How is Yale Good for Finance?

I know some of you will come at me, and call me crazy, but I just don't see how Yale can be considered good for finance. Before I get called a Yale hater, or what not, I would like to point out that I attend a HYPSM and I don't inherently hate Yale, as it was my dream school for the longest time. When I was applying, I got into to Yale early action, and I even considered not applying anywhere else since I loved everything about the school. Obviously, upon further research I came to my sense and decided to apply elsewhere. Trust me, I really love Yale, but it's just awful for finance.

Sure, its "name brand" will get you some nice Wall St. gigs, but I've rarely seen Yale grads in leadership roles on the "buy side". I know Yale has had some BB bank CEOs and some people in federal roles like Mnuchin, but I've done extensive research on some of the largest PE, HF, and VC firms, and Yale is nowhere to be found. If you don't believe me, I recommend you see for yourself. Go to MBBs, top hedge funds, etc, and literally no one on the leadership is a Yale alum. I'm not arguing Yale's merit as an overall institution, or its placement for entering into finance since the name will go a long ways. What I am saying is that Yale sucks (for a lack of a better word) in production of alumni at the pinnacle of the industry. This is an area in which Harvard and Wharton dominate the competition, which does beg the question of how good Yale truly is for finance.

Obviously Yale does have Schwarzman who is at the top of arguably one of the largest buy side firms, but other than that, there really isn't anybody. Even if you look at Blackstone's leadership, it's riddled with Wharton, Harvard, and other schools, but never Yale.

Moving away form Blackstone, take a look at Citadel, Two Sigma, Elliot, Renaissance, Pershing Square, Bridgwater, AQR, Lazard, Carlyle, Apollo, etc. Yale alums are not in leadership roles. You'll find Wharton, Harvard, Princeton, NYU Stern, Stanford, and other "less prestigious" (in the context of name recognition), but I never find Yale grads.
Now you can argue that big fund managers all haven't gone to likes of Harvard or Wharton, and you could cite the likes of Ray Dalio, Israel Englander, John Paulson, Einhorn, Tepper, etc, and you would be correct in saying you can to schools other than HW and you would still succeed. But that's not the point I'm making. Other than Eddie Lampert, Yale is again nowhere to be found. Harvard has a presence int his scene with people like Ackman, Paulson, one of the Ziffs, etc. Wharton has an even larger presence.

Before you mention Yale being #3 on the current undergraduate alumni billionaire list, I would like to point out that Yale has the largest concentration of inherited billionaire with only 5 or 6 (I believe) being self made. For a school made out to be the #2 ivy league, I find it laughable how bad it truly does in producing wall street "top dogs". Yale churns out politicians and lawyers like it no ones business, but it is truly awful for finance.

I know measuring billionaire or ultra-high worth alumni is a not complete representation of a school, but that wealth is a byproduct of the schools production in the job market. A school might not make billionaires (Mark Zuckerberg didnt need Harvard to be Mark Zuckerberg), but when a school like Harvard, Wharton, or Stanford consistently produce people like this, I think it need to be taken into account. And even if, Yale's mediocre amount of Wall Street execs can be attributed to selection bias of humanities focused students, then it needs to be noted that this will have affects on your career. How can you dismiss the fact that you will be automatically at a disadvantage when the majority of your school alumni are lawyers, politicians, actors, or writers? You automatically at a loss against Wharton or Harvard students who have an exorbitant amount of high up alumni in finance. Why should I care that Yale alumni are decorated artist or politicians if that has zero upside for a career in finance.

So how can it be argued that Yale is a good school for finance. I've often people say HYPW will all give equal opportunities for a financial career, but I just don't see how that can be true when you look at people in senior/ leadership roles. Sure, Wharton and Harvard may have a disproportionally large amount of students aiming for Wall Street, but even with that, the difference in senior roles is glaring between the two schools and it can't just be attributed to less students going to finance, because Yale also has a large amount of grads entering finance every year.

I just don't understand how the argument can be made for Yale being on par with HP, Wharton, NYU Stern, Columbia when it does extremely poorly in producing billionaires. I've seen time and time again on this forum Yale being recommend over Stern, Columbia, Cornell, UMich, and even some suggesting Yale over Wharton/ Harvard, citing the college experience being better at Yale. It doesn't matter if you'll get to have more fun and go to more parties at Yale when schools like HW are constantly outperforming it at every level of the industry.

Again, this is just my opinion. If any of you have any opinions on any of the schools, I would love to hear what you have to say. I just want to reiterate that I by no means hate Yale. In my honest opinion, Yale, along with Stanford, are the most complete, well rounded, and enjoyable undergraduate experiences. But this doesn't translate into the school being better for finance which is why I'm genuinely curious why its recommend and raved about so much on this sub.

 

I find it hard to believe you attend a "HYPSM" if you're confusing "affect" and "effect"

 

Absolutely its anecdotal, but after looking at every well know fund or PE firm, I have yet to find alum. Sure you might find a Yalie in some garage band hedge fund or unknown firm, but that isn't really a good thing to reference for Yale's quality. If MBB and top hedge funds don't have Yale alums in senior leadership roles then that should tell you something about the school.

 

The founder of BX went to Yale. Also just last year Yale sent multiple grads to BX and even one or two to KKR straight from UG. Also from my understanding Yale has a very strong pipeline to McKinsey and Bain, specifically in their Washington DC offices. While Yale may not have as large an alumni base as Harvard on Wall Street, that is not to say Yale grads do not have amazing opportunities in finance after UG and even farther into their careers. 

 

But I don't go to MIT or Harvard at that. Princeton to be clear. Again, I don't hate Yale. I love it as a school and experience, but I think its a disservice to recommend it over other school like Columbia when people on this sub are clearly looking to maximize their career trajectory in finance, instead of what drama (something Yale is good at).

 

You're correct as it relates to finance--Yale is much better known for the humanities, politics, nonprofits, etc. Even broadly among graduate programs, Yale is notably behind H/S and at best in line with Berkeley (e.g., for MBA, H/S are top and Haas is on par with SOM, for medicine H/S are ahead of Yale, law Yale is equal to H/S but Berkeley is not far behind; then for PhDs, H/S/B are far ahead of Yale pretty much across the board).

As an institution generally, Yale is exceptional for undergrad in humanities, and merely good but not on the level of H/P/S for careers in finance or STEM; the graduate programs are solid (especially law) but not a top 5 university overall. You can absolutely get anywhere you want as a decent performer from Yale (plenty of Yale kids in top IB/PE firms), but not quite the powerhouse its reputation would suggest.

 

I absolutely agree. I personally think Yale is one of the worst overall schools among the T10, and definitely the worst overall among HYPSM. As for finance, it's a different story since the name does carry some weight , but I just don't understand why it's so praised when people are trying to decided between it and HSW. A lot of people talk about not wanting to be around undergrad b-school finance hardos from Wharton, but the opportunities that schools opens up post-graduation far exceeds Yale. Same goes for Harvard, Columbia, NYU Stern, etc.

 

Not exactly. It just means it's not good for finance. I think you would be hard-pressed to find somebody who goes into finance not wanting to be a billionaire, or extremely wealthy at least. Unlike medicine or academia, finance as a career isn't rewarding on a personal level, only on the monetary level when bonuses come in. Don't lie to yourself, most people go into finance for the money. So if thats people's main goal then why not measure a schools quality in that field by the amount of people who achieve intended success in the industry (maximum amount of money). So I do think looking at how many alums are billionaires is a good way of measuring Yale's strength for finance.

 

Self selecting mostly, it’s why Harvard Law produces way more biglaw grads than Yale Law despite Yale being a better program. Yale just doesn’t attract the kids who want to make a lot of money (or as much as Harvard, UPenn, etc).

 

Sure self selecting to a point. You're acting as if alums going into finance is a small sect of the total student population at Yale. It's not. Like any ivy league, many students want to go into finance. So sure, Yale is bound to have less people in leadership roles than Wharton or Harvard, but I think the ridiculously small amount of alums is something that definitely needs to be accounted for.

 

Yale Undergraduate Enrollment: 6000 / 4 = 1500 students per class 1500 * 15.6% entering finance = 234 students

How many kids out of that do you think want IB? Of those, does pretty much everyone with a decent GPA get a BB or EB?

Edit: Sorry, didn't read your whole post and didn't see that you weren't at Yale. I would think that a majority of the student place very well though.

 

I would take a step back and try to understand what a high school senior is looking for in a college. Sure, if you're one of those kids who LOVE finance from an early age and know that you want a career in IB/PE/HF, then I agree that Harvard or Wharton might be better for you (given that, as you mentioned, they historically have higher placement numbers and better networking opportunities). But chances are, as an 18-year-old, you're not a 100% sure what you want to do for the rest of your life. In that case, a school like Yale might offer equal or more value because you have more doors open to careers in politics, non-profit, law, etc. To some students, having a more diverse set of career options and dealing with less annoying finance hardos on campus is worth attending a school that isn't as "good for finance."

 

But if an 18 year old is on this sub, I think basing your advice on school selection based on the prediction of a seismic shift in interest is wildly inaccurate. If an 18 year old is dishing out terms finance terms and lurking on WSO I think it safe to assume that they are most likely interested in finance more-so than other fields. Frankly, Yale presence in top jobs in finance is absolutely horrendous. Talking about being around undergrad b-school finance hardos as a negative, when the school is clearly far superior to Yale is in my opinion a bad argument for going to Yale.

 

Candidly, I don’t think this false misperception about Yale really exists. The high schoolers who are “throwing around finance terms/hardos” have been warped enough by their false understanding of the industry to automatically choose Wharton > HYPM etc. I think it’s fairly obvious that Wharton opens up more finance opportunities than any other school, and if your goal is to maximize exit opps from college, then Wharton is the obvious choice - I don’t think anyone will argue with you there.

The people who are considering Y or P over a W or H or Columbia will more often than not be considering factors like culture, value of education, and
quality of the student base (all of which I would argue Y > W). Similarly, oftentimes these people are confident enough to know that if they could get into Yale, they can likely also attain whatever job interests them. Trust me, nobody picks Y > W solely because they want to maximize exit opps. The W hype is fully warranted for exit opps - but only for exit opps, which for people who go to schools like HYPSM, isn’t always the only priority.

For the one off student who only wants to get a top finance job and cares about nothing else except that criteria, and is being deluded by Yale’s “preftige,” then yes I would agree with this topic. But it’s far far less common than this board would have you believe.

 
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This is just a classic selection problem. Yale fails to produce billionaire MF CEOs because the school is more set up to produce Presidents and Supreme Court Justices and that's what Yale kids tend to aspire to become over the next Schwarzman.

When Schwarzman donated $150 million to build a new student center on campus and specified how large the font size needed to be on the building sign titled "The Schwarzman Center" we joked about how small his d*ick must be. We're frankly not as proud of Scwarzman as an alum as we are RBG.

All this aside, as someone graduated from Yale and worked at an EB and now a megafund, the Yale name carries a lot of weight in circles of power. People I interact with on transactions assume that i'm equally as smart as a Wharton kid (because I am) but they also assume I'm more well read and have more interesting things to say about geopolitics, which film is going to win Best Picture, and which new restaurants are the most exciting in Manhattan. Whether I'm talking to a pretty girl or the CEO of a PortCo, when they find out I went to Yale, the conversation changes in a way that it simply wouldn't if I had gone to Wharton.

 

This.

It's entirely selection bias at play here. Most people don't go to Yale gung-ho on finance more often they'll probably just end up in finance by chance rather than any active effort on their part. Firms will pour a ton of money to persuade yale students away from any of the myriad other paths that they could go down and be successful in.

 

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