Don’t stress too much about your undergrad
To the naive freshman/high schooler not knowing wtf you’re doing career wise that I used to be:
Where you go for school is NOT going to fuck your career up the way people on this app make it sound like it will. If you over simplify it, the main determining factors between the schools regarding career placement are the alumni connections and career fairs, so there is definitely some truth to the general prestige ranks. But if you can’t make it to ivies/+ most state schools have bschools large enough to accomodate anyone’s interests.
I go to a state school that’s mostly known for health and usually ranked around a C or a D in the semi-target range for finance, and in full honesty I don’t see the problem. Everyone I know hoping to work in finance has found a solid summer internship somewhere or industry related work. In all honesty, even if you go to a state school not known for finance opportunities, there are still so many people to meet that can help your career. Even something as simple as joining a business frat and you’re guaranteed to get to know multiple people in your industry.
If you’re smart enough and can get along with people reasonably well, it’s never much of a problem finding a way in to your industry, even if it means sending hundreds of emails. The constant penis measuring contests about whose school is the most prestigious has made everyone here look pretentious as fuck, and is contributing to the vacuum of focus and hatred on ivies and higher education in general nowadays.
“usually ranked around a C or a D in the semi-target range for finance“ huh?
This is where I stopped reading and knew this post wasn't serious.
This is both true and requiring some nuance. For the kid that rolls into freshman year knowing they want to do consulting or finance, they’ll be fine anywhere. I bet 95% of people reading this forum fall into that bucket.
But most people in the real world aren’t finance from the get go. And target schools give you more time to figure stuff out. Say you did science in high school and come into college wanting to do that. Or debate. Or journalism. That’s all cool if you don’t have to network or recruit for anything until late sophomore or junior year! You have the time to rule out law school or medicine or journalism. Non-targets have to start thinking about business frats and careers far earlier to compensate.
These days, even at targets, you have to know well before junior year. Ideally, you should be networking and studying technicals by second semester sophomore year. This means you should probably decide you’re interested in finance before winter break sophomore year at latest, but if you want to join the right clubs and give yourself a cushion, you probably have a semester of undergrad to figure that out.
It sucks, but that’s life.
I wouldn’t overindex on what the timeline is today when giving advice to someone who the timeline will apply to in 2-3 years. I graduated 2-3 years ago and didn’t commit to any path until senior year (though yes, I had a strong hypothesis of what I wanted to do by sophomore spring).
Recruiting market more competitive? Yep, figure it out earlier. Recruiting market softer? You do have more time. I think that we’re at a competitive end of the spectrum now, and 21-22 was obviously the other end. Steady-state is probably somewhere in between.
You haven't even gotten a FT job offer and you're in undergrad saying don't stress too much about your undergrad?
Guy from semi target telling complete non targets to relax lol
You prob still had WF and Citi recruiting at your school. I had enterprise rent a car
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