Best non-target decision!

Hello everyone, so I was thinking I'd provide some names of non-target schools (on eastcoast) and we can discuss which ones are better. I assume that most of us would like to end up on Wall St. and thus being close to that area, the northeastern coast, may be the best option, even if you don't end up at an Ivy-league or semi-target school

Brandeis, Rochester, Rutgers, Bentley, Temple, Fordham, Babson, Fairfield, Northeastern, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Lehigh, University of Maryland, Saint Joseph, John Hopkins.


So, which of these would be your top 3-5, and why?
 

Have a beneficial discussion ;)

 

Rutgers is probably pretty high up there, definitely 3-5. Would maybe even consider it a semi-target in the future, but it's not there yet.

 
Most Helpful

Regardless of recruiting, Hopkins is a great school with really smart kids. I'd probably enjoy being around really smart people for four years over many of the other options. With recruiting in mind, Northeastern. The coop program is ridiculous, top Boston-based firms like GMO and Wellington exclusively run coops through Northeastern and I'm sure we all see the kids doing GS coops and the like on LinkedIn as well. If you take advantage of that I think the recruiting experience is equal to a traditional target.

Those two aside, Rutgers is a big school with a growing presence and Fordham isn't very good but has a very good location. So if I had to rank for recruiting it would likely be NEU > state schools/location schools > others. Of course you can succeed from anywhere if you grind enough so basing college decisions off of anon rankings on WSO is idiotic.

 

John Hopkins (this is a given...)

Northeastern 

Babson 

Brandeis

All these schools put around 10 if not more people to banking each year. Don't know much about the others except that Fordham has great location and sends 1-3 people a year

Array
 

Great discussion. First and foremost, I'd to say that while Ivy-league and other target/semi-target schools are, perhaps, more helpful and desirable, one can succeed even if he/she went to a non-target, yet respectable school. This is something to remember. People will tell you "nahhh better take CFA" "...you better not go to this school at all", and so on. Yes, obviously some schools are exceptionally great, but not everyone secures a spot at them.

*Regarding John Hopkins, I have read in many threads that people think it's a shitty program because it's made for Chinese students or something like this ---- any opinions on the matter?

*Speaking of Rutgers. I have only come across this information lately, but apparently Rutgers places some students on the street. I was a little bit surprised because as far as I was concerned, Rochester (NY) is a better overall business school, but when it comes to the latter vs. former, many people would choose Rutgers over Rochester --- what are your opinions?

*Boston College, like Nova, is a semi-target school, thus not on the list.

 

I'm a senior at a top target in boston (H/M).

I have a few friends at Hopkins, and they seem to be doing well for themselves.  I'm not sure what specific program you are talking about, but there are a decent lot of chinese students there.  This could be because of the romanticization of medical profession in chinese/korean shows that occasionally name drop a school like JHU.  Nevertheless, I'm not sure how that would concern you.  

Moreover, the students at these schools are just different.  JHU is a top school with a more competent (in a traditional sense) student body on average with a focus on engineering and medicine.  If you get into all of these schools, I suggest you go to JHU.  If you think you can get any significant edge at the other schools, you are probably fooling yourself.  Take the best overall school you can afford.  

 

ASU is also a great non target to go too. They have the IBIS program, which has a high placement, but they only accept like 15 kids. Also can party hard for four years.

 

Recent Northeastern alum here. Some sample co-ops that I have seen first-hand (most are recurring roles every semester):

BB Capital Markets & LevFin, GS/MS industry coverage groups, ~10 Small boutique IBs, MM Public Finance IB, DOZENS of front office roles at smaller PEs VCs and HFs, Finance/Accounting roles at Megafund PEs, asset management (Wellington, GMO, State Street, Fidelity, MFS), Plenty of S&T roles (Scotiabank is a big employer), and tons of Big 4 audit/tax/TAS jobs...also CorpFin (Amazon, Tesla, J&J). Pretty weak on the consulting front though imo

Remember you don’t pay tuition or fees on co-op semesters (most people do 2 or 3 six-month co-ops), so I used my co-op income to pay for my rent, expenses, and most of my tuition over my last 2.5 years there. I graduated with no debt, albeit I had some scholarships. If you do it correctly and take advantage of the networking opportunities or convert a co-op to full-time you’ll be set. The only con is that if you can’t convert a co-op to a FT offer, the career services center for FT is essentially nonexistent with practically no OCR.

Great study abroad offerings too

 

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