McGill Desautels vs. Queen's Commerce
I am considering McGill Desautels and Queen's Commerce.
Looking for advice and input relating to placements on Bay & Wall Street, alumni, culture etc.
Anything would be helpful, thanks
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Thanks for the reply. What American counterpart would you compare Queen's to, based on the factors you mentioned? Or is that a less straight forward question being that the comparison between a Canadian and American university is complicated?
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Does McGill even place on Wall Street?
I know that they supposedly place kids from their Honours Investment Management program (HIM) in NYC, but have no clue if any non-HIM kids place on Wall Street
I know a few people from their program who have placed in NYC (EBs) and LA/Menlo. Most go to Toronto or stay in Montreal.
Overall, both great places to go.
Yes and it has a long history of doing so. Ultimately, I would choose school based on the experience you want to have as the recruitment opportunities will be practically the same. Do you want a typical college experience in a small town with a mostly Ontarian student body or do you want to be in one of the most fun and dynamic city with a very international student body?
Montreal >>>>>>>>>(...)>>>>>>>>>> Kingston
Montreal is probably the best city to live in as a student. Used to live there, I loved it.
Two guys from my year at Desautels placed in GS NYC (IB). One of them was from the HIM program and the other was a varsity athlete (with good grades of course).
Both have good placements and are pretty similar in my opinion. I'd say slight advantage goes to McGill (if Honors Investment Management), major advantage if you're fluent in French. You get access to Montreal, Toronto and some NYC EBs.
Also i'd take into account student life as that is a large determinant of your experience. - Montreal is extremely diverse, large club & art scene - very hipster & killer food - Kingston is a small city with not much going on (student town) but insane parties (st pats and Hoco)
You'll do well at either or. That being said, if you are a visible minority, I'd say go to McGill. Queens has a reputation of being extremely fratty and has had some "incidents" in the past.
Thanks. I understand that Montreal is a small market and am unsure if this is well known but what is the language requirement for IB/PWM/Anything finance related in MTL? If someone were to not speak French fluently, would they be screwed?
You must be able to somewhat speak french (be able to hold a conversation and understand).
However, if you are fully fluent, you have way more opportunities as some offices may primarily speak french.
BBs have some satellite offices there, mostly operations or quant related. Some have a small IB team. There are a lot of boutiques/pension funds which recruit directly from McGill.
Queen's no doubt. It'll be tough to get into the US from anywhere in the next few years, but Queen's will undoubtedly get you solid placements on Bay St. at the very least. GS TMT (SF and NY) used to recruit super heavily there, though not much anymore due to visa reasons. I think EVR takes one or two per year. Also very strong alumni network across North America.
McGill does not recruit well at all for IB or consulting. Literally only one US group actively recruits there (EVR Houston) and that's because one of their MDs sons goes to McGill lol.
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunate to hear how underwhelming McGill is.
Any word on how Ivey compares to Queen's (recruiting wise)? I have heard whispers of Ivey's recruiting slowing down but I frankly don't know.
Hearing Queen's place at GS NY/SF + EVR makes me wonder if that attests to their quality as a program or if Ivey has shed positive light to other Canadian programs.
Ivey >> Queen's >>>>>>>>> literally anything else
Ivey is still a much better target than Queen's but both are objectively top 2 in Canada - no question about it. That being said, since they take so many people, you need to be ranked super high and be really involved in the investment clubs to even have a shot at making it into banking.
Recruiting from the US is gonna slow down dramatically at both of these schools over the next 2-3 years, so I wouldn't make a decision based off that. Honestly I'd be surprised if any US offices take Ivey/Queen's kids by then, especially if Trump wins a second term.
Not true at all for consulting, all three MBB do OCR at McGill and it places pretty much the same as Queens, at least at the Canadian offices. Obviously Ivey is best if MBB is your goal.
Not sure if the previous comments are based on facts or assumptions but McGill has recent alumni at Lazard LA, Houlihan LA, JP Morgan NY, LionTree NY, Moelis, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse NY, Evercore NY/Houston, RBC NY and for Toronto (RBC, CIBC, TD, BMO, MS, Barclays, Credit Suisse). If you do some searching you'll find them easily. Alot of them were also just Finance majors that weren't in the Honours Investment Management program. Also McGill Desautels is a feeder school for consulting especially Bain & Big 4. However I do agree with the fact that in order to end up on Bay or Wall Street, Ivey, Queens & McGill are pretty much your best bet. Queens places phenominally, but McGill offers a greater overall experience for obvious reasons. You can't go wrong either way, but rest assured you'll place well with either school (given you work hard and network obviously!)
queens and ivey.
Have to disagree with a few of the previous comments. McGill places very well, especially considering the student population which is highly international. Compared to Queens and Ivey there are a lot less McGill students actually trying to recruit on Bay & Wall st - many return to their homes abroad. To say mcgill does not recruit well is misinformation - I believe that this summer theres 2 at evr, 2 at moelis, 2 at liontree and placement at every Canadian bank. Dont believe everything you read here...
Fresh McGill Desautels grad here. I don't have much knowledge about Queen's Commerce, making it difficult to compare between the two. What I can say however is that McGill Desautels does benefit from a solid brand name and places very well in Canada, the U.S and abroad. Just like at any other top uni, you will have to work very hard to get a solid GPA and network with industry professionals. Every year, Desautels places many students in top BBs in NY and Toronto, some of my peers even making it to EBs (Lazard, Evercore, Greenhill...) in top cities. If you are committed to Finance/IB I'd recommend you try getting in to the Honours in Investment Management (HIM) Program which benefits from a very strong alumni network and quite exclusive networking events/firm insights. Students that follow that program usually place extremely well in both Finance and Consulting. Personally I went for the more standard major in Finance with a minor concentration in Economics route and managed to land a few offers including that of a BB in London for S&T. Overall I would say that McGill Desautels is a solid choice. Feel free to PM me for more detailed insights.
Thanks for the insight. Sent a PM
I'm French and I graduated from McGill's BCom in June 2019.
I have no doubt regarding Queen's great placement post-graduation, but from my experience, McGill has a much stronger international/brand recognition and still places very well into EB/BB. Their HIM program is good and opens more doors to BB recruiting thanks to its alumni network and private on-campus events (as mentioned by @jupb58152" ), but it's like everywhere: if you study and network hard enough, it's very doable to get the top opps without joining HIM. In addition, Montreal offers a truly remarkable student experience: there are many university students, it's very cosmopolitan and the cultural scene is dope (NHL, concerts, music festivals, F1, soccer), affordable housing-wise (vs. Toronto or Vancouver). You're from reasonable distance from both NYC and Toronto, and have the lakes/mountains for skiing within a 40-min drive.
As mentioned above, the high proportion of international students means that fresh graduates tend to fly home instead of recruiting for local opps. For example, there are many French students at Desautels (Montreal being a bilingual city and we pay Canadian tuition fees), and a huge majority of them fly back to Europe/France to do a MSc degree at (HEC/LSE/ESSEC/Bocconi etc.). They are not flying home because they can't place well in North America, it's rather that they want to work in Europe and a Msc degree is usually «the norm».
For example, within my fraternity and close-friends environment, IBD placement post-graduation included UBS HK, Liontree NYC, PJT London, GS/MS NYC, RBC Toronto (only one of them was in HIM).
On my side, I've been doing off-cycle internships in a large Canadian pension fund in London (UK) since graduation. People working there only come from Ivy/HEC/Oxbridge and BBs background, but I was positively surprised by their perception of McGill.
Thus, I'd go for McGill over Queens because you have access top opportunities (if you're looking for them) in a really fulfilling environment + the school has a global brand name that Queen's doesn't have.
Feel free to PM me, I'd be happy to answer other questions
A.
McGill vs Queens for masters?
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