Rice University vs. UT Austin McCombs Undergraduate
I am fortunate enough to have been accepted to both of these top schools in Texas. My goal is to work in energy IB in the region, and then move to PE or a megafund. I'd be studying finance at UT Austin, or Mathematical Economic Analysis with a minor in business at Rice University. I'm not sure which is most well regarded in energy IB recruiting, and I'm positive I'd enjoy my time at either school. I'm only posting because another similar topic is about 2 years old now, and I'm seeking new info related to this situation. If it helps, I'm also an URM (hispanic), so that may also affect recruiting.
McCombs, no contest.
Rice is a great school but UT places way better.
Also, being in Austin while Tom Herman is coaching football is going to be way fun for you.
Current analyst at an IB in North-East Houston. I will tell you upfront that McCombs, in terms of recruiting, network, professors-whatever- tops economics at Rice. You'd be better off with a finance or accounting degree at McCombs. A liberal art degree just won't cut it job hunting wise. Although Rice has a proximity with IB's, that has little to do with recruiting. That being said, Aggies and Longhorns PREDOMINATE at IB(with McCombs given a slighter edge both in state and out of state). If you made BHP, you would get attention or first glances from banks, but from there it's all about the individual.
The alumni hookups can be unreal. On linkedin, of my junior year, I messaged a former Longhorn about my interest in IB, and he gave me easy access to an interview, rather than just making my resume become stuck in a pile of resumes. One year later, and I got a full time position.
And please don't tell me you're considering Rice over McCombs because of the low acceptance rate and recognition. I'd say that Rice gains most of it's recognition for its medical-school connections, pre-med program, and just the science department.
Sorry to say this, TexasIBFinancial, but your post is full of misinformation and is misleading in that it is full of Longhorn bias. UT is a great place to go if you want to do IB, but it's absurd to me that you say the proximity doesn't matter or that a Rice liberal arts degree won't cut it in recruiting. I've worked with graduates of both schools - Rice has a small alumni network but every single alum is highly successful and will go out of their way to help out other Rice kids. As someone who used to recruit from these schools I can tell you that we (even though Texas recruiting was done out of NY) would place more value on a 3.7 in Econ from Rice than a 3.8 in Finance from UT, all else equal.
The trend we noticed was that UT had hundreds of kids and you had to do some work to figure out who the best were. The screening process was much easier at Rice due to its size. We knew we couldn't go wrong with top candidates from either school, so we (and other banks on the street) would end up inviting a much higher % of Rice applicants to superdays than from UT - it was just a more efficient way to identify talent, especially since Rice was down the street for our Houston guys who would have first rounds on campus.
The best grads from UT were usually better at hitting the ground running than the best grads from Rice due to UT's better finance prep. But the Rice kids were wicked smart, and within a few months they were top performers as learning banking was a cakewalk for them. We would hire engineers from Rice with no finance background and they would absolutely crush it after a few months. Same goes for comp sci, econ, etc. Obviously we weren't hiring many sociologists or basketweavers from either school.
Is this a real q?
Austin by a margin.
Yeah, it's a real question. Any reasons why UT wins by a margin for you?
I compared the two back when I was graduating from high school as well. Although I didn't go to either one, I would recommend going to UT if you are dead set on IB. From my experience within the industry, I have met far more people from UT business than Rice and most of the IB's in NYC recruit at UT - some might argue this is a function of the relative size of the schools, but I honestly feel UT business has more pull.
UT business carries more weight within the industry although I really like Rice as a broad institution and, in my opinion, feel like it is a better school as a whole. That being said, I would recommend choosing UT if you plan to do IB.
Something to keep in mind is that the number of kids interersted in finance at Rice is tiny compared to UT. The average job posting at UT has 200+ applicants compared to ~40 or so from Rice. UT may be bigger with access to more opportuninties, but you have to be the best of the best to actually get these opportunities and finance recruiting is insanely competitive in general. It's still tough to get a banking job coming out of Rice but not on the same level as at UT. BHP is a minor factor and shouldn't shift your decision either way.
Yes, the tiny amount of IB-interested students at Rice seems to be relatively advantageous for recruiting compared to UT's seemingly huge number. Not sure how much of a difference it would make, however.
It makes a difference if the recruiting team is smaller. I've seen a MBB success and a BB-level boutique IB success from Rice due to its number.
When you run back-to-back interviews, small schools win big only because interviewers are less tired at smaller schools.
McCombs. Hand. Down.
The recruiting scene at UT, especially in Finance dominates Rice. Investment Banks come here in more frequency than at Rice. It isn't harder to stand out at Rice than at UT. Also, why would you get an economics degree than a finance degree? You can also specialize your finance degree at UT, which means IBanking can become a very viable and likely option. IBanks favor UT over rice. When I went to recruiting events, almost all of the alumni were Longhorns. This can give you a edge when you network.
Also, it's Austin, Texas. Lively scene and you can spend the next 4 years partying it up.
Not discounting UT in any way, but going to UT just to replace a Econ degree with Finance degree is an extremely weak argument. Ivy leagues regular send not even business majors to Wall Street, so I'm sure there are other more useful arguments that can support UT, like it's MBA and BBA network, or something around competitiveness and internships
If you go to UT recruiting event and the bankers aren't from UT, then they'd be wasting time because they can't figure out which kids are real deals by taking the most noteworthy and challenging classes. It's a standard you see everywhere, but a worse case is when a firm doesn't host a recruiting event.
How many investment banks are in Austin? Rice is literally 10 minutes away from every major investment bank in Texas, and every single one of them recruits at Rice. For bankers, recruiting is a major pain in the ass, and it's much easier for them to do a happy hour / info session down the street at Rice than it is for them to take the 3+ hour trip to Austin. The UT info session will be crowded with hundreds of kids who have been groomed to be bankers from the time they took their first step, whereas at Rice there will be 5 qualified kids in the room. It's much, much easier to stand out at Rice (my bank used to hire from both schools, as well as SMU and to a lesser extent A&M).
All the folks posting about how McCombs places "better" than Rice need to realize that at UT you will be competing with 250 well polished finance kids, while at Rice your competition will be 15 - 20 tops, half of which will be awkward international students who might wear tennis shoes to their first round interviews.
At a school like Rice, you just need to do relatively well to stand out. At UT, you better be the cream of the crop.
I say this because my group in banking had a Houston office and I personally screened resume piles and saw 20+ resumes from UT for every resume from Rice. In our superday the ratio of UT to Rice was much smaller, like 3 to 1, which gives you an idea of how many people we cut from UT because they just didn't stand out from the crowd.
I've always thought arguments like this were a fallacy though. When banks (or any organization) are hiring full time analysts, graduates are competing with EVERY other graduating senior that is interested in the position from BOTH inside and outside of their own school.
Banks don't say we're going to take one analyst each from UT, Rice, and SMU, so therefore you have the highest proportional likelihood at Rice, then SMU, then UT. Banks will just hire the most qualified people they can find...even if that means ending up having the majority of their analysts from one school.
I've never heard someone say, "CalTech > Berkely Haas because at Haas there will be far more competition for finance jobs"...that's just not really how the hiring market works imo.
In an efficient theoretical hiring market, sure banks will just take the most qualified people. In reality, the new associate who came from UT would get assigned to UT recruiting, the new associate from Rice would get assigned to Rice, etc. Experienced analysts got to screen a few as well. The associate recommendations up to the staffer were the initial pool for first round interviews (along with whatever names HR had passed on, or through MD connections, etc).
So in practice, we were likely to have a disproportionate representation of candidates from smaller elite schools, because you had associates from those schools gunning for resumes at the top of their respective lists. This was at a BB btw - other banks will have different processes but I guarantee you each process has bias, and the strong connection bankers often feel to their alma mater usually plays a role in the composition of an analyst class.
A lot of UT circle jerking. Rice x100, get a fucking grip.
If you go to Rice and can maintain a decent GPA you can easily land an IB job in Houston unless you're autistic. Rice is on a completely different level academically, honestly surprised this is even a debate.
UNC vs. Duke Georgia vs. Emory Mich. vs. ND Texas vs. Rice
Private school every time.