Stanford vs USC
So I know at first glance Stanford sounds like the obvious choice, but I have heard that USC has way more alumni and great recruiting, while Stanford is more focused on tech... But at the dame times , Stanford is Stanford. For WEST COAST finance specifically, which of these schools is better?
Stanford in a heartbeat
Lol what. At Stanford undergrad, you'll have recruiting opportunities from KKR, BainCap, General Atlantic, TCV, Silver Lake, Ares, Point72, Bridgewater and a lot more along with traditional IB. Just look at new analyst hires for BainCap on Linkedin and you'll see it's overwhelmingly Stanford.
Stanford 1000%
Think this is a high school kid considering decision and waitlist decision deadlines were months ago.
Stanford.. Why even ask
Definitely Stanford. Got recruited for GS TMT along with a buddy of mine last year. Hella Stanford alum are in the SF office so you’ll find good company there right off the bat. As others have mentioned you also have prime buy-side opportunities at your fingertips right out of undergrad at places like Blackstone, KKR, Point 72. They all have OCR here. The best part really is that not many students are going into finance so the pool of competition is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller (maybe like 200 kids will attend an info session, and then actually 50 take recruiting seriously and are competitive), yes that means less alumni on the street — but it also means the ones who are out there are superrrr aggressive about making sure Stanford grads transition into it smoothly.
You also get the benefit of studying literally whatever you want at Stanford and still having the opportunity to recruit for finance. Any major can be spun into your interest in finance and everyone assumes Stanford kids are really smart and can be taught the basic technicals through training. This gives you the opportunity to be a more interesting candidate, or more well rounded, which is (in my opinion) a part of the soft skill set that is greatly undervalued on WSO. If you have the opportunity, pick Stanford and don’t look back.
Come on....is this a serious question? Don't overthink this
Coming from a USC student, go to Stanford. USC will set you up extremely well for LA banks; the alumni network is seriously unparalleled (you have no idea the guys who will pick up the phone for you just because you're a Trojan) and the top kids will place really well (GS TMT, Moelis LA, CS LA, Barclays LA, GS LA this year to name a few), but the Stanford brand name is the best in the world. Stanford will also allow you to recruit for NY if you end up wanting to, whereas USC not as much.
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