Average Student at Target or Top Student at Semi-Target to Land MBB Jobs?
Is it better to attend a target such as Northwestern and be an average student, or attend a regional semi-target such as Babson and be a top student?
Dec 30, 2020
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From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship
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Be an exceptional top student at a target.
If that choice isn't possible (why not?) I would pick the target school and leverage brain power as much as possible.
Average kid at a target
Even at targets, only the top students get offers. My target sent only 18 to MBB last year (Out of ~2000 graduating seniors). If you are an average target kid with a 3.4, you are not in the game for MBB.
That being said, @OP, go to a target and be the top student. Don't assume that going to a lower ranked school will make it easier to get a high GPA. At any school (that's not some insanely hard major/program), working hard could get you the grades you need.
My ranking would be Top at target >>>>>>>> Top at Semi-target >>>Average at Target
It does depend on the schools though. Looking at linkedin, it does not seem Babson has a good pipeline to MBB, so it is more of a non target than a semi target. Northwestern is a top notch school as well. You should not pass up on that brand.
That's really interesting. WSO would probably think of my school as a non-target (and I refer to it as such) but we placed 6 at MBB this year (not including interns returning FT).
I took the top student at a non-target and it worked out extremely well for me to help get me into a top group in my industry preference but YMMV
You'll be most successful at the school that you like the most. Never, ever, ever pick a school solely based off job prospects. If you hate the school, you'll perform poorly, have a shitty 4 years, and not even get the job you want.
That being said, Babson College is not a semi-target. A quick google search will yield that neither Bain, McKinsey, or BCG have recruiting pages for Babson, and thus likely don't do on-campus recruiting or have dedicated recruiting teams. It looks like from their 2019 career outcomes report that they placed someone at BCG, but none at Bain or McKinsey.
Babson is not a target lmao
Obviously go to a target, anyone who disagrees is coping, end of thread
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