ATTN CANADIAN HIGH SCHOOLERS: IVEY IS IN THE TRENCHES.

Hey, I know there is has been a long-standing argument amongst Queens vs Ivey. I wanted to shed some light on the situation, as someone who is pretty close to the ground to both schools (and all Canadian ones in general) to help Canadian high schoolers make their decisions. 

Western Ivey is barely no longer a top target school now in Canada; current student here that has gone through recruiting, with many friends at other Canadian schools (UBC, Waterloo, McGill, Laurier) that have successfully recruited into the US. 

Peak frameworks recently made a poll on their Instagram page, with results leaning slightly towards Queens in terms of finance recruiting. However, as someone close to the ground for UWO / Ivey recruiting, I am here to to concretely declare Queens as the best school for finance recruiting. 

Here are the reasons why Western Ivey is in the trenches, and why I strongly advise against currently high-schoolers looking to break in to choose against it. 

Ivey has no Offcycle recruiting

Sure, you can take a gap year (and more people are increasingly doing so), but given that Western is not an accredited co-op school, it is not popular and you will have to give up a significant portion of your social life, as your friends will be going back to school, having fun, partying, while you will be working an off-cycle job away from London. 

Furthermore, at Queens UBC, etc you can easily take 1 semester off at any point. This is not the case with Ivey anymore. The institution made rules so that between HBA1 and HBA2, you cannot take only 1 semester off. It HAS to be a a full year. This means there is less flexibility for off-cycle recruiting, and you have to be truly committed. Combined with diversity programs of Canadian banks, it's quite difficult for the average person to break in from Western now. 

This means that students from Waterloo, Laurier, or other schools with accredited co-op programs will have a head start on recruiting for Canadian banks and have opportunities students from Ivey don't have access to. 

The 2+2 program is horrible 

This is something that the dean of Ivey has brought to life THIS YEAR. The 2+2 program is terrible. You do not learn any finance concepts in your first 2 years of school, unless you take certain classes (which are difficult to achieve a good GPA in). There will be no overlap with the courses you are taking. 

However, this is different from Queens, where you enter Commerce in your 2nd year of study and are able to start nailing down the basic concepts. Same with many other schools like Rotman, McGill, UBC, etc. At Western, you will have to self learn every financial topic that is tested in interviews. 

THE DEAN OF IVEY ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THIS FORMAT NO LONGER WORKS AND IS ACTIVELY TRYING TO CHANGE IT. 

# Constant reneging has caused poor relations with many firms 

Self explanatory, Ivey has reneged on RBC, Barclays so many times. Now the new Jefferies office also dislikes Ivey because they are all ex-Barclays people. 

New structural changes the first 2 years prior to Ivey now make it harder to maintain a strong GPA. 

An email came out to 2nd year students just yesterday, that you can only take 1 online course in your first two years of school. Many people who have recruited successfully took a significant amount of non-attendance mandatory courses which allowed them to prep in their spare time. Now, Western is only allowing AEO students to take a maximum of 1 online course in their first two years. Yes, people have recruited successfully with harder majors such as Software Engineering, CS, etc. But this will make it significantly harder for the average person to recruit. 

Density of Clubs 

There are two main clubs at Western that will help you place into finance. These two are WIC and IPC. (WCM, IFC, IIS, IAMC, RCP) are all fake clubs that will barely help you. 

Within these clubs, there is significant overlap with talent (people who are in IPC are typically in WIC and vice versa), and hiring is Nepo at the higher ranks. Major banks in the states (Moelis) that do hire from Western will look for these names on your resume, and recruiting captains typically only take chats from people on this club. Very elitist. 

Yes, every club is competitive, but there are more opportunities to get involved with finance in places like Queens, where there are many different clubs with strong reputations (QUIC, QPCG, Limestone)

Summary

"what about Evercore and Moelis?" Sure. Western has a strong pipeline to Evercore, and has strong individual placements to L/O funds, buyside, etc. But these students would have excelled even if they went to any other school. Queen's has every pipeline that Western has, and more. Moelis SF, LA, NY, even Houston. EVR NY, GS NY TMT, BCP, BDT & MSD, and more. They also have their standout students, and have 2 placements into Permira (NY, SF) for S25. Many students interning in Big 5 Investment Banking for Sophomore summers as well. 

Other schools also have their pipelines (UofT Dyal, UBC Oak Hill, McGill EVR Houston, Laurier Ares, Waterloo strong everywhere, Moelis SF and Blackstone placements recently)

To summarize, If you are choosing between Queen's and Ivey purely for finance recruiting, it's an absolute no-brainer. Schools like UBC, Waterloo, Laurier, McGill, UofT, while slightly less prestigious, have extremely strong pipelines and structural benefits and can see them surpassing Ivey within the near future. 

For God Sakes, you can't even make the argument about going to Ivey for Women in Asset Management anymore. This is an amazing program that gives exposure to young women in the industry. But Ivey made it accessible to women at all schools. So what is the point of going to Ivey for it?? There is none anymore. 

I truly believe that anyone who is extremely successful at Queens, UofT, UBC PMF could have done so at Ivey, and vice versa; because your school doesn't define you. But in my opinion, for the average person the Queens vs Ivey debate is over.