Public View of these Schools? *please help

always good to go to the program's site and check out their career placement statistics, and then check out wsj/forbbes rankings. other'n that maybe someone here works with people from mentioned schools. can't help myself.

Purdue isn't even the best public school in your state.

Thanks for that but that isn't even related to the topic.

Hold off on getting your MBA. An MBA is like a get-out-of-jail free card. You use it only when you absolutely need to (1) because your current or prospective employer requires it (to get promoted or to get the job) or (2) because you want to change career paths. Never get your MBA because you think it might increase your stock because if anything, it will be very marginal coming from lower-tier program with no work experience.

Would transferring be a possibility? I would highly consider working your ass off your freshman year at Purdue and then lateralling over to Ross at UM. Your recruiting opportunities will increase significantly there.

Can't really comment on Chicago recruiting, but I'd assume that a number of bankers in the Chicago area come from midwest universities, similar to how a lot of west coast banks have Stanford/USC/Berkeley alumni and Houston banks have a lot of UT/Rice alumni. So even if you're "stuck" at one of these non-target universities, that doesn't mean they won't be targets for the Chicago offices.

Yeah, do not get your MBA straight out of UG. Horrible idea. Purdue is a great school that at the very least places well into good MBA programs. Without a strong network, it would be very hard to get to New York from Purdue. However, there's nothing wrong with working in Chicago, and you can always switch over to NYC. Also, maybe consider going to a satellite campus for IU first year, rock a 4.0 and transfer to Kelly; of which, their IBanking workshop has 99% placement rate (according to their own propaganda).

The fact that you're a jr in HS and already thinking about getting a IB job is beneficial to your goal, also a little disturbing. I don't really know anything about DePaul, but with top grades from either Kelly or Purdue, I can't see why you wouldn't get at least a dozen interviews when the time comes. I got a list today on the backgrounds (educational) of my analyst class for this summer and at least 40% were non target kids. As long as your school is respected and has somewhat of a national presence you can get a banking interview.

i think going to a big school (IU) and working hard and transferring is your best bet or go to IU and get into the IB thing

I would strongly, STRONGLY warn against going to Purdue if you have other options (i.e. Ross at UM).

I'm from a target, but back in the day when I was interning at a major financial firm, I became really great friends with this girl from Purdue. Really smart chick, good GPA, the whole works...had happened to land this internship through sheer hard work and networking. She complained constantly about the fact that the Office of Career Services at Purdue didn't help her at all with networking and did an awful job of bringing in recruiters from NY-based firms. Nevertheless, she had gotten very lucky in getting this internship.

Unfortunately, in spite of how hard she worked, she ended up not getting a FT offer at the firm. Up to this point, I had assumed that she was exaggerating about how bad Purdue was, and was sure that she would land a great firm in very short order during FT recruiting. However, that was not quite to be. She struggled to get interviews because Purdue didn't provide many opportunities to interact with NY or even Chicago financial institutions. Through sheer determination and a whole fuc*load of luck, she ended up landing a great offer NEARLY A YEAR LATER at a mid-tier IB in their Chicago office, right before she was about to graduate. This gal got real lucky in that the spot at the firm happened to open up when one of their FT hires from the fall decided to take a year to go traveling before coming in as an analyst. Complete mess, but it ended well through her sheer determination. In short, you should be aiming for another school in the Midwest/South if you want IBD. I've got a lot of friends in the business from UM Ross/, UTexas, and even a few from UChicago and Northwestern. I'd try to take any of these over Purdue if possible. Good luck in the college hunt.

Even though it is terrible being told that the school I have always wanted to go to and the school my family all went to is not right for what I would like to do, i appreciate everyone's honesty. Everyone suggests that going to schools such as UM, Northwestern, or Notre Dame are the sure tracks to getting into IB. To be honest, in my freshman and sophmore years of high school I chose not to apply myself at all and didn't really care about school or grades. For that reason I would not be able to get into those schools. I worked hard this year and was able to do well but it wasn't enough to bring up my GPA. My family is very encouraging for me to go to Purdue but my dad also pursued sales which he was successful in but that is not at all for me.

Even though Purdue doesn't offer great on-campus recruiting to BB, does that make it really impossible to get internships/jobs if you can maintain a good GPA?

This may be a stupid question but is an MBA 100% necessary to get into IB? I didn't think it was but i'm rethinking my logic.

If i don't get accepted in Indiana then transfering to IU may be in my best interest if it turns out IB is what I want to do. It seems that coming from Kelley I would have a better chance at excelling.

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Just a word on your other top choice -- DePaul. The undergrad business program has a strong reputation among business people in Chicago. I don't recall which one, but one or two of the Big 4 Firms (I thinnk it is Deloitte and KPMG) recruit heavily in the honors accounting program ,starting as early as your sophomore year.

If you want to stay in Chicago, don't overlook DePaul.

I agree about DePaul. University of Illinois- Chicago gets some recruiting from financial firms in Chicago as well- not any of the BB's though.

UIC gets similar recruiting that UIUIC does, but to a smaller degree. I think at UIC last year Bank of America, Notherm Trust, Harris, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase recruited. I think on their website you should be able to find information. Most of the recruiting at UIC and UIUC is accounting firms like Deloitte, Ernst & Young, etc. As far as my 2 cents about your plan, the only big 10s i would consider are University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University. Last year, about 10 kids from UIUC went to wallstreet. Michigan and Northwestern have great alum networks in wallstreet, not so much Wisconsin. But schools like purdue, indiana, ohio state, etc. although great universities!, i would shoot for higher if you want an easier time breaking into BB. ive heard of indiana getting some good kids into consulting, but remember, 95% of the students graduating kelly school of business wont get those BB jobs. As for the selectivity, Michigan, UIUC, Northwestern are very selective schools, if you cant get into these schools...work hard your first and/or second year and then try to transfer.

Don't got to Krannert. Out of the options you listed, IU is your best bet for both Big 4 accounting, and IB. The Big 4 are top recruiters of IU students. Even more, pretty much every week, all year round, the Big 4 have a careers desk set up outside the Kelley career's office. For IB, as others have mentioned, the workshop has near 100% placement. Additionally, many non-workshop people get into IB (myself included). Bank of America is a huge recruiter of IU students, as well.

All I can say about Purdue is that I haven't met one Krannert grad in IB in the Midwest. If you end up going there, major in engineering (you probably didn't want to hear that). I know a few that graduated there and ended up at HBS (didn't work in finance, though). Majoring in engineering will open up doors to management consulting, venture capital, and investment banking to the industrial sector.

I recommend you try to transfer out of these schools to Ross or Northwestern, however. If that is not an option, or if you simply don't get accepted as a transfer, you are much safer at Kelley than Krannert. Actually, if you have your eye on IB or Big 4 from day 1, you'll probably do fine at Kelley.