Who are P72 and Citadel actually looking for?
Most hedge funds don't bother with systematic undergrad recruiting, especially the mid-to-small shops. It’s not that they’re elitist (ok maybe a little) or that undergrads aren't smart, but that it’s just not cost-effective. The standard move is to hire experienced talent from the sell-side because they’ve already been battle-tested and pressure-cooked. For most HFs, hiring an associate is lower risk and lower cost than training a rookie.
But P72 and Citadel are the rare exceptions. They are among the few funds with mature, structured analyst programs that take you straight from undergrad and groom you into a PM. They have the capital and the horizon to invest years into a single hire. To pull this off, you’d need a massive roster of senior talent willing to mentor and a proven training framework, and serious seat capacity.
The traditional path is grinding on the sell-side first before jumping to the buy-side. The P72 and Citadel programs effectively eliminate that "trial and error" phase. That head start is exactly why these spots are the most coveted in the field.
But even though both are top-tier multistrat HFs, their internal cultures are night and day. P72 Academy takes about 25 people a year for a 10-month program. You get 10 months to soak up knowledge from the best and slowly mold yourself into the P72 style.
Citadel, on the other hand, only takes about 10 people. Their training program is lean and aggressive to match the headcount. The Analyst Program is only three months. After that you’re thrown straight into the pods. You either sink or swim, and the P&L does the talking.
Essentially, even when they’re willing to bet on undergrads, their risk tolerance is totally different. Between these two programs, there are only about 35 seats across the U.S…that’s an acceptance rate of less than 0.1%.
More hedge funds are moving towards recruiting from undergrad.
P72 has probably sacrificed quality for quantity at this point though
Know multiple people well who have gotten both as point and citadel recruit heavily from my school. People definitely desire citadel over point, even though citadel is extraordinarily risky as they cut at least a couple of the ten interns and each of the ten are very very strong leading to high performers still getting cut. Also the decisions are made by one lady with dictatorial control over the program. People have smartened up to this and have started trying to keep doors open in the event they get cut or even just re-recruit, but undergrads have pretty extreme myopia that convinces them they will never be the one to get cut, especially the overachievers who tend to land these offers. As for point, there's a much higher rate of people turning it down if they land a great banking offer. Very common for people to use point to accelerate boutiques.
In terms of who they're looking for, it seems like there's a formula people at my school have figured out. I'm not one of those people so I can't speak to it perfectly, but they know the pitch comps to attend to get their names out there and are very familiar with the case studies they give. People especially seem to have figured the point process out. The common denominator is that these guys (almost always guys) all have a deep intrinsic interests in investing, but more importantly they've been passed down the knowledge of how to navigate the process from older friends in the same clubs.
I'm going to point / cap. This is insanely accurate.
did you join based on PM or based on shop?
"undergrads have pretty extreme myopia that convinces them they will never be the one to get cut, especially the overachievers who tend to land these offers"
Thinking this way is the exact mindset a future great PM has to have.
Yea I guess everyone who gets to that point has that mentality but most people with that mentality don’t get to that point
Point72 Academy summer 2025 class size was 55
False info lmao (maybe if u count global?)
They look for kids with autism weaponized towards stock picking. I’m not even trying to be funny, most of the p72 academy seats from my school were kids with genuine disabilities.
Nah but you also still need to be able to communicate and present your pitches well too
Guy I knew who went to p72 out of undergrad was genuinely socially autistic but was a math savant, ended up making over a mil shortly out of UG
I got offers from both. I don’t think they look for anything different.
P72 just wants a good, technical, College Student Fund guy. Citadel wants something similar. The other HF's that have undergrad programs, DESCO seems to be less straight forward and more prestigious to get. All are phenomenal programs, however, but P72 has probably been performing the worst out of the group.
Congrats on Bridgewater!
Not me
Add MLP and BAM to this list?
Also, possibly Jain as well?
Not sure how Verition's program is viewed, but I know they also take out of undergrad.
How is Verition viewed in general?
Have experience with grad programs/internships at 2 of M/C/P
There’s 2 type of people I’ve seen on programs with me:
1) Finance + investing nerds —> can already model, read all the classic investing books, grind case comps etc
2) non-finance students who demonstrate basic business analysis knowledge and raw insight (or even just an interesting way of approaching data/questions)
I’ll be honest, the graduate programs have increasingly become saturated with applications, and there’s no real shortage of talented kids who fit buckets 1 + 2. There is still a lot of randomness in these processes.
I will say I felt recruiting for the fund I ended up for FT felt much more deterministic and like I was on the upper end of candidates, but I had prior MMHF + BB ER experience by then.
can i pm?
Just ask your question here so others can benefit
as someone who has gone through one of these programs, this is accurate. The second group of people is broader though. Many CS and quant type of people with minimum finance background.
del
Thank you sophomore; hope dodge and cox pitch comp went well
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