Boston College vs. Williams College vs. Amherst College
Hello! I am currently in between these three options for high finance. I'm not sure as of now if I want to recruit for quant and more trad finance like IB/PE etc.
I'm worried that if I go to BC that I will not only have a less chance at IB, but at quant in general. But the plus is that BC has an ungrad biz school.
Whereas at Amherst I could take more quant coursework triple major (Math/CS/Econ) which is very easy to do because of the open curriculum. While I have heard that Amherst is good for IB, I'm not sure if this placement is skewed towards div/nepo because of how wealthy the student body is. Additionally, I haven't got much info on how Amherst/Williams do for hedge fund recruitment and other quant-type jobs.
At Williams I would take a double major in Econ/Math or Math/CS. Same worry goes for Williams as it does with Amherst.
Considering that price is not a factor (I got similar offers at them all), what would you suggest and why?
In terms of campus fit ranked: Amherst, BC, then Williams.
Note: I am on the waitlist at Northwestern, Dartmouth, and Cornell.
Go Amherst - BC shouldn't even be in contention
How is HF/Quant recruiting out of Amherst?
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Not BC
for IB/PE: don't think placement is "skewed towards div/nepo", probably athletes if anything.
there seem to be up years and down years depending on who are interested to recruit. for example, amherst crushed it for 26 summer analyst recruiting, compared to 25 sa class. (may be a bias due to school size)
those who shoot for quant roles are a different crowd... there have been graduates who head directly to prop trading shops, but because of their own abilities, not because they went to amherst (imo). they were also too smart to fw ib recruiting to begin with and i imagine their alternatives to be cs / phd.
fwiw amherst is ending the triple major policy...
I just read that too I got super sad :(
SA 26' did crush it compared to SA 25' and that class had some great offers as well. Strong pipelines to Centerview/PJT. Always send a kid or two to each EB and BB + all buyside options open if you are good (same idea as above with quant recruiting but that holds true at all schools)
If you're emotionally intelligent and good at networking, I would take BC; if neither, Amherst/Williams.
I would say I'm both, but its hard to know since I've never really had to network before except when I was doing child acting. Why would you say to take BC in the case I have both?
I went to BC and ended up at GS out of college. David Solomon spoke at BC recently as did Blankfein.
First, I would call attention to the post below PaulAllen.
But second, you should think of college rankings like buckets. The top bucket is all Ivy obviously, but the next bucket is more like the next 30-40 schools realistically. The larger schools in that bucket give you more optionality and a larger pond from which to fish for networking. I never had an issue reaching out to BC alumnae (had a meeting at MS with 4 of them in IBD alone for FT recruiting). Any of the schools in the second bucket will give you the same sort of reception.
A lot of people in finance are socially retarded / autistic, and that's why they put such an emphasis on target/non-target when the reality is that you can get your foot into any door in finance from any of the schools to which you're admitted if you don't mind reaching out to people and being genuine.
I went to a NESCAC y'all would consider a target (Williams/Amherst/Middlebury) so I can offer some color on this. If you're not an athlete, I would think long and hard about actually going to Williams/Amherst.
For typical IB/PE path, if you're not an athlete it could be seriously argued these schools are semi-targets. It was astonishing how much of the recruiting at these schools was captured by the athlete ecosystem. Like I'm talking about sports teams having separate info sessions, many alumni explicitly only helping those who played their sport, amongst other things.
It's different for "quant" roles, with the profile of all those in my graduating class who went into that all some sort of Math double major (and Asian lol). But it wasn't lights outplacement (Two Sigma, AQR, Jane Street), just random funds + one guy who ended up at Citadel a few years post-graduation. Not athletes. But from speaking with them the process didn't sound like there were alums involved, just random resume drops.
I went to Amherst and there wasn’t a division as far as networking events / recruiting opps being reserved for athletes. I wasn’t an athlete and ended up just fine during recruiting (without any finance connections at all before getting to college). Granted, a lot of people who go work in Finance are athletes, so that helps them but that’s an issue of who wants these jobs in the first place (only a small % of students at these schools are interested in these roles)
Congrats on Middlebury!
All jokes aside, I have been hearing a lot of this, the issue is that BC and UNC aren't really close to Amherst/Williams even without the athlete-bump (as far as I am aware). I do plan to play club tennis and eventually try to walk onto tennis at either school, however, so do keep that in mind.
I don't think you should be quick to write off UNC. It's a great flagship university and it could be argued the resources at a large school of UNC's caliber that would help you towards becoming a quant, resources that aren't going to exist at Williams or Amherst just due to size, will make the comparison much less cut and dry.
What about club teams?
I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these but I personally think Amherst and Williams are better schools / better for recruiting. Granted they’re very small schools so you should make sure that’s what you want out of a college experience.
Williams I'm not sure I would be that happy at, Amherst I am almost certain I would be happy at. As far as BC, UNC and my other options I know I would also be happy at those but I am hoping for a waitlist preferably.
Williams
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