Northwestern University Undergrad
Curious about target status and overall experience both for Chicago/NY as well as Consulting/IB. I've seen it being compared to Duke/UChicago (IVY+), but also other schools like UMich Ross/Georgetown/Stern. I know a lot of kids at Northwestern gun for cs/lib arts/journalism but there are some finance hardos. I know it's not Harvard/Wharton level but is it the tier below it?
Where would you stack it up in overall consulting/IB world in Chicago/NY? Would you say target or more nuanced? Peer schools overall and for finance?
Northwestern is elite, same level as Duke, Dartmouth, UChicago, Brown, Cornell. Placement in recent years is insane and its public on their club site. Believe theres also very little competition.
Yeah it would rock going now and probably not so much in 3-5 years when it gets more competitive for recruiting.
What? The Ivy/Ivy+ brand will always help in recruiting
Congrats on Northwestern!
there have been tons of threads and comments on NW - would look at those.
but tldr: its a t10 so obviously its prestigious and will place well, i would say similar to duke/dartmouth/brown/penn cas.
I go to Northwestern so I’m biased but the people underrating it just aren’t aware of the school. NU is the biggest feeder to Blackstone after Harvard and Wharton if that provides some context. We also send so many kids directly to the buyside every year (BX, KKR, Bain Cap, Ares, Vista, etc), not to mention 8 kids to GS IBD this year (Only NY Classics and SF TMT, IBC site doesn’t reflect this because some kids who got offers weren't in IBC). Every EB and top BB comes for OCR / has NU as a target school for them. My point is that if you come to Northwestern and do what’s needed (networking, studying technicals) - you’ll get a good offer.
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I went to northwestern and graduated this past spring (2025). There were 10 northwestern students who signed summer offers at blackstone my recruiting cycle two years ago, so I don't think placement is an issue xd.
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Hey! Can I ask you a few questions about Northwestern?
Top target for Chicago, obviously. Target for NY (as opposed to top target, which would be HYPS or equivalent, like MIT for which the only reason it isn't usually grouped with HYPS is that there's obviously proportionately fewer kids there gunning for finance spots).
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freshmen are really asking if going to a top ten school is enough to get a job in IB nowadays huh
Northwestern’s finance presence has massively grown over the last 5/10 years really through the creation of IBC. Used to only really be a Chicago target with the cream of the crop getting mid tier NY looks but this has 100% changed.
Career Office is pretty terrible there which led to the creation of the club who all the big firms work with directly making it really tough if you’re not in the club to get looks. That said, they take ~60 a year so basically every kid truly serious about recruiting gets in. Once you’re in, placement is 95%+ and you’ll get looks literally everywhere. Kids go to all the best Buyside firms every year across all types of groups (PE, PC, RE), recently growing RX presence and multiple go to top BB/EB (5+ kids at GS/MS/Evercore – can see in more detail on the website)
Truly Northwestern has had the biggest rise of any top school in that regard. Like it wouldn't have been on my radar at all prior to 2019.
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