Alternative Assets program is target, rest is shit (relative to UT/Rice)

 

Like with most things in this world, easy if you have connections. If you have a personality and are somewhat strong on technicals/interviews, you’ll pass. SMU has very fratty culture, so may be hard to connect with some guys if you don’t fit their style. Wouldn’t say it’s any harder to break into than any other university’s premier investment banking / investment management group given that SMU kids are (on average) not as bright.

 

Alts program is comparable to UT/Rice in terms of placements, but it's pretty selective (3.9+ GPA) and isn't really representative of SMU as a whole. From my understanding, the kids who get into the program are the ones SMU pays to go there and could have easily gone to UT or elsewhere.The program itself is awesome for Texas and seems to have a growing presence at some of the top NY firms (my friend told me CVP flew down to do a recruiting event from alts specifically). If you love SMU and are keen on keeping your GPA super high, it could be a good option.

 

When do students apply to Alts? Assuming fall sophomore year?

 

I think it’s the spring of their sophomore year. Some of the students are cut during the following fall semester and then the actual class takes place spring of junior year and then picks back up senior year.

 
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There is some misinformation here. The truth is if you want to do IB, Alts is almost essential but kids go into banking without it every year but it’s much harder. However, getting into Alts is not impossible by any means: 3.7 GPA is roughly the cutoff and then it’s an interview process of behaviorals and technicals that is manageable if you put in the work running mock interviews (which are offered). Connecting with people is not nearly as hard as the other user mentioned with its fratty culture (was not in a frat for reference).

SMU Alts is a target for Houston, sending more students per capita than UT but a much more non target for NYC than UT although it’s presence is growing with CVP and CITI FIG both recruiting on campus for NYC. Other than that there are kids going to NYC in plenty of BBs (this graduating class has kids going to GS, MS, JPM, and Citi for full time 2022) and some EBs (Moelis and CVP are the strongest network for SMU). However a lot of SMU NYC kids are diverse so do with that info what you will.

Overall I would say that Alts is doable for anyone serious about banking recruiting since 3.7 GPA is almost expected for IB anyways and if you want to go to Houston SMU Alts is a big target. If you want to go to NYC, UT is a much safer bet especially if you can get into Wall Street for Mccombs. Not super familiar with Rice, would assume they do well in Houston but won’t get much business prep.

 

Will add that for NYC, it is usually 1-2 kids per bank so that means that there are probably 5-7 kids in this graduating class going to IB NYC full time 2022, which isn't a lot as the Alts class is roughly 60 ish students.

Which is why I said UT is a much safer bet for NYC especially for non diversity and if you're in WSFM.

However anyone serious about IB recruiting pretty much landed a IB gig at a solid bank but most stay in Texas with Houston and Dallas being the most common placements.

Few kids (less than 5) to other cities (SF, Chicago, etc)

 

If you want to stay in Texas, SMU places better than UT on a per capita basis. During recruiting I had banks reaching out to me for networking calls/first round interviews and we have OCR for just about every bank in Houston. I'd also like to add these OCR events have maybe 20-30 kids because Cox is a far smaller school than McCombs so its much easier to stand out. The Alternative Asset program is also not based on connections/networking like some others have mentioned. Alts doesn't have a maximum amount of students that can be accepted and therefore almost everyone who meets the minimum requirements gets in (I'm not aware of anyone who met the minimum requirements and didn't get accepted but I'm sure there are some who slipped through the cracks). There are also other organizations on campus that also have strong pipelines into IB and there are many students who go into IB without alts from SMU through those organizations (about 1/5th or so aren't in Alts).

 

The Maguire Institute (Energy) and Folsom Institute (Real Estate) both have their own specializations/majors and organizations that feed into industry specific finance jobs. Folsom has a pipeline to GS in Dallas, Maguire has pipelines to a decent amount of the Houston Energy IBs. There are also 2 Investment clubs on campus, Boulevard Investment Group and The Spindletop Energy Fund (run by the Maguire Institute) which both have their personal pipelines. Finally, there are some strong diversity groups that have had strong placement as well.

 

Couple things. From smu alts, you can land just about any job in Houston or Dallas. For nyc, the summer hires are mostly diversity, not a lot of white dudes getting those. Lot of people lateral to nyc after a few months/year at another IB. But smu alts has people at every big bank and boutique in nyc (Moelis, CVP, Evercore, pjt, Lazard, Goldman tmt, Gugg, JPM, ms, and more). As of rn, only citi fig really hires normal, non diversity to nyc for summer analyst. Also, bunch of MF associates from alts as well (bx, kkr, apo, Warburg, etc). In short, if you’re in alts, you’ll be just fine for recruiting IB and PE plus you’ll have a way better college experience.

 

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