As someone moving from the EU to the US I've stumbled on a lot of threads here on the Ivy schools and their placement in IB. I'm having a hard time believing that since all US BBs hire from "regular" universities in the EU in London, Paris, Frankfurt... Is it really as they say or does it only apply to M&A and not S&T, AM?
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It is true, and there are target universities in Europe, too.
Target unis aren't a purely US concept lol. There are target unis in the EU too. I've heard Germany is a little bit of an exception but in the rest of the EU, where you go to school matters a lot.
Right, of course there are schools like LSE, HEC etc which are helpful - I came from a regular state university in Germany and I'm in PE now for about years - decided to do my MBA in the states at a non- Ivy and now I'm worried I won't find a job after 😂
If it's not a M7/T15 MBA, your opportunities do indeed shrink.
It is not just an M&A thing, it's a high finance thing.
The targets give you a better chance and they make it pretty easy, but plenty of non-targets on the street as well and the % grows every year - I'd guess at least half or more of each incoming class are not from the top targets. The difference with the US versus the EU is that the non-targets have to network a TON to get in, so it becomes much more based on hustle than school ranking.
AM is extremely competitive, perhaps more than IB because there are so few seats + the people in them don't leave. S&T is competitive but in a different way, trading is a totally different career. I think the less competitive seats are in things like accounting or FP&A
Kind of. The biggest thing it determines is how hard you have to work.
If you go to Penn you basically just need a pulse and you’ll have opportunities. If you go to Kansas, you will have to work substantially harder. Now, there is a reason why you see Kansas kids going to GS/BAML/Jeffries/etc. Kansas is by no means a bad school for getting in to front office finance jobs. But you have to put in a ton more effort in to doing so than going to a school like Harvard.
Valuable information, thanks! It makes a ton of sense!
I'm going to University of California, Irvine so technically not a target next to UCLA, USC but they got me the biggest scholarship out of all the ones I applied to and if that means working harder I guess I'll have to take that trade-off!
Thanks again!
You'll do just fine, my man.
the people above are sort of right, but it’s not the target that makes it easier. it’s family connections / going to high schools where tons of kids pursue IB. if you strip out the nepotism kids at the ivies, the per capita statistics are probably equal for your well-known nontargets (UCLA, USC, Florida type schools). if you go to kansas, you’re not competing with a public company CFOs kid, but if you go to an ivy, there are tons of kids like that every cycle. Also when you have 500 kids recruiting a semester alums don’t reply but with 50 applying all the alums will reply.
Thanks for taking the time to explain all of it!
I hope my profile is sharp enough with my 3 years of PE experience in Europe to cover up the fact that it's not an Ivy.
Good to know that networking is a crucial aspect in the US, will use that knowledge!
Any tips from your side?
honestly it’s a pretty random process. i know it’s not what you want to hear because everyone in finance has an internal locus of control, but i think people generally overestimate how much performance matters. you can prep all you want, but you don’t know if your interviewer is a high rater or a low rater or if you get asked tough technicals and others don’t which lets them connect better with interviewers. none of this is controlled for, and it does suck when it doesn’t go your way. just don’t let that stuff get to you, easier said than done though
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