Why don't banks target many state schools?
Really pisses me off that banks will take a 2.0 kid from Harvard but all of us at public schools work our ass off for a 4.0 and still don't get an offer.
Talent is dispersed throughout many schools and isn't just at ivies. Top 5% of Cornell class isn't going to be much different than top 5% from Penn State.
You can get a great business education at some state schools like PSU, OSU, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida etc. The banks would do a lot of good for themselves if they brought in analysts who know FINANCE.
The world is not fair, and the best thing to do is worry about the things you have control over instead of complaining. There are fairly obvious reasons why the banks do what they do, and if you cannot understand why these decisions are logical from their perspective then you don’t deserve an offer anyway.
"No one ever got fired for buying IBM" An old buy side saying and works for hiring too.
Hiring from an Ivy is just viewed as "safer" than hiring from a public school. That's never going to change.
It's definitely not fair but "it is what it is." The only caveat is the smart public school kids figure out a way to make it and that motivation will get them further in their careers than a lazy 2.0 kid from H.
It's not at all safer than hiring from a state school. Actually the state school is safer because they actually went to business school.
Have no idea why the banks want to be prestige whores.
Simmer down. It's safer in the sense that the kids are smarter on average. Banking isn't hard to learn, and they're confident they can teach it to the kids at top schools. Sure, I can take the kid who's been studying technicals in class for two years, or I could take the government major from Princeton with the 1600 SAT who's also super interesting and well connected.
I disagree. The finance required for the analyst position isn’t the hardest to learn. That’s why even the liberal arts kids can show up to interviews with great knowledge of technicals. So they can’t differentiate on the students knowledge of finance and business. What should they differentiate on the basis of? Probably things like critical thinking and sheer intelligence. And that’s where the Ivy kids are going to be far superior to a random finance hardo from a random state school. Just makes more sense to go with the Ivy.
-Sincerely, A random finance hardo from a random state school
Your general idea has some merit, but the idea that the top 5% of Cornell is about the same as Penn State is ridiculous. The top 5% of ivies are the most standout kids.
I think you meant bottom 5% at Cornell might not be much different then top 5% at Penn State.
No. Top 5% is going to be pretty much the same across the board for state flagships and ivies. Top 5% at Penn State is significantly smarter than bottom 5 at Cornell.
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Don’t think I don’t see you trying to slide in Kelley instead of UVA
Why would I take someone who slacked off in high school or just simply is not smart? Why would I trot out a random state school kid to my client when I could bring out an Ivy Leaguer instead? Simply put, an Ivy League kid is safer and I'd much rather have an average Ivy Leaguer over the top state schooler.
Then you're a prestige whore. You would judge someone by the name of their school?
I didn't go to Harvard or Penn State, but did go to an Ivy and had plenty of friends from high school/grade school who went to state schools ranked around the same as Penn State. The 2.0 kid from Harvard is getting precisely 0 looks from IB unless they're one of the few incredibly well-connected kids in the class (in which case, they're getting looks regardless of where they go to school). There are also probably fewer than 10 kids/class from Harvard or similar schools graduating with ~2.0 GPA--even the dumbest football, lacrosse, and hockey players from my school could carry a 2.5 with little trouble (hard to get below a C in almost any class, and they always took 1-2 easy classes/term that would end up as a B or B+).
The student with 3.4 at Harvard will have an easier time getting IB looks than the kid with 3.5-3.6 from PSU. That's really what most people here are complaining about. Is that fair? Not totally. But I can almost guarantee you in >90% of cases, the Harvard kid is smarter than the PSU kid. I had friends at my alma mater who had a 3.3./3.4, and with almost no exceptions they were smarter than pretty much anyone from my high school who went to the state's honor program.
The bigger concern is the 3.9 finance whiz from PSU who deserves as many or more looks than the 3.3 history major from HYP. In many cases, they get those looks but not without tremendous hustle, awareness (both self-awareness and awareness of IB recruiting details), and luck. But top talent will shine through eventually in most cases, just taking a little longer from certain schools. Some of the smartest people I've ever worked with went to schools most people on here would never aspire to attend, but they found success eventually after many years.
When has any kid from Harvard with a 2.0 gotten an offer from a bank? Sure, the standard will be lower with respect to GPA requirement but most of the Harvard kids I know that landed offers from my bank had 3.7+ GPAs in quantitative subjects (e.g., economics, statistics, computer science).
I know this site usually rags a bit on Cornell (although this post seemed to build some unity) but the top 5% of the school is absolutely brilliant. The work ethic of some of the top engineering, architecture, and pre-med students is insane.
For some reason, there are a good number of people on this website that think kids who go to target schools are lazy bums that have their jobs handed to them on a silver platter. While there are definitely more than a handful of kids who leverage their connections, you'd be surprised by how hard the majority of kids at target schools grind (particularly the Asian / Indian non-legacy kids).
There are a bunch of top tier private schools with undergraduate business programs that will offer applicant pools, that are on average, significantly stronger than the ones at the schools that you listed (e.g., Penn, Cornell, NYU, Notre Dame, Georgetown, WashU, USC, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, BC, etc.) as well as top tier public schools (e.g., Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, UT-Austin, UNC). And then of course, there are all of the super talented kids who busted their asses off to get into schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the like. Yes, there will always be kids with connections who land offers but a majority of the candidates from these schools will be pretty smart people who will be able to pick up the job pretty quickly, even if they aren't coming from finance backgrounds.
Penn State is a good school and the cream of the crop will place on Wall Street. I understand the desire for greater opportunity but at the end of the day, there are a ton of super qualified kids gunning for a limited number of positions.