How Does a Target Open Doors Exactly?

I'm about to graduate from a target/ivy school and while I can't say that I haven't gotten a reasonable amount of interviews through corporate recruiting, I'm starting to wonder when the "Oh you'll be fine because you go to xyz" business will start to kick in...

A lot of professors and some alums to an extent have told me that although if you don't have a super-high GPA right out of school, the name of your school alone will make up for that once your sufficiently removed from it.

I know a 35 year old MD at Merrill who was an alum who graduated with a 2.4 and he said not to worry about your GPA, but it'd just suck for a few years. Do you agree with that?

4 Comments
 
Best Response

absolutely, your target school brand name will always be a badge of assumed intelligence that you will have on your sleeve. Are all ivy/target kids smarter than state school kids? Absolutely not, but with an ivy/target diploma, you will at the very least get automatic respect from the majority of individuals you meet.

IMO, in the world of finance, since it is already saturated with ivy/target alums, graduating from such a school becomes more of an associative factor rather than a qualifier. You are part of the "group" and have a common thread with others, but your diploma won't necessarily guarantee anything. I think if you were to take a step back, enter into a different, so-called "less prestigious" career, where the majority of your colleagues aren't ivy-league-ers, then your degree will carry much more weight.

At the end of the day, your degree will at most help get your foot in the door, but how successful your career pans out to be ultimately depends on your performance.

 

yup. u have a strong network. im sure you can get a lot farther if you access your alumni directory and contact those currently employed to build relationships.

We're about to enter a Great Depression. Don't you want a president who's already dressed for it?

------------ I'm making it up as I go along.
 

Going to a school can only take you so far. Maybe you haven't gotten a "reasonable amount" of interviews because your resume is just less competitive. Hopefully the spring turns up better results for you.

 

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