NYU Stern, Penn (Non Wharton), and Georgetown

PENN CAS would be my first choice, w/ Gtown 2nd unless you really want to study finance.

People here really seem to discount the name brand that Penn carries as a whole. Just because you aren't in Wharton doesn't mean that you go to some crappy state school with no name recognition. You'll get much more of a college experience at Penn and Gtown, and you're going to get similar recruiting.

if your goal is to get into IBD I'd say Penn or Stern, not G-town.

Well, depends where you want to be, too. Georgetown will look great for mid-Atlantic/south I-banking, Penn and Stern definitely have the edge in the northeast (and Penn is an international name).

Honestly, you can break in from any of these places, though Gtown will be harder than NYU, which will be harder than UPenn. Go to the one you like the most and kick ass there, it's that easy!

My main concern is that with Penn CAS I may need to take an extra year. Not sure if I want to basically change majors half way through for an extra 50k for a little better name rep.

I mean, that should definitely factor in and you should find out from the school as soon as possible

Niether of the above are true. I've worked at two BBs counting my summer internship and in both there have been more Georgetown kids than Stern by far. Georgetown was the most represented of any school in my analyst class, it was in the teens of an analyst class of about 100. Theres 3 in my group alone. If you cant get into Wharton and want to work in finance, GTown is def a better option than Stern or Penn CAS.

Its very tough to get in from Penn CAS, because they basically only look at you once theyve exhausted Wharton. Its possible, but its very tough, each school gets a fixed amount of heads they can send to the super day and there is very strong preference for Whartonites vs. regular CAS kids, so just from a numbers perspective, youre at a big disadvantage. Is this fair? Probably not, but it is what it is. Ive sat on recruiting committees and thats just how it works. From a probability perspective, the numbers are more in your favor to be from GTown vs. either of these two options based on what Ive seen at two BBs.

Sidenote: the amount of college wannabe speculation on this board is absurd and some of the views some of these kids are trying to promulgate from their dormrooms is not only laughable, its just patently false. I hope to God the rest of you arent basing real career choices on this stuff. Its imperative to take a lot of these opinions on here with a massive block of salt as quite a bit of it is pure speculation coming from some random sophmore hopeful liveblogging from the cafeteria at Brown who has no idea about how things work on the Street.

I turned down two Ivies and a t10 liberal arts school to come here. It's an incredible experience...

Feel free to point anything out that you think is misleading.

Georgetown, sends like half of their grad class to WS. Not kidding.

I'm not at all surprised if I'm wrong. I'll start disclaimer-ing my posts again. And I wouldn't be too surprised if Seamless is 100% right.

Georgetown is INCREDIBLY well represented at most BB firms. For what reason, I do not know. Georgetown by far had the largest SA class my year.

But with that said... don't pick a school based on which one isgoing to get you an IBD job. All 3 are sufficient, and it's really up to you. The vast majority of kids at all 3 schools DO NOT get BB internships - and if you do well at any of the 3, you'll get one.

Go to Penn... good network, long term brand name, who knows what you'll do down the road

http://careerweb.georgetown.edu/explore/seniorsurvey/Classof2009/McDono…

Doesn't seem very impressive to me... I highly doubt that placement is better than Stern or Penn CAS

yea its unbelievable how many gtown alums i run into at my BB. my group alone has i believe 7 gtown alum (8 if you consider gtown mba in the same group as undergrads which i do...but some people dont)

This doesn't need to be a pissing contest. Seamless made a great point: Georgetown has VERY good placement.

OP: Go where you think you'll be the happiest. When it comes down to it, the happier you are, the better you perform, and being at the top of any one of those schools you will undoubtedly get a very good job out of school.

and those reports are just the business school at georgetown. unlike at penn where it's tough to break into banking unless you're at wharton, recruiters are open to students from the SFS and college as well

Great point, but then all of you probably wouldn't have come out of the woodwork to give actual good advice. But, no, the disclaimer would've said I'm giving out second-hand info, which is usually right and when it's not, gets shot down.

I definitely echo everyone's sentiment about Georgetown's representation. Every BB recruits there and they don't pull from just the business school. It may even be possible that more Georgetown alum on the street came from the SFS or the college, though I don't know that for sure.

The point is, the schools all give you a great shot if you perform well and you should make your decision based on the experience you're looking to have. NYU doesn't have much of a campus but you're in the heart of NYC. If that's what you're looking for, go to NYU. Georgetown gives you a campus and is also in the heart of a major city. That particular area of DC is awesome and the school also has a top bball program, which only enhances the experience. I can't speak much to Penn b/c I've never visited, but I know plenty of alum (both Wharton and CAS) who've broken into the street and wouldn't trade their experience for anything. Visit all three schools, feel out the lifestyle, talk to some students, and make your decision based on where you think you'll be happiest. All will open doors to great opportunities.

I definitely echo everyone's sentiment about Georgetown's representation. Every BB recruits there and they don't pull from just the business school. It may even be possible that more Georgetown alum on the street came from the SFS or the college, though I don't know that for sure.

The point is, the schools all give you a great shot if you perform well and you should make your decision based on the experience you're looking to have. NYU doesn't have much of a campus but you're in the heart of NYC. If that's what you're looking for, go to NYU. Georgetown gives you a campus and is also in the heart of a major city. That particular area of DC is awesome and the school also has a top bball program, which only enhances the experience. I can't speak much to Penn b/c I've never visited, but I know plenty of alum (both Wharton and CAS) who've broken into the street and wouldn't trade their experience for anything. Visit all three schools, feel out the lifestyle, talk to some students, and make your decision based on where you think you'll be happiest. All will open doors to great opportunities.

From my perspective of going to a liberal arts school with a shitty athletic program.. go Gtown. Not only is the recruiting scene there great (it's ridiculous how many gtown alums I've met), there's actually school pride and awesome D1 sports. Get the real college experience and then go work for a BB, how much better does it get?

I think that this thread is getting a little one-sided so I wanted to point out a few things that would maybe provide some counterbalance.

If you look at the Georgetown data posted by Seamless, the data is a bit noisy. First off, the self-categorization is all over the place so theres not way you can just see how many self-reported as IBD. Second, the data points are sorted by major then by firm then by response which makes it tedious to go through (don't really have the time either). So basically, when it says 9 seniors are going to GS, this could mean 9 bankers (very impressive), 6 bankers (solid, but on par or slightly higher than other top targets) or 3 bankers (poor).

Since the data on the BBs is very noisy, I thought it'd make more sense to look at the boutiques since they hire less into their backoffice/risk/ER functions. In this category, Georgetown does quite poorly: Blackstone 0, Lazard (not MM) 0, Greenhill 0, Evercore 0, PWP 1, Moelis 0. Although these jobs are obviously not superlative in their desirability, I think it's a fair supposition that many of those with offers at the less prestigious BBs would gladly take jobs at those firms. Considering NYU will send about 15 people to those shops collectively, I think this is pretty strong evidence that the Georgetown vs NYU debate isn't as one-sided as people want to present it as.

Now let me be clear, I personally don't believe that NYU has a significant edge over Georgetown in IBD recruiting (good candidates at either school will have the right opportunities available to them). However, I don't think that Georgetown clearly outclasses NYU either. My point isn't that Georgetown's weaker presence in elite boutique recruiting shows that it's inferior, but rather that if it were head and shoulders above NYU, I think the boutiques would recruit there quite a bit more.

Depends what you want to do...

For Finance in general...Penn CAS is last place. Stern doesn't compete with Penn CAS. If you need further proof, look up best finance schools in the country, and you'll see Stern and Wharton.

Gtown IBD recruiting maybe good, who knows. Does Gtown have a business program?

I can tell you for a fact that if you are trying to do S&T, then Stern is a far better bet.

I've got a little down time so I'll add some more color to my previous post, since it may be helpful for other prospective students:

1. Keep in mind that those #'s are only seniors who returned career survey (maybe 2/3rds). The actual #'s could be significantly higher than reported.

2. With that being said, those are by no means all IB analysts, but there are also substantial #'s of kids interested in capital markets, trading, sales, credit risk, asset management, cash management, etc... it comes down more to a matter of preference. Of course there are also your finance and ops kids. In my experience, some kids just skipped class and never went hard during recruiting season (I believe it's a choice you make).

3. We are one of three undergrad target schools for Blackstone, albeit only for restructuring. The other two are Harvard and Wharton. And to address the point about lack of boutique representation: I personally know kids who have gotten offers from Perella, Rothschild, Lazard, et al.

4. More importantly, people are Georgetown don't WANT to work at boutiques. Elite boutiques are great places but the student body isn't as finance obsessed vs. @Stern, Wharton, hence kids just don't have as much awareness of the Evercores and Qatalysts of the world. You could look at that as both a + and -. I will also concede that Georgetown is not very quant-oriented (it just simply isn't our core competency). But somehow, we still manage to send boatloads of kids to S&T every year.

5. Sometimes I think the students here have it way too easy. One of my buddies chose CS S&T over MS S&T because he was turned off by the fact that MS took TARP money. See what I mean? Lots of clueless kids get offers but they still manage to learn on-the-job.

6. Some boutiques/middle-markets that have resume drops here? Ones I've either attended or seen posted: RBS, PNC, Harris Williams, Perella, Greenhill, Leerink Swann, Jefferies, Houlihan, Miller Buckfire.

7. Our recruiting partners on-campus are all the bulge brackets. The only gripe I have with our career center is the lack of JP Morgan. For some reason, JP Morgan recruits every front office position here except IB. There are kids starting full-time, but for some reason, they will not interview summers here. Weird. Additionally, the career center almost exclusively tailors itself to the business school and major banks.

8. We have an incredible amount of diversity, both in terms of the student body and career interests. Teach for America is the biggest employer here overall, followed by the major banks, big 4 firms, and the state department. Lots of SFS kids land IB jobs but overall, they lean towards nonprofits, consulting, think tanks, and overwhelmingly, grad school.

9. Great mix of academics and lifestyle. We work hard and play harder. I would post FB photos of some of the girls here but that would just be fucking creepy. Have literally only seen 2 fat girls in my entire time here. Our football team sucks ass but no one cares and basketball games at the Verizon Center are insane (everyone is piss ass drunk... even the alums).

10. Penn is a very strong name, even if you're not in Wharton, and lots of Penn kids get jobs on Wall Street. Personally, I was waitlisted at Wharton and didn't get in. Would I have eventually gotten BX if I were at Penn? Probably not. The Penn name definitely carries more prestige than Georgetown in the world of finance.

11. Yes, we have a business school. It jumped 10 spots this year just because we finished a new building... and this is also why undergrad b-school rankings suck.

3. We are one of three undergrad target schools for Blackstone, albeit only for restructuring. The other two are Harvard and Wharton.

Just thought I'd address this briefly. I don't know where this boner for BX's exclusivity comes from, but it's not true--or Dartmouth is just way more badass than I thought.

BX recruits on campus here for M&A, Restructuring, & PE...

This is very interesting.

I was in the SAME EXACT boat, minus Georgetown (I'm awaiting to hear from Columbia).

I'm actually not in Stern at NYU to point that out, but have a pretty different background that I think helps me out a lot.

If you only want to do finance, don't care much about a college vibe/experience/campus, I'd choose Stern. Everyone recruits here from my experience. The real downside is that everyone in Stern wants to become an investment banker mostly, so competition is pretty fierce. If you can kill it though, and even land an internship during the semester (something I did) you honestly have a great shot. Your resume will definitely get in the hands of HR.

I actually hated (and still do kinda) the vibe and experience here at NYU socially. I'm from Cali, so a campus is a big deal to me. I'm used to my bruin and trojan buddies having big school spirit - which simply doesn't exist here. Stern kids have a bit more pride than other undergrads, but it's pretty weak. Also, in my experience, reaching out to alumni is touch - i've yet to get one response. Thus, if your in love with NYC and could care less about green grass and traditional frat-house parties, come here.

I decided to opt out of Penn because I'd also have to stay in college longer. I would have made the move if it were Wharton, but I feel that (even though I'm CAS vs Stern), there's a little less pickyness when banks/pe/hf compare stern vs CAS if your GPA is high enough, and your major is quantitative (econ or math). Also, I joined a lot of Stern clubs which is also on my resume.

I know nothing about Georgetown, so I can't comment on it intelligently.

I've been told over and over again, by bankers i've met (including my cousin) and recruiters that Stern is a top target, and is extremely well represented everywhere (especially GS apparently). I think the difference is at Penn CAS, or Georgetown (speculation) not everyone wants to go into finance, so the yeild between applicants and hires is much higher than Stern. Literally man, everyone I meet in stern almost wants to work on wall street. It actually kinda annoys me (I miss being the only one I knew in Cali interested in finance).

I'd ultimately choose where you're going to do best at, considering there all great schools.

The ONE thing I'll also point out though, is that Penn is recruited more than Stern (as I'm sure you probably guessed). That being said, you can reach out to a company as a Stern student and apply, but on campus interviews at companies at Penn is more plentiful. I verified this when I was admitted, going into the OCR website for Penn (shared by CAS and Wharton) and saw the companies. West coast, East Coast, south, north - you name it, everyone recruits there. On Sterns site however, it seems exclusively for NYC (which is great for most people but being interested in working in Cali isn't so great).

I did see one post claiming that CAS students (I don't know if he was solely referring to Penn) don't get interviews, but I know from experience that's not true. I'm a rising junior and went to a superday for Goldman Sachs IMD (I applied really late). I was there for 12 hours, had like 16 interviews and met with three different groups. By then i unfortunately HAD to do summer school to graduate on time, so an internship wasn't an option really. HR did call me back, named the names of two members of a group who really liked me and "couldn't stress enough" for me to re-apply in the fall. I'm no math PHD or Stern 4.0 student, and nor am I claiming to be a god. I am however trying to point out if you work your ass off, at any school, or in any college within a university, anything is possible.

Goodluck man!