead of BX sci....and @futuretrader1999, i never said my opinion on college tiers and never said a school is better than another.

 

this kid thinks he's going to get in HYP with a 3.8 from Bronx Science haha. In about 3 years we'll see him upload a "NON-TARGET RESUME FOR PWM" in the resume section and watch it get shitted on by forum members LOL

 
chubbybunny:
this kid thinks he's going to get in HYP with a 3.8 from Bronx Science haha. In about 3 years we'll see him upload a "NON-TARGET RESUME FOR PWM" in the resume section and watch it get shitted on by forum members LOL
What's your problem?What have I done to you? I never said anything bad about any college or anything good about any college. I didn't post my gpa to brag as I'm not even in the top 20% at my school. You haven't contributed to the thread, but you continue to try and make me feel bad. Why are you hating on someone 10 years older than you for asking a simple question. I dont even want to go to Harvard or any other "fancy" Ivy League school. I want to go to Duke, so obviously im not trying to say Ivy is better than the rest and Im NOT trying to say that Banks should ONLY recruit at Wharton, Harvard and Princeton. But I can garantee you that I'm a better student than you and that I'll be a better banker than you. You seem like the person who doesn't work for anything and made it to where you are today by a well connected parent. Kudos dude, you can hold ur own against a freshman in HS...
 

I don't know about this tier system of High Schools, but Bronx and Stuy are about the same. Tons of intelligent kids that are on the same academic level as kids from Andover.

Banking.
 
MrV:
I don't know about this tier system of High Schools, but Bronx and Stuy are about the same. Tons of intelligent kids that are on the same academic level as kids from Andover.

Quite untrue - you'd be surprised what an extra 30 points on the Specialized Science High Schools Admissions Test means about your intelligence. Stuy >>>> BX Sci

 
Steelo:
MrV:
I don't know about this tier system of High Schools, but Bronx and Stuy are about the same. Tons of intelligent kids that are on the same academic level as kids from Andover.

Quite untrue - you'd be surprised what an extra 30 points on the Specialized Science High Schools Admissions Test means about your intelligence. Stuy >>>> Bx Sci

I disagree, Those 30 points are indicative of your intelligence in 8th grade(when the test is administered), which is hardly a reliable measure when you're talking long-term. Stuy-Bklyn Tech is the case I would say there is enough spread to see a difference. Stuy == Bx > Tech(100points). I'm going to stop with this. Feel like this thread has deviated enough from the original topic.

Banking.
 

kids from Stuyvesant and Bronx are smarter than the vast majority of Andover/Exeter kids I've met

A majority of those prep school kids are system smart i.e. they are brought up in an environment that made them read Thoreau and Tennyson. Any fucking kid can do that

Math and tech schools blow them out of the water in terms of intelligence but not in terms of overall well-roundedness and social grace

 
Solidarity:
kids from Stuyvesant and Bronx are smarter than the vast majority of Andover/Exeter kids I've met

A majority of those prep school kids are system smart i.e. they are brought up in an environment that made them read Thoreau and Tennyson. Any fucking kid can do that

Math and tech schools blow them out of the water in terms of intelligence but not in terms of overall well-roundedness and social grace

Dude.... Have you MET the math/tech kids from Andover/Exeter? They practically RECRUIT people from around the world who are good at math/tech. They offer olympiad teams full rides. Kids from my HS place well on national math competitions get an emails about transferring to Exeter, lol. Sure, the smartest mathematicians at Bronx are smart, But you have no idea what your talking about it if you think that just because it is a tech school, it has better math/science students. And I'm not talking calc/multi-variable calc shit. I'm talking Usamo, IMO level stuff. Stuy has plenty of great kids that compare to elite private schools, because they are such a great public school. But the sheer concentration of smart kids at elite private schools is ridiculous. It's why my public HS hated them. Their education is not necessarily better, but they basically buy the best students.

 
KevinNYC:
Frankly I feel bad for any 15 year old who knows what investment banking is. Go practice for your drivers license test and play grab ass in the back of a movie theater

That's what i've been thinking since the start of this fail thread!

"I am Shiva the god of death"
 

HYPWMS, 3.8+ GPA - they are overrated, of course, but in the end, these names and stats will make it MUCH easier to get hired after college. When it comes to being fired, all kinds of other reasons will come into play - personality, performance issues, drive, etc.

From experience, the stereotype I have of 4.0 students, particularly those from math/science intensive schools is that they tend to think of the problems and solutions in terms of being right/wrong, like what you are used from textbook cases - solve the problem, lookup answer in back page, compare, if right move to another problem, if wrong, check again. In reality, especially in business/economics sciences, there are no right/wrong answers, there are only solutions that are slightly better or worse, and that too depends more on what you do - action, people you know know and similar things, rather than how complicated is the math you used to work out the problem. For example, a simpler solution can be much more effective because you can pitch/explain/put to action that to a higher number or people, while some smart looking model based on dozens of derivative equations will fail because no-one understands it, or has any inclination to spend time trying to understand it. If you go quant/academia path, creativity is factor that will start to play later on. Excellent grades do not really imply creativity, and if you burn out, that will seriously impact your drive and creativity.

For a thought, look at the profiles of senior people at GS or KKR, the % of people there that are graduates from target schools is much lower at senior levels when compared to analyst/associate classes. That tells something.

 

What 15 year old knows who Lloyd Blankfien is? Sounds fishy. I'm 27, and I just recently learned who he is after becoming more interested in finance careers. Frankly, I'm not even sure I spelled his name correctly. I had probably heard of him before from reading the newspaper, but certainly wasn't making any references to on message boards.

 

Did you ever think, just maybe, that a formal education is not always the key ingredient to success?

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions. -Niccolo Machiavelli
 

Something important that has not been mentioned is that people's interests change as they grow up. Don't think just because you're 15 or even 25 that you will want to be in finance your whole life, because even if you don't change, the industry will, in ways no one will expect. Doing the best you can all the time is what allows you to switch into new areas that excite you.

Also, a lot of people are telling you to have fun in HS, but don't waste your time the way every other kid does. Be sure to be productive and constantly learning new things, and especially new methods to control yourself. Now is the only time you can experiment and get away with it, so try to do the best and don't ever care what people think, as long as you're really trying to figure out how to do better. Social skills (with adults) are very important, and limit a lot of smart people from being successful. Finally, be sure to kill all your bad habits before they become permanent parts of your character. The older people get, the harder it is to change themselves, so be sure to set yourself straight early on.

"Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?" -Jean-Baptiste Say
 

holy shit... this is the same kid who talked about jerking off to porn on my most recent forum post (which oddly had nothing to do with porn). i'm not sure if he's a troll or just has severe social retardation....

Money Never Sleeps? More like Money Never SUCKS amirite?!?!?!?
 

Kendell me and you need to have a chat.....your goals and ideas are all screwed up....

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 

This thread covered the main points, but an old boss had a view that I am sure is not unique on the street:

Guys from tier 3 schools are likely to be a lot more motivated to work their ass off than the guy who has been the "favorite" his whole life from Harvard.

I have seen my share of pompous douches with "pedigrees" show up as interns and think their last name or family connections is all they need to succeed. These are the guys that tend to show up with 10k watches on their wrist and a $3k suit that doesn't even fit right. Most of the time they can be bitch slapped a few times and then they get in line, but I have seen a few interns not get offers, and analysts that just couldn't shake their attitude get told straight out that they weren't VP material at the firm.

Now to be fair, I have seen two guys from third tier schools that I am not sure exactly how they got an offer and didn't make it, but I have never seen a guy from a shitty school show up expecting people to get him coffee. Those guys also tend to be a lot more loyal to their managers.

That boss in particular, would always look for entrepreneurial type guys- the guys who instead of only working excel problems from textbooks, actually created forecasts for their own businesses. If you had a 3.0 but got a business off the ground and sold it, that was worth more than a 4.0 from Wharton any day. And I agree with him- VP's and MD's always talk about wanting to hire the go-getter, and then tend to hire MBAs who have had their head in a book for the past 20 years. Doesn't really compute when you think about it.

 
econ:
OP, you're young, so I'd recommend reading this: http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

If I could go back to high school, I would take this advice incredibly seriously. In fact, I'm even trying to implement some of these things now in my mid-20s, so I actually recommend all the rest of you guys read this article too.

I think Daniel Tosh's graduation speech that he highlighted in his stand up is far superior

 
ModusOperandi:
econ:
OP, you're young, so I'd recommend reading this: http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

If I could go back to high school, I would take this advice incredibly seriously. In fact, I'm even trying to implement some of these things now in my mid-20s, so I actually recommend all the rest of you guys read this article too.

I think Daniel Tosh's graduation speech that he highlighted in his stand up is far superior

http://comedians.jokes.com/daniel-tosh/videos/daniel-tosh---dose-of-rea…

 

http://www.maa.org/news/051010usamo.html http://amc.maa.org/e-exams/e8-usamo/e8-1-usamoarchive/2009-ua/09-Qual_l…

Actually it looks like the "smartest" HS's in the country are Thomas Jefferson in Virginia and Exeter. They consistently place the most kids into the USAMO competition, although the enrollment is bigger than at TJ. Pretty interesting how concentrated the top math talent is. It's pretty noisy up at the top, so I wouldn't go by winners.

However, it gets even more concentrated in college such that the Putnam is dominated by 5 schools: MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Stanford and Harvard. Rarely does anyone from Cornell, UPenn, Brown, Columbia, or Yale place in honorable mention and above. This basically means that colleges are now "in the know" and will auto-admit the math/science studs who do well in regional and national competitions.

Comparing 1994 Putnam results to 2009's, this seems like a pretty recent phenomenon. In the past the best research has been done by people from all over the place, which shows how important creativity is compared book smarts. We'll see if this concentration of talent changes the distribution of research talent as well.

 
UFOinsider:
TraderDaily:
Not all banks target semi-targets. Look at Lazard. They are uber prestigious and focus on only the very elite schools....
less than true

this isn't true at all.. because there is someone on this board that goes to a semi target that is going to Lazard.....

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 

Here's the deal. Wealthy people go to tier ones. These people have connections to more money. The father of ... who is 4th gen on the street continues to get sons, daughters, etc in all the time. Tier 2 is the difference of a few disgruntled kids getting a survey and being pissed. Then you get a non-target kid who has or doesn't have talent and runs rings around the kids that have everything given to them. This is the reason why 70% or more come from targets and why the last spots go to extreme works and net-workers. Now you can go to a target school or a non-target, amazing GPA and if you don't produce or no one wants to work with you, you will end end up on the street i.e. not Wall Street. This occurs anywhere.

Hard work beats talent, when talent isn't working!!!

 
rollo89:
Plenty of people get rejected from schools like Brown, Dartmouth, or Stanford and get into HYP. Also, plenty of kids want to go to those schools over HYP.

Never compare Stanford vs. darthmouth and brown. that situation could be true but it is much lesls common.

Brown and Darthmouth are in a different tier than HYPS it is a known fact. sorry to burst your bubble

 

I figure its because the major firms don't want out outsource their recruiting ENTIRELY to schools. Is it possible that someone would get accepted or rejected from a school for a reason other than why they would be hired by a bank? Of course -- that's why banks don't want to delegate 100% to schools for their "first round" of recruiting.

 

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