At Princeton, Stanford, and MIT, almost no one is interested in IB.
Harvard and Yale kids are generally more interested in finance, but even at these schools the interest isn't very high.
I got a friend at Harvard, and he says he thinks IB/MBB kids "aren't that smart, they just grind" and that none of the top Harvard kids go into IB. He says all the most cracked/smartest Harvard kids go into startups, tech, and quant.
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Someone who goes to Wharton here with friends at HYPSM, you’re right about stanford and mit, but harvard kids are also pretty focused on IB. Maybe not to the extent of Penn but they also have a hardo finance crowd and investment clubs. IB Culture might not be concentrated and dominating as it is at preprofessional schools like penn/cornell but it def exists
yea, H is pretty finance focused, but the top kids don't go into IB at H. Honestly it's the mediocre kids that go into IB from H.
I assume the top H kids are like creating the next billion dollar startups, going into Quant and making 600k starting etc.
Also at Princeton nearly no one is interested in IB. The only two HYPSM that are finance focused are H and to a lesser extent Y.
Fair. Entrepreneurship or even quant doesn’t really exist at Penn (think we had like three hires to Janestreet according to our career service reports and they were masters/dual degree kids and went in as SWE).
Will say that the top smartest kids at Wharton (the hardos in the best investment clubs who do pitch competitions) don’t go for bulge brackets and its considered beneath them. They all go for restructuring.
😂
this is just an opinion but my smarter friends/ people i know generally are motivated to make money through some of their interests (startups, niche fields, complicated tech/sciences) while i'd say generally people in finance are more just motivated by the money and will align interests with the group or team they work on.
I can speak from experience a little. I'm friends with a lot of ridiculously smart HYPSM math folks, and I myself am in CS despite having the option to pursue banking/finance. Me and my STEM friends (even the ones interested in finance) aren't considering IB as a path, pretty much because we're already burnt out from all of the previous grind.
I know for me personally, if I tried to recruit for IB, I'd burn out in the interview process before I got a single response. If I somehow managed to land an offer, I'd burn out after less than a month on the job. I just can't deal with the whole IB culture. I know it seems stupid to be so worried about something like "organizational culture", but frankly, I just can't work in an industry where you have to work late hours and weekends all the time. I admit that I'm kind of lazy, I have a decent work ethic but nothing compared to what's required for IB. I'm enough of a realist to understand that it would break me very quickly.
This could be totally inaccurate, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my perception of IB is that it's basically a form of purgatory. You suffer through it for a few years so that you can point it out on your resume, and whoever's out there looking for talent will know that you have a god-like work ethic. IB does involve a lot of skill, but IB skills are fairly easy to learn (even my friends in IB admit this). So having a good work ethic matters a lot more than having highly complex skills.
Tech and quant are highly competitive too, but in very different ways. Pretty much on the other side of the effort/skill spectrum. It's easy to get started in tech, but developing true skill is hard. So while there is a market for low-skill low-wage tech jobs, when you look at high-wage tech/quant jobs, it's not really about the raw amount of effort you put in as much as how you can add value in other ways (such as being very good at math or algorithms or software architecture). Hours still matter, but not nearly as much as in banking. You only have to work extra if you're slipping behind, which is rare if you're good at what you do.
It all boils down to what you value. Everyone values money. But what do you value more? Money per year? Or money per hour? There's a big difference in mindset here, and for many people heading into tech, the second one matters more. It's not objectively better or worse, it's just different.
Startups - eh, I've never really understood the hype so I can't speak to this point. I have been involved in a couple of startups myself, but only on the side as a hobby (think 1-2 hours of intense coding per week). Startups are highly risky, and I would never consider quitting my day job and working full-time at a startup unless the compensation is seriously competitive, which is unrealistic for most startups that are always strapped for cash and reluctant to give out equity.
Another thing it could be related to is willingness to grind. I imagine a lot of HPY kids grinded hard in highschool and even college, and might get burnt out and want to pursue something else by graduation time.
On the other hand, as someone coming from a non-target, I didn’t grind that hard in highschool and college wasn’t particularly challenging. I wanted to do something difficult and also prestigious (another thing HPY kids already have).
Discussed at length dozens of times on this website
In fact, you even went on to answer your own question from your ‘friend’ at the end there…
Jesus Christ shut the fuck up. These posts genuinely irritate me. I’d bet my bonus you’re a HYPSM kid just LARPing so you can feel superior to the kids going into IB.
Fuck off your high horse with the “smartest kids” bullshit. People pick careers and jobs based off of different incentives and goals. Plain and simple. I, too, went to Harvard. Plenty of my “smart” friends did GS IB. Plenty did prop at JS. Plenty did Google SWE. Plenty did all sorts of buy-side opps, and plenty built startups.
Who is and will be the most successful? The “smartest?” Absolutely not.
Different people are on different paths, and at the end, we all die. If you’re a genuinely curious student, please stop with this hierarchical circle jerk nonsense. Do whatever the fuck YOU want to do. I understand it’s hard to get over the notion of constant comparison. It’s human nature, and social media has amplified this into infinity. But get a grip. You will live a very sad and pathetic life if what keeps you going everyday is staring at your job title and believing you are superior to your peers. I’m genuinely sorry for you. Zuck has fucked you.
Jesus you really made a burner account to comment this? lmfaoo did i strike a nerve
ppl on the street think that HYPSM kids are so smart and brilliant, but topics/comments like yours prove that HYPSM can be as retarded as anyone else
u just need to go out more and touch some grass, because a mentally sane person won't give 2 fcks where some other ppl go. cultivate some self-respect and do in your life what YOU want to do
I dunno how ur childhood went, but do yourself a favor and delete this topic because it looks insecure as fuck
Amen!!!
Because they went straightly to buyside … hedge fund, prop shop, PE, VC, all of these places directly recruit from undergrad.
They are also harassed by tech recruiters on daily basis … I have a friend in MIT and he said during 2021 he received big tech recruiter message twice a day who literally begged him to apply … He just threw his half-baked resumes and the harvested many good offers the best one being 300k+ full remote unlimited PTO … Whereas for banking roles, he applied but only got three interviews and one offer which was 110k base + ?? bonus conditional on 80 hours work week … I mean the choice is just too obvious
Now the tech industry is fucked up and party is over, the HFT and start-ups are joining the party. Startups offer paper money but also a 2% chance to become founding member of a multi-billion giant … HFT offers cash mountains.
None of them have any original thought. They’re kids with very little perspective and a lot of groupthink.
You said tech/start-up, but I think you really meant Series C or earlier start-ups, as that’s the new groupthink destination.
Going to work at FB/Google/Amazon (among the HYP set) is considered dull and unimpressive. All these kids (and everyone broadly) are chasing us a track that their peers have deemed the one that ‘smart’ people pursue.
Before the current regime the ‘smart’ people went to FB/Google. Before that the smart ppl went to GS/McK. Before that the smart kids went to law school. Before that the smart kids went to GE/IBM. Before that the smart kids went directly to HBS.
It’s no different today.
The reality is the ‘smart’ people make decisions for themselves based on their circumstances, interest, abilities, and goals.
If you’re passionate and obsessive about literature, go be a writer. If you’re super interested in finance, do that. If you don’t know, and just want branding or experience or whatever, do your research and choose accordingly.
Just choose something that feels fun and easy to be obsessive about for you.
While people have great success in a range of fields, the same person won’t be successful across a broad range of fields.
Michael Jordan once said that if he was a mechanic or had to sit in meetings and answer emails for a living, he would starve to death.
you mention groupthink but HYPSM (especially HSM) has the most unicorn founders...
Wanting to found a startup can be groupthink. If you went to these schools you’d know half the kids found a startup just for the sake of founding a startup
Ok … and?
Applebees has nailed it pretty well. "Smartest kids" is a coping mechanism for those who were smart but didn't have the rest of the "pie" to be successful in most high end jobs. I'd consider intelligence only 1/3rd of what is required to make it in most jobs, the other 2 are stamina and people skills.
Intelligence: let's be frank, the likes of IB, PE, VC, consulting etc really don't require that much intelligence (by this I mean you being genuinely fucking smart, i.e. can do PhD in hard science at HYP etc). We fuck around with numbers and put them on slides, common sense is more valuable than hard quant skills. Comparables and DCF is simple arithmetic, but can you actually step back and look at the output and say "yes this makes sense" before you put it forward to whoever is reviewing it. It's surprising how many people can't do this.
Stamina: many of the areas I've listed above (IB, PE, consulting in particular) require the ability to eat shit with a grin for years on end to make it. Doesn't matter if you can make some fancy fucking computer code which solves world hunger if you bitch and moan when you're job is to change font sizes and color palettes at 2am for an intellectually average but very charismatic MD.
Charisma: this is what separates juniors from seniors, and you'll see so many people bitching and moaning on here about the stupid post-MBA associate / VP etc who can't nail a DCF but is killing it internally. Guess what, nobody gives a fuck. Their job isn't to nail technicals, it's to provide the client with the impression the team is all over it, knows exactly what they're doing, and can be trusted to handle this huge responsibility (in their client's eyes, we all know it's just another engagement).
Do not choose your career based on how fucking intelligent people are, choose it on what interests you. IB may not be the most intellectually stimulating academically, but you will not find another job which has you in a meeting room with F500 c-suite as they discuss highly confidential situations. For me, that is far more interesting than any SWE / quant coding shit ever could be.
i love how u spend most of ur time on wso defending ivies, even cornell, while trolling any other school. you seem realllly smart
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