Why does IU Kelley get so much hate despite being a top ranked school?
Excuse this shameless defense, but just some thoughts - IU Kelley seems to get fairly strong support here from users on WSO, however I feel like I still semi-regularly see people say that it is a "joke school". That seems to be the most common descriptor, but I'm not sure why that is when considering it consistently ranks in the top 10-20 Business schools in the US. Their W-street placement for a big 10 is school is strong, and placement into high-tier consulting firms (Big 4, Accenture, etc) is even greater. I'm pretty new here but have been lurking for a while now and think that these facts about Kelley are often overlooked. IU itself is actually a world-renown University and attracts A TON of foreign wealth, particularly Chinese billionaires that send their kids to Kelley or to IU's other top-ranked programs. As a result, Bloomington is quite the global city and a hub for research. Not to mention the fact that IU has several selective exchange programmes with universities such as LSE, Oxford, and Sciences Po.
I know I am just bitching, but like I said - I think most users give the school credit, but there are still a healthy amount of users who say this shit, which I assume to be yuppies at LACs in the NE. I think that perhaps the only thing that IU Kelley has going against it is the fact it is in Indiana. Clearly almost all of of the "Target-schools" are located in the NE and naturally have a significant regional advantage to W-street over other schools. Just because it’s not a “target” school for W-street does not mean its a joke school. IU Kelley is a top-ranked B-school and has a ton going on, especially in tech and analytics. I know that the focus here is mostly on I-Banking, but still. I can say that these programs placement in Consulting and Tech giants (Google, Facebook, Salesforce) are insane with the majority of graduates going into these companies.
Conclusion - the notion that IU is a "joke school" is a joke.
Why is it mislabeled as a joke school? Because the non-Kelley part of IU has very low admissions standards, and it shares the same brand.
Otherwise, aside from the high salt content of your post, I mostly agree. But:
Come on.
This is spot on.
To add, compare UNC - KF and IU - Kelly. Both programs are pretty good and will consistently place students on the street. However, if you look beyond the business schools, UNC more or less retains the "prestige" factor while Indiana does not. You can see this by just looking at the general admissions rates for the two schools. And so, as @HighlyClevered said, the overall brand is dragged down some.
You shouldn't really care about the relative prestige. Look at employment stats and alumni network, that will tell you what you need to know. The rest is noise.
Kelley Average SAT: 1440 IU Average SAT: 1250
KF Average SAT: 1370 UNC Average SAT: 1350
UNC is a great all-around school. No matter the quality of Kelley, the rest of IU (non-Jacobs) is just a regular enormous non-selective state school that carries no prestige.
From the perspective of a Brit:
1) I couldn't name any US business schools outside the top five or so
2) I wouldn't call Accenture a high-tier consulting firm
3) I don't really recognise the name of IU
4) What's a Bloomington? Sounds like a lovely sandwich
4)
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This is just my opinion, but I think the simple answer is that your success factor to getting a Wall Street job is heavily influenced by your network and who you know. The Ivy League schools on the coasts have a head start on Kelley by generations in getting their alumni to the top of Wall Street firms. Geographic proximity helps too. IU is working very hard to improve its network and as it grows, so will the school's reputation.
However, I think Indiana is also viewed dismissively by a lot of people who grew up on the east coast as well. Many people out there hardly acknowledge that the Midwest even exists and consider it "fly over country". They think of the center of the country as being full of corn, hills, and rednecks. And also there's a perception that Midwesterners are too friendly and not intense enough to handle the competitive culture on the east coast.
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Your insecurity is deeply cringeworthy
Lol who has ever called IU a Public Ivy
Kelley is a competitive program but IU when compared to other highly regarded public universities with good business schools fall short. This is not just some kind of bias but admissions stats actually back it up:
As a result, the general perception is that IU (and by extension Kelley) is super easy to get into and the vast majority who do get in choose to go elsewhere.
True, a lot of the kids from Kelley who get into IB and consulting were probably kids who got into ivy level schools but it wasn’t worth paying an extra $100k - 250k.
People at top business schools talk about the amount of people going to BB/EB/PE/HF/MBB not that they have loads going to Big4 and Accenture...
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I think a lot of Kelley kids are forced to brag about their program and its ranking because
a) Indiana does not have any prestige
b) Wall St is obsessed with hiring from prestigious schools
So I was in charge of UIUC recruiting in IB at Citi as a 3rd year analyst (my alma mater), HR wanted to stop recruiting there because “it cost too much.” I asked them to run an analysis of average bonus ranking per university, and this was in the days of 5 bonus buckets.
It turns out that UIUC at the time was second to Wharton for top performing analysts, sorry Brownies, you were last.
Citi kept recruiting there because of that data, but it sounds like UIUC has fallen off the map in the past 20 years so not sure what happened.
All that said, the general analysis showed that top public schools analysts produced at a level that was unexpected relative to the Ivy League with the major exception of Wharton crushing everyone else, and it wasn’t close.
Look if you're smart and personable you'll get a job on Wall Street from Kelley. However, the Kelley community definitely has an inflated opinion of the brand and graduates' capabilities.
If you're one of the top 15 of 2,000 total kids per class, I'm sure you're an absolute stud who was admitted but chose not to attend an IVY/Stanford/MIT/Duke/Northwestern/ND caliber school. Probably because of IU's godly full-ride scholarships. I'd say maybe ~2 or 3 of these kids are lucky enough to walk the gilded path: McKinsey/BCG/BB or EB IBanking ---> KKR/Carlyle/TPG ---> Tiger cub HF ---> HBS / Stanford Biz ---> partner in PE / PM in HF --> governor and ultimately failed U.S. presidential candidate. So ~0.15% of each class ends up being a master of the universe. I don’t have the hard data in front of me but would wager this proportion is significantly higher at a Wharton/Harvard/Dartmouth – and probably even at a Michigan Ross or Notre Dame (which btw has the most overrated football program in the history of sports).
The rest of the Kelley top 5% (call it ~100 kids) probably get jobs at MM IB or tier-2 strategy shops like Blair / Lincoln International / Deloitte S&O / LEK, and maybe a fraction of that make it into LMM or MM PE or attend a Top-15 MBA programs. The bulk of Kelly grads (call it the meaty part of the bell curve) probably go into big 4 audit / F500 FP&A / boutique strategy or tech consulting. In the scheme of things these are also all great places to begin one’s career, but the elitist pricks on this forum would probably consider it utter failure and account for all the “shitting” on Kelley that you might come across.
Kelley's a hidden gem among top-tier undergrad business schools. Very strong IB placement (~70 kids per year) and a big, and helpful, network.
It does get shit on a lot on WSO, but WSO maximizes on prestige at all costs. IU (non-Kelley) isn't the most prestigious school, as evidenced by its lax admission standards. That said, I laugh when I see someone on here telling someone to go to OSU or Fordham "hands down" over Kelley.
These kinds of posts are why we can't have nice things. In case you haven't realized, this post makes IU look worse. This is a blog.