Top undergrad for quant finance?
I am lucky to have been admitted to all the Ivies (except UPenn—they waitlisted me) and Caltech, MIT, and Stanford. I am very interested in going into Quant.
I've narrowed my top 4 to be Stanford, Dartmouth, MIT, and Caltech
My question is how do these institutions rank in quant output? Would choosing Dartmouth over the others be a "mistake" if I want a career at Jane Street or HRT? It seems to me that it's MIT>Stanford=Caltech>Dartmouth.
I have visited all of them and if I were purely picking the right "fit" or the institution that I would enjoy the most, that would be Dartmouth. However, I also know that Dartmouth pales in comparison to the other 3 schools when it comes to quant recruiting. This leaves me down to my top 3 being Caltech, MIT, and Stanford. I see myself equally at all of them and would enjoy the academic environment at Caltech/MIT or the more relaxed atmosphere of Stanford.
I heard some firms (almost) exclusively recruit from MIT so that would be a plus. What do you guys think? How would you guys rank these schools? Any advice would be appreciated. This is the first big major decision I'm making alone. The reasoning I want to do quant is for the $$ if I'm being real. I want to put my family through retirement (none of my family members have retirement accounts) and some family members have recurring health issues. All of this takes a lot of $$ that I don't see any other jobs paying on the same level as quant.
Finances are not a concern; I have been offered full rides to all of them.
Why have you ruled out HYP? If Dartmouth is the best fit for you, I cannot see why you would want to go to MIT or Caltech. Those two (especially Caltech) are nothing like Dartmouth in the student-population.
When I talked to friends and visited Harv, I got the feeling that there was a lot of exclusion, which is something I would have to face as a first-gen student. I like Dartmouth because of its small, close-knit nature, and all-around vibe. I didn't like Yale's proximity to New Haven. When I toured it, it felt very sketchy.
I was considering Princeton for a while. It's def top 5, but it seemed like a lot of work for an undergrad with little returns (compared to MIT or Stanford's larger focus by quant companies). Also, their vibes seemed very elitist like Harvard as well.
You have it basically correct. MIT is the best of those four for quant finance. Stanford and Caltech students are more focused on tech so have slightly less established pipelines than MIT into the best quant finance jobs out of undergrad (both in regards to on campus recruiting + peer effects).
All three of those will put you in a great position to get a quant finance role, so wouldn't base your decision off that alone and this is where fit etc. come into play. However, Dartmouth is definitely a tier below the others for quant, I would really think twice before picking that over your other options.
currently @stanford. I genuine recommend this place to all and everyone - amazing weather, laidback, but brilliant people. If you are smart you can get QR/QT - they are very open to interviewing anyone at target through a simple resume drop and are very much less differet to IB where you have to network.
If you aren't at a specific firm, its not because you came to Stanford. Moreso, you might find that quant finance is not your be all and end all.
This is PURELY anecdotal and probably useless information - make of it what you wish....
For the two shops that you mentioned, 7 guys (friends/acquaintances) from my HS are in Jane Street NY. 2 Princeton, 2 CMU, 1 Duke, 1 Stanford and 1 Harvard, while the solo guy in HRT is from Duke
Agreed with above that networking really isn't that big - strong participation / medals in an international Olympiad during your junior high to high school years previously would probably serve you much better
“From HS”… either TJ, Stuy, Bronx Sci, or Exeter haha
when the entire HS friendship group are quants 🤓
I help extensively with our recruiting on our team. It's extremely simple: mit >> harvard = princeton > others. Depending on the type of role, some other good schools in no order are stanford, berkeley, chicago, cmu. This is purely a statement on density of students where it makes sense to invest resources into for campus recruitment. From our POV, it's #ideal candidates * p(hit rate). But good students from other schools of course do fine too
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