Why Undergrad Prestige Is Important
Currently a banking analyst who is signed for a MF. For all of you kids deciding between schools, when in doubt, choose the more prestigious school if you want PE after 2 years in IB.
I can tell you first-hand that school is extremely important for getting a Megafund/UMM PE offer. PE firms (especially MF) are way more prestige heavy than Investment banks are. I'd still say bank matters a bit more than school, but school is still very important to PE headhunters. Non-target kids, even at GS will unfortunately have trouble getting looks at some of the more prestige heavy firms like KKR/Apollo/Silver Lake
if you go to 4:20 of this video, the Peak Frameworks guy said even coming from Evercore M&A tech, he got way less interviews than Ivy League kids. His criteria for on-cycle PE is this, which I'd agree with:
Firms that don’t optimize for human capital/ fund performance and instead jerks off kids who got in to good schools as legacies or from parents donation for the “prestige” are missing out on some good talent. Granted, it is a decent filter for merit but I think performance/deal experience/ banking group prestige is a better litmus test. Probably a good self selection mechanism anyways as a nontarget would likely not fit in as well at these shops anyways.
I think the reason why is because since bank timelines nowadays are so messed up, headhunters need to use other criteria to determine strong candidates.
For example, a kid may have signed at Credit Suisse but not had the opportunity to interview at GS due to GS recruiting a month later.
Because of this, headhunters need to use other datapoints, like SAT, GPA, and school rather than just bank.
Cry me a river, everyone in a target is a legacy?
How about you realise some people didn't jerk off their entire lives and actually put in effort and excelled at every stage, that is very telling
Non-target students suck about 99% of the time
Please enlighten me as to how many people at your target you know that aren't one of the following 1.) Diversity 2.) From a super wealthy legacy family 3.) non diversity but from a top private highschool where the college admissions has relationships with ivys and fills slots each year. I highly doubt many people at your target are non-diverse white guys from a middle class background and an average town and highschool no matter how much they excelled at each stage of their adolescent life. Also, a lot of people at my nontarget had offers at Stanford, Penn, Harvard etc. but didn’t want to go 300K in debt and daddy wasn’t paying their tuition.
jokes on you, I fucked around in high school and enjoyed my youth and still work at a BB. You're clearly coping lmao
I was curious so I looked it up, 36% of Harvard's class of 22 were legacies. That is insane.
Can you stop? You are clearly a butthurt analyst who went to a great school but worked for a shitty bank.
Do you go to IU Kelley? I think I know who you are lol
Would semi-agree off of personal experience. I am at a non-EB/BB (think next tier below) and had interviews at some great funds and landed a UMM offer, and I went to a top target. Friends from my bank had way less interview invites if they were non-targets.
I’m not going to agree that school > bank or an ivy kid beats a GS non-target, but I think the whole “I chose to work at MM bank because of geography/culture/etc” just comes off as more genuine when you’re from a target vs them just assuming you couldn’t land a better job.
PE recruiting is a full package of bank, college, deal experience, test scores, etc - college is one leg and it can definitely help if other aspects are weaker but it also isn’t the end all be all
Yea, I mean it's better to be a non-target at GS TMT than a target at Stifel. Just wanted to point out that school is indeed a big factor in PE recruiting.
Congrats on the offer btw!
I can tell you firsthand that I was responsible for a joint venture between Citadel and Blackstone, and I currently work with ex CEOs of Goldman.
That type of person is very good at processing work. However, that same person is mostly useless as they get more senior, as they are mostly trapped within that prestige complex. They need the problem framed for them, because that is how they succeed in academia. I can tell you firsthand working with Harvard undergrad / Yale Law types they don't contribute very much...
Is there any purpose to this thread other than flexing that your prestigious undergrad helped you get a MF offer? No 18 year old in high school is choosing between UPenn and Ole Miss, and suddenly makes a list minute pivot to maximize their chances of landing KKR two years out of college. I really struggle between deciding whether these type of threads are jokes, or people are just so egotistical and out of touch that they think posting this is a good idea.
this site is full of anxious weirdos desperate for validation from anonymous strangers
And this is why I didn’t pursue finance. What an absolute stupid measure to go off of. Imagine the rest of your life being determined by how you were when you were like 16. Not to mention how broken undergrad admissions is, I mean we all know it’s one of the least meritocratic things out there.
So glad there are other industries that give you a 2nd chance outside of college to work and prove yourself. I was a complete fuckwit growing up and I know I’m not the only one.
Just to be clear, it still absolutely is possible to break into a MF from a non-targ. It's just harder.
At the end of the day, there is still a very good chance your wife will be ugly OP. So, enjoy your work bc it’ll be all you got bud. Good chat.
OP is 100% a virgin
Salty non-targets are coping lol
I genuinely hope you don’t walk around talking like that in real life because you won’t make it very far with that attitude.