Client Advisor

lol well you’ve got a point

Ah well... May 1st is decision day. Should be over pretty soon now.

I agree on the fact that there are definitely too many school and prestige comparisons diluting much of this discussion. However, I think that it is also just a sign of a changing population. It looks to me like the amount of kids coming from poor or blue-collar families is growing exponentially every year. IB seems to have become the default choice for many who have an interest in business and have googled "highest paying jobs". This naturally increases the competitive nature of the industry, especially as firms climb over themselves to hire diverse candidates, making it harder for some non-URM groups who turn to getting themselves as close to a guaranteed offer as they can.

From what I've seen, much of the heated discussion comes from someone making a bold claim.

Ex: RBC is a BB or IU Kelley is a target. These threads are filled with people who try to bolster support for their own group to increase their own prestige (bad) as well as those who just try to help undergrads by giving them the best information possible and would hate to see someone choose IU Kelley over a real target (good).

I think the occasional school ranking/target thread is definitely useful and is a good resource for anyone considering a career in finance. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to add a discussion page solely for highschoolers/college transfers to ask questions or gain perspective from those within the industry. On the other hand, we don't want this sacred website turning into college confidential.

Just my 2 cents as someone who feels they were able to learn from the school comparison threads on this forum, but is getting quickly annoyed by the shameless shilling by groups that many would consider subpart purely to better their own self image and worth.

Edit: In my opinion, these rankings are made so much worse my internationals. Scrolling through a "target/non-target" thread can be bad enough, but it gets so much worse when you then have to read through countless posts about "what about UK targets" "How does X Canadian school compare?"

Right on. 100% agree. Have a SB. I am especially annoyed by i) SAs who try to decode the message from HR like a guy who is spending hours interpreting what a girl meant by "I will text ya" after date, ii) high schoolers asking which colleges they should go - simple. get good grades and go to target,

Not much issues with RBC thing. Canadians are kicking ass in RE.

This sounds like it could be a Trump campaign rally speech. Just replace wannabees with Illegals.

Here's a ranking for ya:

TOP:

Actual working professionals with experience helping others out

Actual working professionals with experience providing insightful comments

MIDDLE:

Current undergrads / grads with offers that know what they're talking about

Interns and Prospects looking for actual advice

Literally anyone that isn't listed below

BOTTOM:

Interns who wear short sleeve dress shirts and square toe dress shoes with white ankle socks

People that still say "Happy New Year" in their emails after the third week of January

Hardcore Nickelback fans

People that try to shake your hand in the restroom

BOTTOM of the BOTTOM:

Interns and Prospects that think they are too good to work for any bank that isn't Goldman

Interns and Prospects that think they know everything about every firm on the Street after 10 weeks of sorting logos

Prospects that provide rankings but have never stepped foot into an investment bank

17 year olds who provide target school rankings

Bingo. I see all these college rankings comparisons and I can't believe people actually look at marginal recruiting benefits as how they decide to pick their colleges: "will NYU Stern be SLIGHTLY better for recruiting than Berkeley Haas?". Those schools are so different from one another that finance recruiting pedigree is actually one of the things most similar about it. It shouldn't be the deciding factor in that case.

It's as if the actual college experience, having fun, and choosing the place where you'll likely make a good portion of your friends for the rest of your life means nothing to some of these high school hardos. I went to a public "semi-target" because it was in-state and cheap tuition, was good academically, in a quintessential college town, had big time football and basketball, had a huge and diverse student population, and where I could have a decent amount of fun and partying while still getting a good job. "Semi-target" vs. "target" from a strictly finance recruiting perspective was not a deciding factor.

ANNOUNCEMENT #1: Now in order to post anonymously a member must have at least 4 SBs AND a ratio (SB/SB+MS) over 0.70. This will not prevent some people hiding behind anonymous posting to say something inflammatory, but at the very least there is a bit more of a hurdle to use the feature and someone can lose it easily if they abuse it and get too many MS. This also prevents some of the more opinionated users that like to debate incessantly (and thus have a ratio of under 0.70) to use the anonymous feature to get more aggressive. It won't be perfect but I think this is a good first step...let's see how it goes.

ANNOUNCEMENT #2: We have 3x'd the number of times our mods check the forums throughout the day to continually move stuff out of the IB forums that don't belong there (school ranking threads) and to more aggressively no bump deeemphasize prestige discussion threads to make sure that our ~2-3 AMA / more informative posts don't drown in the noise and that the professional users continue to get value out of WSO.

Thank you all for the call out - this won't be perfect but we'll keep getting better! Patrick