[UG] Wharton vs Harvard Stanford Yale Dartmouth for Buy-side - GPA / OCR competition

I feel anecdotal ranking is a bit too broad for me to decide where to apply early to. I'm interested in buyside opps. I know Wharton is the top choice here in terms of rank, curriculum, city, but I would like to drill down further here.

If you take out students who have jobs already waiting for them at graduation through family connections, consider mean GPA (Wharton is at least .3 lower than others), factor in ease of entry to investment clubs (Wharton takes few), how would you then assess placement to buyside firms?

I love Wharton, but the sheer number of competitors for OCR, number of hooked students, difficulty in getting into finance clubs are all deterrents against ED.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

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He's still a soph/junior in highschool.

How the fuck is anyone else supposed to have a chance these days when these kids think about PE 8 years in advance?

 

what the hell dude. you haven’t even applied yet. apply to ALL of them. see where you get in, and THEN make this post in 2 years time Jesus. wtf is the point of this now? are you going to only apply to the one program that this thread deems the best? fuck no. stop being an idiot. if you want choices don’t do ED for Wharton. do whatever that EA is for Harvard. you’re a literal 15/16 year old who knows what buyside opps are. you definitely have friends/family in the industry.

 

No need to be condescending.

I don't shotgun apps, I prefer a narrow focus. If my questions are not valid and not useful for anyone else on WSO, then that's a different story.

I question instead of accepting the status quo. There is a ton of BS in education let alone the finance industry. I happen to not have the patience for the BS and cut to the chase.

Some may let things just happen to them. I happen to think about things like whether tech will eat up the finance industry; whether VC business model will really last with all this underperformance; and whether PE can still generate returns when acquisitions are trading at high multiples.

Don't know if others have sensed it, but I feel like things are changing in the industry. Recent market irrationality is unprecidented. I think more thoughts are warranted.

 
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um. ok so, i can’t stress this enough, maybe no one’s told you no in life - but as a general rule - you 100% should be “shotgunning” apps to all these top places. it’s a huge crapshoot for the most part and if you’re in that hallowed elite that gets into every single one of these programs, then good on you (and then the worlds your oyster) but regardless, you should apply to as many as you can’t. you’re definitely not lacking confidence, maybe some humility can be sprinkled in here. for your unrelated “existential” questions - things are split up into secular trends and cyclical trends - the VC/PE predicament is a cyclical thing. multiples expand and compress, capital flows and dries up, the cycle continues. as for tech eating finance, yeah that’s a valid thought experience but seems pretty irrelevant to your stated buyside goal (robots aren’t going to do PE. high frequency/algo PE shops aren’t ever going to pop up).

you sound like a smart enough dude skimming the surface - but it’s objectively not smart to not apply to all these programs.

 

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