UChicago's true rank, prestige and value for IB
Alright now before I start, I know that everyone’s tired of seeing the UChicago vs. X school posts, listening to the constant bickering about the actual prestige level and deserved ranking of the university, and seeing everyone constantly bring up its supposedly lackluster social scene. Though as someone who will be attending the University of Chicago this fall, I am genuinely curious about what its true ranking, prestige level and value is as far as Investment Banking compared to other Universities. I have scoured WSO and seen some people speak of UChicago as an intellectual powerhouse university producing the best economics students and on par if not better than HYPSM, but I’ve also seen people call it worse than a lower tier Ivy, and that you would be better of going to Umichigan Ross. I hope that someone can provide me with at least a somewhat unbiased opinion about the reputation of UChicago and its future in finance.
and P.S before someone jumps down my throat I am very happy to go to UChicago and yes I know it’s a very good school and that rankings hypothetically shouldn’t matter because I will be getting a quality education, but I would still like to know
https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-banking
Yes, it is a great school for IB.
Thats a shitty list. Schools like Brown have twice the student body than Dartmouth but have similiar placements into IB. Make that list per capita to show more accurate rankings.
LMAO found the UCLA kid
If you want people to think you're an insufferable prick-nerd and zero fun, then UChicago is the best choice for you! Also UChicago has big "chip on the shoulder because I didn't get into an Ivy but this school is really competitive I swear energy"-- See WashU & Northwestern for similarities.
Oh does it? I never saw UChicago as inferior to the ivies. I chose UChicago over Dartmouth, Cornell and Brown. Are you really trying to say UChicago is worse than Cornell because Cornell is an Ivy?
Idk if you know this but UChicago is literally known to game the rankings from manipulating their admissions statistics, via EA1, EA2, ED1, ED2, etc etc, and Endowment (I think Bloomberg and NY Times wrote an article on this actually). I was in the same position as you (UChicago vs another t10), ended up choosing the latter after I read what they were doing. Beautiful campus though, reminds me of Harry Potter! Too bad it's in Hyde Park.
Also, a funny note... I have yet to meet anyone from UChicago who isn't consistently defending or worried about their reputation and prestige. I guess thats what you get when you have 18 year olds choosing a college based on US News rankings over culture or student life.
As someone who chose UChicago over a HYPSM last year, please don't make the same mistake I did. HYPSM will turn heads; UChicago won't. Fact of the matter is 99.9% of recruiters out there don't know what UChicago even is, so good luck getting freshman year internships. And that's only in finance; if you're interested in SWE, you would literally be doing yourself a favor if you chose Purdue over UChicago. Then there's the campus culture. There's a common misconception that UChicago is supposedly "special" intellectually: you reference how it's "an intellectual powerhouse university producing the best economics students." In reality, most econ majors actually major in something called "business economics" in which you can literally be functionally illiterate and still get a decent GPA. I've met so many people in my core classes whose ideas and general academic performance make me wonder how they even got accepted to this school--or any college, for that matter--but hey, they're biz econ majors, so... Unless you're taking honors and grad school courses in physics and math--and since you're interested in IB I wouldn't recommend doing so--you won't ever interact with the "intellectual" side of the university. So, what's left? Brutal winters in the most crime-ridden part of Hyde Park and a generally socially dead campus. Honestly, I don't know what is it that makes UChicago so appealing to HS students
yea OP don't listen to this salty first year with an insecure ego LOL youre delusional if you think the reason you havent been getting interviews is because no one has heard of uchicago. like actually capital D delusional, take this man to a mental hospital. youre also not gonna get far in life with this kind of attitude towards your classmates
OP, uchicago is a fantastic school and you will easily get the same opportunities as any student at a T10 - BB/EBs, MBB, whatever
Senior at a top Ivy here (with friends and family at all the Ivies and UChicago). There's no point in trying to force each school into a numerical rank because there's so much subjectivity involved. Realistically, UChicago's prestige is around that of the lower Ivies and I don't think you should be offended by that statement. The Ivies, including the lower Ivies, have had centuries to build up their reputation and alumni networks, especially in NY. USNews ranking UChicago in X, Y, or Z this year doesn't change anything and going in thinking you're superior to Dartmouth, Brown, or Cornell grads is going to get you made fun of.
The following will be nuanced, so please read carefully.
If you actually got in there and are going, this is a silly thing to worry about. Prestige in the sense of alma mater doesn't matter nearly as much as the children on this forum think it does. Going to Uchicago or to an ivy is not prestigious to people on wall street. Your father being a 10-year hedge fund client of GS prime brokerage is. UChicago checks the "great school" box several times over, but that's all a school can really do for you. So you're better suited thinking about how to land interviews and how to actually do well in them.
Some cold facts:
Most BB SA IB seats are filled with connected kids and diversity hires. In some groups pretty much everyone checks one of these boxes. Plenty of Uchicago kids will fall into this bucket and get internships they don't "deserve." (Diversity is often filled through OCR, connected kids through backchannels)
Most EB and top buyside roles out of undergrad are filled with kids who have 3.9+ from top schools AND network hard AND interview for finance extremely well. That requires a level of maturity very rare for even the smartest 20-year-olds. But hey, there's very few seats like this so that's what it takes. (There's a few spots at BBs for kids like this too). There's always ~30 or so kids in each class at UChicago falling into this bucket, and they land great seats. (Also often receive offers through OCR)
On the other hand, it's not impossible to get an internship at a MM or industry-specialty boutique if you study the guides and you're a normal bright kid with a 3.5+ at a top 20-25 school (and UChicago is easily top 10). And, those connected and diversity kids quit the BBs all the time, so there will be plenty opportunities to get into BBs through FT and lateral.
The point is, KNOW YOUR SHIT, BE PERSISTANT, BE RESOURCEFUL, AND BE ABLE TO CARRY A CONVERSATION. Because I haven't seen anyone from UChicago try for an extended period of time to get into a great finance seat and end up not getting one
There will never be a firm that rejects you because you went to UChicago. Hell there would never be a firm that rejects you because you went to Notre Dame or UVA or Michigan or even Penn State. If they reject you, its either for different unfair reasons (lack of connections, diversity) or its your fault. Likewise, no one will hire you just because you go there. Just so you know, there are plenty of smart-on-paper wharton kids who end up in some third-rate consulting gig. Usually, its just because landing a top-tier finance job was not the most important thing to them, and thus they were not as prepared as those did receive offers.
Step 1 is to stop thinking about a school's prestige, because the concept of a school being prestigious is kind of silly. Remember, guys on wall street think students / profs even at the top schools are complete clownshows who like to sleep in and protest about transgender BLM or something. That puts it into context.
Step 2 is to actually make yourself an attractive candidate. Max out your grades the first two years. Start studying the guides now. Be able to read a company's 10-k and formulate an opinion. Seek small finance internships during the school year and your freshman summer. Etc.
Also, start networking as soon as you're able to talk-the-talk. Meet the upperclassmen going into finance and keep in touch. Cold email alumni in finance you see on linkedin. Associates and VPs who are Booth MBA alumni will also gladly talk to you if you sound like you know what you're talking about.
On the school's general perception on the street, there tends to be two camps. Some perceive it as a super-intense tip-top school like MIT and tend to vocalize that to you. (Certainly helps the ego to hear that). The other camp tends to have a vague conception that its a really great school in the midwest (and tends to think its in Evanston). Either way, never a problem.
Summary: the prestige of Uchicago is a non-issue. What matters now is how is how scrappy you are and how much you want it. Just like everywhere else. If you hear some 19 year old whining about it, it's probably because they got rejected from some finance club that no one in the real world cares about and has already given up hope. With that attitude, they wouldn't stand a chance with wall street recruiting anywhere they went.
Agree with this take. Another thing to mention is that UChicago has one of the best reputations among many of the top buyside shops (Citadel, DE Shaw, Bridgewater, Optiver, Two Sigma, SIG, Akuna, Jump, Wolverine, etc.) as compared to almost any other school. We had significantly more buyside opportunities than any of my peers except those at HSW.
Reputation on the sell-side is, generally speaking, not quite as high as on the buyside, but is never an issue. As the above poster noted - if you're not getting interviews or offers it's a you problem and not a UChicago problem. I remember in my SA superday I was going up against 5-6 Northwestern undergrads and there was a distinct impression from the interviewers that I was seen as a tier above for having gone to UChicago.
Plenty of undergrads make it to top IB groups on the street every year (PJT RX, GS TMT, etc.) and no BB will ever truly be off limits, but some definitely take more UChicago students than others. Off the top of my head, I remember CS, GS, and JPM to take a close to a dozen or more kids each year.
Join the right finance clubs (The Blue Chips) take advantage of career advancement (Trott Business Program) and you'll be fine. Now that I'm more mature and further along in my career, I'm truly thankful that I chose to go here over HYPSM - the education you get is unique even amongst other top-tier academic institutions.