Northwestern, Gtown, Stern, Cornell or Brown

Hey guys,

I'm just wondering how they differ in terms of recruiting opps for ib/MBB. Especially internationally hence I'm an international student.

my target schools:
northwestern
georgetown
stern (I heard that there is a lack of social life)
cornell (depressing small town)

reach:
brown

 

But where do I have the best odds? I'm especially curious about northwestern and gtown since the social life should be much better than cornell? And how does amherest compare to them, I heard it's a target because of the strong network, combine that with the small amount of kids who are interested in Finance, and I guess I would have a fair shot.

 
Best Response

This might be an obvious piece of advice but if you search each school on LinkedIn you can see where the majority of graduates work - what industry and what company within that industry. The categories are broad - finance, consulting, operations etc - but they list the firms in order of volume. You can then click on a firm and each alumnus within that firm and, since it's LinkedIn, you'll be able to see what their position is. You'll be able to determine if the IB probability is related to front office or back office jobs and go from there. You'll also see year of graduation so you can see whether recent hiring practices result in jobs or if its all top executives and they aren't really hiring from that school anymore.

Even better idea - research the partners or directors at firms you're interested in and see what the dominant school is. If you want to work at Brown Brothers Harriman or Baupost, for example, I would suggest donating your first born child to the director of admissions at HBS, or something.

 
germancraft1997:

So it's

Georgetown
Cornell
Amherest
Northwestern
Stern
Brown

Most of them are close enough that it's fairly futile to rank them. Do ED for the school that gives the highest boost in admission (ex- harvard ED has same admission rate whereas other schools it can boost admission from 10% to 25%). Like I said, unless you're an URM with a 2400, you're probably not going to be picking from a long list after admissions. If you're international from China/India, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle at almost any highly rated school even with great scores/GPA/ECs.

 

i completely agree with the comments posted above about cornell. our MBB placement is probably in the single digits. ib placements tend to be in the 40-60 range. social life is really what you make of it. those following ib recruiting have to make a trip down to nyc every Thursday night. and we typically have Friday night in nyc for ourselves. however, if you are following ib recruiting at cornell, it is extremely difficult to also pursue consulting due to overlaps in recruitment/preparation opportunities. hope that helps.

 

amherst has a 5% Acceptance rate for internationals and also its need blind for internationals unlike ivies, so the kids who actually get in are the best of the best from across the world. You would honestly have a much better shot at the other schools

 

Georgetown has great placement into Finance out of Undergrad, its unusually strong considering the strength of the MBA program. Northwestern also has good placement, especially in the midwest. Amherst is extremely prestigious and although there are fewer "formal" opportunities(ie less on campus recrutiing) the name brand is extremely strong and its a very well respected school. You'll be able to go anywhere from Amherst, plus the network is tight.

Cornell is a huge school that has ok placement, but it will be competitive given the amount of students who want to get top jobs. Also, it's a weaker brand name. Stern in fine, but very finance heavy and I've heard not so great things about the singular finance focus on somewhat competitive nature of the school.

Brown has a strong brand name, but if you're purely looking for placement into jobs I would think that a comparable school would be Dartmouth and you'd probably have better luck there.

Have you visited any of the schools (I know you're international, but have you made any trips?)? Spoken to any current students? Personally my ranking is that you should ED to your favorite out of G-Town, Northwestern, and Amherst. All have different feels, but are highly respected and will place you into pretty much anything you want to do. G-Town is probably slightly better for Finance, NW for Consulting, and Amherst for either but you'll have to work a little harder to find the opportunities.

 

From what I've seen, Cornell has very strong BB recruiting at some firms (e.g. GS, MS, JPM, Citi) but not others (CS, UBS). Cornell has weaker but improving recruiting with MBB (McKinsey and BCG have recently started coming to campus but not Bain as far as I know).

Northwestern seems to be the opposite of Cornell in that it does better with MBB than BBs based on what I've heard from friends there.

I've heard that Georgetown does very well with MBB but have no idea about their finance placement.

Stern has huge placement at BBs but I don't think they place too well with MBB.

Amherst has a good reputation overall but is small and could have less established recruiting with some or many of these firms.

Brown has a great reputation but I think they are less finance/consulting-heavy than peer institutions.

As far as BBs go, this chart has some great info about which schools place at which firms: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/wso-rankings-for-investment-banks…

good luck!

 

I would argue that Stern is probably on top of everything you listed when it comes to europe (germany specifically as your name suggests interest/ties to the region). Stern has a finance focus but in Germany you will have great opportunities at MBB also. McKinsey Germany actually flies over to talk to the few german kids on campus. (i am sure its not the only school visited but i think the rest was just Columbia, Wharton, Harvard --> much harder to get into). Stern is expensive but the NY experience is really cool. And in europe its really well regarded. Northwestern and Georgetown would probably be next on the list for europe/germany.

 

They send a team of 4 consultants to the states to recruit german speakers at the top schools. I know this for a fact because I sat in one of their events at stern and later got an e-mail about the possibility to interview with them (also at stern) so they even come multiple times. These were McK consultants from the munich office but they recruit and interview for all german offices. It was legit me and 5 other german speaking kids at stern at the event haha. But again they visit multiple schools during their east coast trip.

 

How are all those schools targets and Brown is a reach? This is my perspective (which may be outdated so take with a grain of salt):

Brown - Will place you into IBD/MBB, but a school full of a ton of hipsters Cornell - Will place IBD, no idea about MBB...but it's Cornell (depressing/not a real ivy) Northwestern - Will place you IBD/MBB Stern - Will place IBD, no idea about MBB...except it's NYU (no social life, bunch of hardo asians, not a real "college" experience) Georgetown - Will place IBD/MBB (but more IBD than MBB) Amherst - Probably the hardest to get into, will place IBD/MBB

In the event you actually get into all of these schools, I would narrow it down to Amherst, Northwestern, and Georgetown...Cornell too if you can put up with Ithaca.

 

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