I am seeing less Wharton Undergrads

Is it just me or am I seeing less Wharton undergrads in junior level roles at EBs/BBs? Is this a product of HR departments diversifying their hiring efforts across multiple schools? I am aware that Wharton undergrads have quite the reputation of being kind of douchey, narcissistic, and cutthroat. So perhaps banks are trying to minimize the amount of those type of personalities in their organization? Genuinely curious because I am at a pretty reputable bank and there is simply a minimal amount of Wharton undergrads in my summer analyst class. 

 

If I had to guess, there are probably a good chunk that are recruiting for buyside opportunities / Startups that maybe were once not as popular.  I mean if we look at Whartons MBA grad placement and use it somewhat as a proxy, it still looks like a large amount of grads are going into Financial Services (IB, PE, HF) so it might just be some selection / sampling bias that you are seeing.    

 

Buyside opportunities are very far and few between. A lot of Wharton undergrads have been striking out in recruiting. I am talking about Wharton undergrads and not the MBAs btw. The MBAs are more human whereas the undergrads are more robotic and money-hungry.

 

There are more buyside roles than ever before. Beyond that, Wharton is still very present in top banking groups (I don’t think it’s changed at all relative to other top schools, but more schools are included now).

 

From what I’ve seen, it’s def not a factor of more wharton grads going to buyside. A few of my wharton ug friends have completely struck out of banking recruiting and have signed offers at no name boutiques in random locations for SA 2023.

 

And a few have signed with KKR PE. Anecdotal evidence bullshit

 

Wharton undergrad here. There’s definitely a bunch of overly inflated egos here but many of them are still going to EBs/BBs. During this recruiting cycle, definitely saw more kids having a hard time than from what I heard from upperclassmen. Personally didn’t get EB or BB but planning on lateraling ASAP to a better firm.

 

Practically the only wharton undergrads i see getting BB/EB offers are diversity these days… RIP

 

Agreed. It’s not HR increasing the number of schools they recruit from, but rather it’s because diversity recruiting has become far too large as a % of class sizes. Being non-diversity at Wharton is difficult when recruiting IB since a majority of offers I’ve seen at top EB/BB have been diversity or from daddy being an MD. However, that being said, getting a top offer from Wharton as a non-diversity is still possible and I think we need to get hungrier and stop relying on brand name (which will definitely happen come full time recruiting).

 
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People seriously need to get a grip, yes as a whole if this is an issue then you are right get hungrier. Recruited from a semi-target this year with no connections and non-diversity with a 3.8 and landed interviews at most of the places I applied and offer from EB. The days of an offer simply from being a Wharton grad are probably over for the reasons mentioned (diversity quotas, wider HR target lists etc) but you all have an incredible leg-up still over 99% of the competition. I assume 90% of the firms on wall street come on-campus still, but yeah it's probably going to require a little more legwork in the future. God forbid make a few networking calls and come off as a normal human and not a banker bot. I think there's 1-2 Wharton kids in my class and the list of schools people are being pulled from and that I saw at my superday was pretty astonishing. With that said, no prospect at Wharton should feel disadvantaged and the network you all have to work with is insane. 

 

Prettt reputable bank is team speak for crappy bank. That’s probably why there are not many people from the best business school in the world at your bank. They’re too busy grinding at Warburg, ares and Cerberus.

 

And this is exactly the type of answer that gives the rest of us perfectly normal Wharton kids a bad rap. Get a life. Stop bashing others based on their bank or college because in the real world, normal people don’t give a fuck where you work and have never heard of Apollo, Ares, Cerberus, etc.

 

Oh really intern? And where’s the same venom for the OP who randomly bashed wharton kids for no reason?

stop playing white knight and try to get laid.

or better yet, get some real life work experience first before telling others “how it is” and “how the real world works”.

 

Sadly think the talent across banking and Wharton has just gone down. Not sure what it is with W people and I am a W grad so I tried my hardest to hire some for the next cycle of interns, but we hired zero in a top EB/BB group that has historically always hired from W. The W kids came in completely unprepared and got blown out of the water by non-targets who had the decency to read M&I.  

 

Maybe you’re just interviewing the wrong Wharton kids. I heavily prepped for technicals (beyond the 400 questions) and will be an SA at an EB next summer. Didn’t get a single superday at any BB this recruiting cycle. Before you ask, I did network at the BBs and still no dice.

 

At an EB, and closely involved in recruiting efforts for Penn. I think it was the first time in a while that close to 2 summers we made offers to declined to join a place other than a competitor (i.e. we usually get some who decline us to accept another bank, but not counting those here). One - who I spoke extensively with - is joining a regional VC (not a top tier one), and another signed for MBB consulting. One of them was very candid and mentioned that the blow-out hours during COVID deterred them from pursuing banking. 

Also, our firm, just like our competitors, is now (2019- onwards for sure) very big on hiring from a diverse range of backgrounds, and that includes broader list of schools. It doesn't mean that W/Penn kids suddenly become bad-  it just means that the firms are now somewhat trying to breakaway from hiring from select schools. For the first time, we hired from schools we never did from before. We hired from majors that we typically never did. I've been on calls where senior recruiting MDs are openly championing for greater diversity. This is just how white-shoe law firms (same proposition: high $ in exchange for terrible hours)- having witnessed a chronic decline in applications into top schools - have diversified heavily in last 10-15 years. Its inevitable that this is happening in investment banking. Banks recognize that smartest people don't always make/ (or want to be) the best career bankers. It's a demanding service oriented job. Casting your nest wide, just like law firms, is probably the most effective way to identify that talent.

On the point about their quality going down - I don't think its necessarily the case, and it really depends on the year; definitely don't have enough data to substantiate it either-way. W/ Penn still has exceptional students who can break into any bank, but motivation to pursue the path (for the job, hours, etc.) seems to be a more pertinent factor for them now than ever.  I speak to a lot of talented candidates from the school every year, and am very happy for those who choose to pursue banking, and also happy for those who choose to do other things.

 

That's not true. Corporate law firms may have diversified more in last 3 years, but this is not a last 3 year thing - its been an ongoing trend for last decade.  If you look at ABA's latest survey, Cornell, Duke, NYU, Vanderbilt- they alone are in top 6 schools for sending most students to big law now- this was not true 10 years ago. And none of those schools will constitute as top 10 schools (maybe Duke is a close 10). Feel free to read up statistics for recruitment for Latham, Kirkland and even Cravath (who incidentally hired someone from NYU that I know last year). And that %age has fallen for other schools- UChicago, HLS, UMichigan send only ~50% or so of their students to big law now. My point about this being comparable to how banks may look at Penn/Wharton now (compared to ~10 years ago) still stands.

If you follow the law field (which seems like you might), you should know that law school enrollment is in a chronic decline, and law firms business is not necessarily cyclical like banking is. They are trying to address a talent shortage that's been ongoing for last decade - and accelerated during the pandemic.  This has been well documented in endless news by ABA and NALP.

And as for pay, that's not the point, its not about it being better or worse than banking; the premise is still the same: High pay for super high hours. Its a service profession, just like banking is, and requires extremely high level of commitment for the outsized pay you get compared to most other professions.

 

I saw a bunch of Wharton kids recently in the top-of-the-food-chain shops (you know what I'm talking about). I think it's a combination of Wharton kids getting more selective and only signing with "prestigious" names, as well as their increasing gravitation towards MBB or international opportunities (a natural byproduct of China's recent skyrocketing capital markets activity). 

 

You wanna know why Wharton is on the decline in recruiting? In this thread are Racist Wharton Chad and Smoke Frog. Read what they have to say and you’ll have your answer.

 

Don’t generalize us with two radicals. Racist Wharton chad is probably a troll account who didn’t even go to Wharton. Also, Wharton is definitely not on the decline lol

 

all target schools are on the decline— that is simply a fact with the new diversity initiatives. This is coming from someone at a target.

 

My class of around 20 interns has around 5 Wharton kids and 5 Harvard kids alone. At a top BB group (MS M&A/GS TMT).

 

well its not GS TMT, thats for sure. Also VERY skeptical about MS m&a. My hunch is, you’re lying your ass off.

 

Another factor that I've heard is certain EBs are more reluctant to hire from Wharton because kids don't return and end up going to buyside for FT. In the last 3 years, I've seen classes where none of the Wharton summers returned because they signed offers mid-July at KKR, Warburg, Silverlake, etc. It's annoying for firms with already good on-cycle placement that are supportive of leaving after 2 years, but it's also a headache when your summer intern is nowhere to be found at 7PM. Coupled with the fact that there's never been more buyside opportunities including respectable single-manager HFs and increasingly more megafund seats, more and more Wharton kids just use a summer role as a stepping stone. Reneging has also become increasingly common with Wharton - after all, what's the penalty? No bank is low enough to chase a 21 year old down and any harm to the person reneging would be viewed as bad culture on the bank. On top of this, the people that reneg are typically going to a client of the bank and a place supportive of them joining, so Penn itself has become lax on this.All in all, Wharton students will always do well with recruiting, but my sense is the banks have started scrutinizing the likelihood of them ever returning for a full-time analyst position.

 

Was speaking for firms Wharton historically has amazing placement at (EBs). PJT RSSG is the perfect example - no one in the summer class 2 years ago returned, and each year their whole class recruits MF (regardless or school but usually H/W exits). You can do +1 year for Evercore considering the majority of the Wharton kids left after 1 year into analyst stint (Both M&A and RX). HL RX historically also took a lot of Wharton kids, but the % of kids from W also sized down in recent years with people leaving after 1 year/summer.

 

It doesn't matter anyhow... Most wash out after 4-5 years. 

 

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