Penn State Reputation

Bump I'm also interested in this

Bump, would love some other insight.

Why is this question being asked now? College recruiting is done... I'm so confused as to why these threads always pop up especially when Penn State has been talked about a million times on this site. Its frustrating.

I go to a non target school with a program like Penn State's so I might give a bit of insight how recruiting is at these schools/programs. These programs and clubs do help you with your technical and networking skills, but they are far from a one way ticket to Wall Street. At the end of the day, nobody (outside of alums) gives a shit if you participated at these clubs. You are still branded as the non target kid, and you have to bust your ass just as hard as any other non target kid to get interviews.

The real value from these clubs are the clique you'll be connected with. Odds are, seniors with offers will be running the meetings. They can offer great insight on how to network and how to best position yourself for interviews when the time comes. Also your peers are another great resource. They have the exact same goals as you do, so you all should take advantage of that by giving each other mock interviews and letting each other in the know the timelines of banks. Additionally, the alums of the program will be very happy to get an email from a Penn/Ohio/Arizona/Florida kid.

So TL;DR, you're not fucked for going to a Penn State, but you absolutely need to put in the work as any other kid, Nittany Lion Fund or not.

I go to Penn State and am a part of the NLF. After networking with PSU alums at several banks, I would say 50% of them were part of the NLF and the other 30% were part of either LLC, Wall Street Boot Camp, or other good clubs/internships. All being said, PSU places decent into Wall Street, however it is pretty important to be in the NLF or have great involvement elsewhere or else you probably won't land a job on Wall Street.

Contrary to all the claims made on this site, the NLF, AMG, and LLC are considered to be equal from a recruiter’s perspective. If you don’t believe me, check out each of their full-time placements.

Yes the NLF is the only SEC-registered hedge fund in the country run by undergrads (managing real money from limited partners) but it doesn’t instantly make you more qualified than someone who was a part of Yale’s or Georgetown’s student-run fake paper portfolio fund for instance.

What matters more than anything is your own personal skill set and understanding of technical concepts/how to invest. Student-run funds are essentially commoditized across college campuses nowadays so being a part of one is no longer a competitive advantage anymore by itself (of course it still helps).The reason kids in the NLF place well on Wall Street is not because of their $14 million AUM size or whether it’s real money, it’s because everyone in the fund is an extremely hard worker who knows more technicals and how to network better than the typical pampered Ivy League target school kid. Same is true with LLC/AMG.

There’s one position between penn state and Ohio state and it’s a consolation prize for whoever loses the football game 

I’ve worked with numerous Nittanies. They are very cool, but none as technical as Sandusky.

Overall great non-core school, network hot, know you’re techs and you’ll get a job.

I know they yell “we are” a lot and flood Murray Hill bars…for IB, think there’s enough alum on the street to have a chance should you do everything else right.