Where is all the top talent in banking we always hear about? I interned at a elite boutique this past summer and I'm surprised this has not been brought up more often. Most of the BBs I saw were filled with UVA, Gtown, Vandy. There were a few Harvard and Wharton kids at GS but the street is vastly populated with UVA/Gtown type school kids. Where did all the HYP kids go? Tech?
| +153 | How to stop feeling like shit for not making it in IB? | 57 | 9h | |
| +115 | If Tik Tok is forced to sell, what banks do you think would be involved in the deal? | 58 | 8h | |
| +80 | Updated LA Banking Scene (2024) | 59 | 25m | |
| +38 | Ranking banks that went under | 20 | 14h | |
| +36 | Burnt Out M&A ASO | 18 | 12h | |
| +34 | Relevance of A-Levels for U.K. London recruiting | 24 | 57m | |
| +32 | A strategy for SA applicants late to the game like myself | 15 | 19h | |
| +27 | Series 79 Help / Tips to Pass The First Attempt | 11 | 2d | |
| +26 | Intern Ettiquette | 4 | 21h | |
| +23 | What are hours like at BBs in London? | 47 | 21h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
VC/PE/HF as more of the top funds begin to hire undergrad SAs and analysts, tech certainly is way more popular now, MBB
Even if top PE/HF MF hire more undergrads, their classes are like 6-8 in size? I doubt even MFs would accommodate a larger number of targets (past 10).
The top students, at the top state schools, can hang with any of the Ivy kids.
That is what I have heard regarding a lot of my friends that did internships last summer. Not to mention my school represents in Citi S&T.
Just because you come from a top school doesn't mean you have the biggest dick.
"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard"
Idiot.
Allow me to be the first to throw poo your way! Enjoy!
damn all these non targets hating...the OP is asking a legitimate question. I go to an Ivy and can attest to the fact that many of my peers are going the tech//consulting route (some straight to HF/PE.) IBD is really losing its luster among the ivy kids.
Spoke to someone about this recently, and the answer is simple. The top 1% at a random University is a lot smarter and more hardworking than the liberal arts over entitled Harvard grad. Oh, not to mention that people who go to non-targets are usually cool, know how to have a good time, and are actually a joy to be around. Its a no brainer.
Nonetheless, your egotistical comment is irrelevant considering I am in IBD at a BB this year. My point is to show that the model may be changing in favor of those who are willing to work three times as hard as their counterparts who may have had a more foreseeable future at the age of 14 by the backing of upper-class pushy parents. Think of it that way, nobody gives a fuck that you got straight As in high school which got you into Harvard. That same kid could turn out to be a total looser in three years while at Harvard and lose their so-called "smarts" they had while being under 18 (especially those who never "came out of their shell" in High School because they didn't have time to do so). On the contrary, those who did not have the foresight in High School but gain that motivation in college (when it really matters), coupled with the feeling of being "behind" your Ivy league counterparts, arises a hungry badass motherfucker who will work much harder than the kid who values his "pedigree" more than anything else.
To put this into perspective, lets take a look at the parable of the lost sheep. There is a Shepard who has 100 sheep, but one day one of those sheep goes astray. The Shepard leaves his 99 other sheep alone, to search for this 1 particular sheep. When the sheep is found, the Shepard is very joyful and calls upon his commoners to rejoice in the repentance of the lost sheep. --> The Shepard is not rejoicing that the 99 other stayed loyal to him the entire time. That was expected. The Shepard values greatly those who stray away from the common path and make a mistake but then find themselves to return back to him with a new set of values. In context, recruiters are getting sick of the typical SA who strives for excellence at a young age and does not ever leave their predetermined path (i.e. a robot at such a young age). These students are expected, and their loyalty to direction is meaningless. What matters are those who have negative experiences and find themselves astray from the rest, where they eventually learn a life lesson, become a stronger person, and return to the path with a set of values that lack from the loyal ones who have been there the entire time and have not experienced anything else except the fear of leaving such path.
In terms of pure brainpower? Sure.
In terms of connections, sociability, and overall achievement? Not even close.
Sociability? Most Ivy kids are borderline autistic
Without numbers, this is all speculation. But I don't think it would at all be surprising if its true that "non-targets" are better represented. Just think of the impact sites like WSO and M&I have had in distributing knowledge about IB careers/recruiting to anybody with a computer. While both target & non-target kids are aware of these resources, it's very reasonable to expect that they help the non-targets much more than kids from Ivies. Kids from Ivies have always had employers coming to them and plenty of friends/alumni to lean on, whereas non-target kids would not have access to the same knowledge base. Now that the knowledge of what banking is and how to network your way in is distributed more democratically, it makes perfect sense if the distribution of analysts is more democratic. In fact it'd be pretty weird if it weren't.
That said, I cannot speak to BB's as I focused on boutiques, but based on my experience interviewing I did not see a single non-target kid.
When did UVA and Georgetown become non-targets. Those schools presently have and have always had good representation in finance. How is this development shocking
I have been a member of this since for a little more than half a year.
This precise thread, with varying degrees of purported research, but with identical rhetoric, has been made at least fifty times since I started viewing this site.
Maybe your "elite boutique" is just a "boutique"?
OP -- Is your EB actually a top BB?
From: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/ where-is-top-talent-headed-these-days
"...I've realized this myself when I interned at a top BB in NY this past summer and most of the interns and analysts there were from semi target schools like UVA, Gtown, NYU, UM. There were definitely still a smattering of kids from the traditional elite schools from the ivy league but it was shocking to see the representation."
this is a legit question, but all of you are mostly a bunch of underachieving semi/non targets with a huge chip on your shoulder for not being at a truly prestigious school like HYPSMW. maybe the top 1% kids at schools like georgetown, uva and ross are on the same level as the top 20% kids at the top ivies, but the average ivy HYPSMW kid is 100x smarter, more motivated and talented than the average non target kid. most of you just whiled away your high school and college years drinking and fratting out...
IB recruiting is a joke. if take something truly competitive which requires talent, like MBB and tech, the barriers to entry for non targets are still as high as ever. that non target kids are able to hang with the top ivy kids in IB is an indictment of the falling lustre of IB, and not an indicator of the rising talent at non targets. this is the truth and you all know it
feel free to waste your wso credit and throw monkey shit- this is a fake account bitches hahaha
Your post lost all credibility when you said MBB and tech are truly competitive. Is that a joke? The caliber of kids in MBB and Biz roles at Tech startups is largely laughable. If you're talking about the programming/CS side, there was never any real overlap between them and the IBD pool anyway.
Let's be honest here, what top UG schools and top B Schools deem the "hot" industry is probably the biggest lagging indicator out there, and this is coming from a student at one of those aforementioned top targets.
Agreed. Startups pretty much take anyone these days and from what I've seen on the street, the MBB kids usually end up there after striking out in banking.
Striking out as in either realizing early on they wouldn't cut it in banking, burning out after a summer in banking (or not getting an offer back), or failing in the interview process.
oh yeah? well i am at the aforementioned top targets too. and i ll tell you what- show me a kid who can can crack the case interview at McKinsey and the technical interview at google, and i will show you 20 kids who can crack the interview at GS mostly because it involved 5 min of retarded questions about what a EV/EBITDA multiple is, and 25 minutes of retarded reminiscence over what fraternity bros the interviewer has in common with the interviewee, and what sports they played in college
I wonder how such an accomplished young man has time to create fake accounts and worry about imaginary monkey shit. Awww, the joys of unemployment...
Why do you even care? How does the ratio of Georgetown to Princeton kids affect you in the slightest? Seriously, who gives a shit? How are there this many posts on something utterly inane and irrelevant?
it matters because of the market for lemons problem in economics.
since you probably didn't learn anything about it, let me explain- top ivy talent leaves IB -> firms forced to step up hiring at non ivies -> increasing concentration of non ivy kids -> reduction in quality of talent pool -> makes even more top ivy kids leave -> cycle repeats itself -> market failure.
basically ib recruiting at top schools is headed into a death spiral, which means the prestige of Wall Street will gradually erode. remember no one ever remembered Wall Street as the place where georgetown kids went, they remembered it as the place where harvard kids went. guess why?
I did not go to HYPSW and do have a chip on my shoulder for being rejected. However, I just remind myself of all the ivy kids who I beat to get my job offer and am thus satisfied with knowing that I am a pure beast.
False Also, Georgetown and UVA have been targets for a long time.
Errr that's not the market for lemons. Did you even go to university?
Wow a lot of non-targets hating. I'm simply asking from a perspective of observation. I just did not expect UVA to outnumber Ivies on Wall St. What's wrong with that
The answer is buy-side direct getting more popular. Why spend two entire years in banking when you're intelligent enough to pick it all up in a summer, understand that you don't need more time to be competent, and self-teach anything you think you don't yet know. Then interview with TPG and just go there as an underpaid but almost equally-capable analyst. Win-win for employee and employer. This will continue for a long time.
I don't think that buy-side opportunities are widespread enough, even at schools like Wharton or Harvard, to explain a visible trend. You're talking about firms that recruit literally a handful of students from across several target schools, so maybe 1-2 people, if that, from a particular one. I know one PE firm I went through the process at took two SAs in total.
Fair enough, but my perception on this thus far has been that more and more firms are being open to the idea. So if instead of 3 or 4 firms taking 1 or 2 undergrads for full time (I don't think the SA recruiting route would work nearly as well, I'd leave that to the banks to train and sort my youngins), it might be 12-15 firms doing this now... and a number of hedge funds (MUCH harder to do this with less systematic hedge funds... couldn't be done with a fundamental long/short with very few exceptions, in my opinion). That would wipe out your top decile at W and H probably.
The argument I'm hearing now is, if you can get comfortable with the idea that undergrads can figure this shit out in a single summer or a very short time span (I mean, it's not that hard), then it would be economically stupid NOT to be hiring undergrads who are 1) hungry 2) cheaper to employ 3) not burned out yet 4) genuinely interested in whatever buyside function you're recruiting for, not just jumping to the most available thing to get out of banking.
Won't be surprised if we start hiring undergrads one day.
there are plenty of HYPSW kids going into tech startups and picking them over BBs from what I've seen.
I don't get the obsession w/ thinking a Harvard/Princeton graduate is better suited to succeed as an investment banking analyst. I have news for you... banking is more about relationship management than it is about being a former high school valedictorian. Yes there is a plethora of talent at those schools, but there is no shortage of talent at other institutions w/ solid business programs (e.g., Berkeley, Notre Dame, NYU, UVA, Texas etc.).
Regardless, there are plenty of of 1st year analysts w/ ivy league academic pedigrees at the BBs. In my group alone, we have had two rounds of rotating analysts come through so far. Of the 6, 4 were recent graduates from Penn/Yale/Harvard. A nearby group brought in 2 Princeton graduates and a UVA graduate.
Make no mistake and rest assured. Wall Street is as elitist as ever.
that is not the question at all. i agree that HYPSM kids are not better suited to succeed as investment bankers. the question here is about perception - the lustre and prestige of IB, which is fading. if top ivy kids stop going into IB, nobody in the world will give a fuck about it anymore. do you think people are attracted to the aura of IB because UVA kids are going there? its all about wealth, status and coming across as blue blooded
and lets not pretend that people here don't care about prestige- finance people are the most superficial in the world
So you're saying that if IBs as a whole start hiring more UVA kids, companies are no longer going to hire them for M&A advisory or IPOs? You seem badly misinformed about what drives the market.
I think plenty of kids would be willing to put up with the lack of "lustre and prestige" of working at a firm alongside UVA kids in exchange for making six figures out of undergrad.
Many top students turn down Ivies/and the next tier schools because they can go to an Honors program at a top state school with a free ride or lots of scholarship $$$.... Your ROI for college tuition monies is MUCH greater than spending 250k at UVA, Vandy,Georgetown etc..( some analysts can earn 2 1/2 or 3 times their 4 year college tuition in the first year working in IB) - Harvard or Penn might be the exception - but many of the Business Honors programs are highly selective and place well in MBB and IB.
You guys need to out and have a good time. No one outside of this site really cares about what is discussed in 90% threads. Especially this one. Relax. Have a beer. Happy Friday.
Ah, good old WSO.
I only know one guy who went to BCG and he's a dumbaas. No way he would've gotten a BB/EB offer. Not representative of the norm but still an example.
between hedge funds, top tier and middling VC and growth equity funds, PE megafunds, upper MM PE funds, random MM PE funds, and other shit, the number that recruit at Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, etc. or have formal programs is more like 30-40++ and growing every year, and there are plenty more that people end up working at that either hire under the radar or that don't recruit or have formal SAs/analysts but are open to being convinced if you can make a good case or get introduced to the right people. some of the class sizes for these are bigger than you'd expect too, as in over 10 people coming from 2-3 schools for some.
hot start-ups / growth / pre-IPO companies are much, much more popular too, with Dropbox, Box, Square, Foursquare, etc. as well as Google/FB/Amazon/Microsoft/LinkedIn/Twitter taking a ton of people and building out new business/marketing/strategy/design/less technical PM programs for non-engineers at these schools (on top of hiring lots of engineers of course). MBB (plus Oliver Wyman, LEK, Parthenon)/consulting is also more popular now and for the most part more difficult to get, both in terms of interviews and offers, than even GS and MS -- Blackstone or Qatalyst are a different story, and EBs in general are tougher than BBs. MBB is very harsh on resume screening, especially GPA and SAT scores, whereas getting BB and to a lesser extent EB interviews is waaaay more about going to events, networking, following up, etc. and being aggressive and personable. lots of people who don't even get interviews for MBB summer programs end up with offers at BBs which they leverage when full-time recruiting starts.
starting your own company is also waaay more popular now, obviously, because it's a lot easier to do and there's been a lot of hype around it. Y Combinator and Techstars are growing like crazy, and there's a lot of seed money around. there's also stuff like the Thiel/Kleiner Perkins/Lightspeed fellowships, First Round's Dorm Room fund and other seed funds focusing just on student start-ups drawing people out of these schools to do cooler things and encourage entrepreneurship.
keeping in mind that the majority of these 1500-1800ish person graduating classes are going to grad/professional school or into non-profits or just traveling and hanging out for a while, I'd say it's not hard to see where the rest could fit into one or more of the above.
I love these threads so much. Seriously.
The answer is absolutely that direct to the buyside is becoming more accessible to kids at the top targets. Just as resources like WSO, M&I, etc. have made non-target kids more competitive for banking spots these same resources are making Harvard and Wharton (though largely W) kids more competitive for buyside jobs.
And, in my experience, one of the worst kept secrets on the buyside is that no one respects banking the job, but instead everyone respects the caliber of individuals that tend to go through an analyst program at a top bank/group. Even with more kids from schools that weren't traditionally recruited as heavily (or at all) going to Analyst programs, the buyside, and especially elite buyside, is just as populated with top target kids as they were pre-crash, etc. At least this is true on the fundamental equity HF side of things, I can't speak as confidently for PE.
In the vast majority of cases a Harvard kid is going to be smarter than a Brown kid who is probably going to be smarter than a UVA or Berkeley kid. And those guys are likely all smarter than a Notre Dame, USC or UT Austin kid. And a Wharton kid is most likely going to be able to run circles around all of them when it comes to finance preparation (at least right out of school). And whether you agree with the previous statement or not, there really isn't a way to prove or refute it anyway so there's no real point in worrying about it. Every young guy should have a chip on their shoulder and be hungry to prove themselves because we're all replaceable, whether you graduated Summa from Harvard or not. But the non target kids need to cool it with the "I'm just as good" stuff because it doesn't take too long before that chip on your shoulder starts to look an awful lot like an inferiority complex and actively works against you even more than the perceived prestige (or lack there of) of your alma mater. The "tries a little too hard" kid from a state school is just as insufferable as the prick from Princeton who scoffs at anyone that didn't attend one of the Big Three.
Just because you go/went to a top target doesn't mean you're "top talent." You've got a great brand name on your resume and likely an outstanding SAT score and GPA. I guarantee your PM won't give two shits about your 2350 SATs when the biggest position you sourced is down 10% on shitty earnings and you didn't see it coming. Coming out of undergrad, with very few exceptions, you don't have any real skills or expertise. That's not a knock against you at all, it's just the way it is. Even after a two year banking stint there's a lot of buyside shops that hire Harvard > BX M&A kids to be even better paid excel monkeys. If you go to a place like Coatue, Glenview or Maverick after banking there's a good chance you could go your whole two years without getting really involved in the investment decision making process, regardless of where you went to school. Hell, I don't know many places that recruit kids from Cal Tech on the Street, but I think they'd be able to hold their own in the Analyst bullpen. Neil Armstrong went to the Moon, but wasn't GS material because he went to Purdue... Let's spare everyone the righteous indignation that you're forced to do sensitivity tables and properly place commas in a pitchbook next to a kid from Georgetown.
At the end of the day everything comes down to your performance on the job. Lee Ainsle went to UVA, started at KPMG and did his MBA at Keenen - Flagler and HYP > GS/MS kids would kill just to be an excel monkey in his general vicinity. Tepper went to Pitt, Mandel did Teach for America, F500 Consulting and SS ER, Big Daddy went to UNC, PTJ went to UVA, Kovner drove a cab and Soros sold purses on the street... On the other side, Jim Cramer went to Harvard College and Harvard Law and is a charlatan on his best day.
All things equal the top target kids are going to be smarter, have more opportunities and are more likely to be successful, but the good thing for everyone is that once you get in (and even more so after your first job or two) it all becomes about what you produce and how good you are at your job. Just work hard and play the hand you're dealt.
Apologies for the rant.
Sincerely,
A non target grad
Knocked every points out of the park, sb for you good sir @"Simple As..."
wow you mother fuckers are sensitive as shit. I wonder how you guys even last in investment banking with skin that thin. I was simply making an observation. Before I got to Wall St. my preconceived notion of it was it was filled with HYP grads with a smattering of UVA, GT, ND, VU students. But when I got there 70% of the students were from what WSO would call 2nd tier semi-targets. Just a difference in preconceived notion and actual observation.
Hey, did you ever figure out if your SA was at an EB like you said in this thread or a top BB like you said in another thread you made not too long ago? Just wondering...
In case you forgot what you said on 12/21/13 at 8:55 pm:
And here's what you posted on 2/21/14 at 2:16pm:
Ah, the classic "I was joking" deflection argument after Simple As ripped you a new one. And making an observation? You made the same observation just 2 months ago according to your posts that Simple As quoted. You couldn't even keep your story straight as to whether you interned at a top BB or an EB. Just quit your bullshit; everyone knows you just like to fuel the fire.
What's your point? I was at an EB but I said BB because I didn't want idiots like you going "you didn't intern at a BB so you don't know what it was like on Wall St.". This doesn't defeat any point or observation I made about the street while I was there.
Just out of curiosity @"artofwar" and @ other interns: Have you met any Europeans that studied outside of the US at universities like Oxbridge, LSE, etc. during your internships? I'm wondering how restrictive these US Visa requirements really are.
Simple As deserves 10 SBs for that post. Kudos.
Two Points:
1) Post-crisis, it is MUCH HARDER for semi/non targets to get into top sell side positions. Pre crisis, my (semi target) alma mater was sending to top BB IBD/S&T like clockwork, now it's a smattering of FO positions here and there across the BBs. Macroeconomically, this makes sense, since banks were printing profits and overhiring was chronic.
2) I'm sorry, but the top middle market IBanks are very overrated in terms of "prestige" on WSO. RWB, HW, Lincoln, Stifel, etc are excellent places to work, but there are brilliant finance professionals who haven't even heard of some of these banks. Like I said, they're great places to work if you are passionate about IBD, WSO simply overrates them in this way.
This contradicts my point and reality. Compare the demographics of bulge brackets in 2013 vs. 2006 and you will see that in 2006 ivy league schools comprised 80%+ of the analyst classes and in 2013 UVA, Gtown, and Michigan probably comprised 70%.
I saw 40% Ivy's and 30% uva/gtown/mich tier. There were a surprising amount of complete non-targets represented, 20%. I have the list so numbers aren't made up.
Good for the banks. They're finally getting their acts together on the recruiting front.
For the record, I have always been convinced that the top 10-20% in STEM at a good flagship state school aren't much different than the top 20-30% in STEM at HYP. The banks are starting to realize this, too, although the tech firms and HFT beat them to the punch by a decade or two.
Didn't read most of this thread, so I may be saying what other people have already said- Gtown and UVA have always been very well represented on Wall Street- this is nothing new. At least at my firm, the most well represented schools are still Penn (almost entirely Wharton), Harvard, and Princeton (West Coast office is Stanford). Definitely haven't observed any noticeable decline in people from these schools applying or taking positions at the BBs. Even if less students at the top ivies were interested in banking (which I'm not sure if even true), there would be no reason for the banks to change their recruiting strategies- it doesn't matter much to them whether you are hiring 5 kids out of 200 applicants or 5 kids out of 150. My opinion, take it for what it's worth.
This.
Surprised no one has pointed this out... but the person who just interned would have been in high school during 2007, how would he possibly know what the representation of schools were on wall street back then? He would have been more concerned with puberty than he would have been HYP vs. Gtown / UVA at bulge brackets.
It was common knowledge that the Street was populated with top Ivy kids pre recession you dumbass...plus it's easy to look up career reports online for different schools to discern trends.
Sure there are, post them. I don't think any of this is news regarding schools like Gtown / UVA that have strong business schools. Harvard and Yale's probably have more liberal art tinted students while at a school like Gtown you have an entire school of business school kids trying to get banking jobs. Logic would follow that a lot of them would make it there.
Also, take it from someone who actually works in banking and helps with recruiting, there are only a certain number of slots reserved for certain core schools. So at a given bank there are only 5 Harvard, 5 Yale, 5 Penn, 5 Princeton spots etc. There are a lot more schools out there then just ivies, so again, logic would follow there is a lower percentage of ivies than one might assume.
I'd love to see these commonly known stats though. But it sounds to me like you don't even know where the bathroom would be at whatever bank you interned at, let alone matriculation rates from 8 years ago.
It always cracks me up that people get pissed at the suggestion that the top 200 (2%) students out of a class of 10,000 at UW Madison might actually be as good as the top 200 (25%) students out of a class of 800 at a smaller Ivy.
A portion of the people at these schools always seem to panic at the thought that there may be very legitimate reasons to choose UC Berkeley or UT Austin over Columbia or Harvard if you are studying engineering. At the thought that no single school, athletic conference, or region (EG a 250 mile radius around NYC or CT) has a monopoly on smart people who'd be a good fit for finance. For some odd reason, this suggestion always seems to make some of the less spectacular people at the very elite schools furious. This sometimes happens a little more in March and April than in January.
In 2007, 70% of my analyst class came from 14 elite private schools, most of which were driving distance from NYC. (WSO often seems to think that this number is more like 90%.) In reality, if HR did a halfway decent job, this figure would probably be closer to 40%, and a good 10%, maybe 20% of the class would be from regional state schools and private schools nobody has ever heard of.
UW Madison, UVA, UC Berkeley, USC, UCLA, Wash U, UMich, UT Austin, Indiana, Penn State, Rutgers and dozens of other schools have been dramatically underrepresented and underappreciated on Wall Street for a long time. And there are people at schools like SUNY Buffalo, Calvin College, and UW Milwaukee who'd be a great fit for banking but never even get looked at. So kudos to banks at least trying to find ways to recruit more from the bigger schools.
I talked to many of my friends at top targets (Princeton, Wharton, Stanford, etc) trying to break into IBD / high finance and they all tell me that recruiting is very tough. Basically, Top BB's / elite boutiques only reserve 24-30 slots for first round interviews on campus at each school and the thing is there are so many smart, hard working kids at top targets all fighting for these interview slots.
Actually, my friend at Princeton with 3.5 GPA in Econ didn't land ONE single interview with any BB's this past recruiting cycle. He jokingly said something along the following: "I should've just gone to an easier school that still has good recruiting from banks such as Georgetown, UVA, or U Michigan and get higher GPA, party more, and ultimately land better job offers come OCR season."
From these anecdotal evidences, I would say that a person with a 3.7-3.8 GPA at a semi-target stands a FAR better chance than a top target kid with 3.4-3.5 GPA at landing top interviews / offers. Banks and Consulting firms care a lot about an applicant's school pedigree, but they are also absolute GPA / grade whores. No way would Goldman or McKinsey give an interview slot to a Harvard kid with 3.2 GPA over a UVA / Georgetown kid with 3.8 GPA, just because the formal candidate comes from Harvard. As such, if a person in question is not of a certain academic caliber to face the brutal academic competition / curve at a top target and still end up with top GPA, that person may actually end up better off attending a less competitive college compared to attending a top target.
This may explain OP's question regarding the supposed 'lack' of top target kids at banks: the banks don't exclusively hire from the top targets. They hire uniformly from top 25-30 colleges, and take the kids with the highest GPA / strong resume / strong connections combo and would gladly hire a Georgetown / Berkeley / UVA / Michigan kid with stronger resume power over a Harvard / Yale / Princeton kid with middling GPA / work experience combo.
I know for a fact that for Harvard OCR, first round interviews range from 12-25 spots with around 2-400 applicants depending on the firm. Similar situation at Yale. It's pretty damn difficult regardless of where you go to school. Final spots range from 1-7 or more depending on the firm (ie a BX and EVR on lower end vs DB and GS on higher end)
This. The assumption that if a kid ends up going to college at Harvard or Princeton then s/he is set for a solid career cannot be further from the truth.
I am just amazed that a lot of posters in this thread are arguing "the reason you don't see over one hundred Harvard kids at X,Y,Z bank is because these kids are now going to MBB or other top buyside jobs".
The reality is "the reason you don't see a bunch of Harvard kids at X,Y,Z bank is because after the recession, it has become really fucking hard to get a banking job even if you attended a top target school".
This.
^Would have to agree with everyone saying how difficult recruiting is at target schools, at least compared to the perception on these forums. The perception on here is that 3.5+ and top target = interview, when that couldn't be farther from the truth. In reality, the same 30 students with 3.8+ and/or good experience get every interview and win many offers, and anybody in the middle without great connections will get virtually nothing.
I've seen people without much financial experience landing internship interviews, but yes, recruiting is much harder than people seem to think it is. There aren't that many slots, there's a lot of people who want them, and there are a lot of people who have great qualifications. If you don't apply with a 3.7+ and good extracurriculars, interview season will be very difficult.
I think it is pretty obvious that students are shifting from finance to tech due to the economy, therefore a decrease in talent for the banking industry.
Let me get this straight. I get accused of a sweeping generalization for saying that HYP largely have the same culture and students tend to approach problems in the same way after being on one campus and having met a lot of people from other campuses.
But when people claim that all students at HYP are smarter than all students elsewhere (regardless of any evidence presented on SAT scores, undergraduate research, career outcomes, etc), this is not a sweeping generalization. Somehow, this claim is not as offensive, ignorant, and incorrect as claiming that women can't trade or people who grow up poor can't handle money. Got it.
From what I've seen, HYP grads are choosing tech over finance many times with both offers and many bankers are also quitting to work in tech. This is obviously reflected in recruiting and explains why semi-targets now compose the majority of wall st. banks.
Not really accurate at all. I go to a HYP, and this is definitely not the case - not because tech isn't popular, but because there isn't much overlap between people who opt for tech versus finance. There's more of a brain drain to consulting rather than tech if you're looking at people who would've done finance otherwise.
The book "Young Money" examined this very argument. What happened is that there are more and more jobs nowadays for on-the-fence ivy league/target school graduates than just investment banking. Not just silicon valley type start ups, but even programs molded similar to 2 year analyst stints such as teach for america, americorps, etc. This has left open a huge window for finance gunners from non-target schools to break into the industry.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no
TFA & Americorps attract a completely different cohort than banking: the kids who have no job prospects, no network, and a 3.1 GPA in sociology come March of senior year. They are structured the same way as an analyst program in the sense that they are 2 years long and when their participants graduate they have top placement to literacy non-profits for 30 hr/week jobs at $10/hour. Seriously, find 1 kid who was on the fence between banking and TFA. Silly post
This is pure gold. Wish I didn't have a call later this morning.
Anyways, I'd have to agree with BlackHat's first post which is why bother going to IB when you can just go buy side directly. The first time I had to bind a presentation was for my own fund.
In general I think -- Lifestyle MUCH better. Work more interesting. No bullshit contests (who can work more hours) or dumb rules Possible career trajectory without switching firms
Only negative is that comp, in my view, will be less than investment banking (on average, in my view). But then again, you actually have weekends and you know... have a life and do something much more fun than make ppt's and be the "fastest excel monkey" everyday.
Disclaimer: Never worked at an investment bank.
^I have witnessed examples of people who have decided between TFA and IBD. I have also seen people join TFA and then do an IBD SA in their summer after their first year. The talent pool is not exactly similar, but there are a fair amount of people who want to do TFA who would also be good bankers.
I'm glad somebody brought it up earlier: the main point is that money isn't the driver anymore. Banking pay is still great but not ridiculously high enough to justify working the hours for many people who have no interest in finance. Most people who are undecided are well off enough to survive without a job right out of college. That empowers them to look at more options. It's not that TFA or Americorps are on the same prestige level as IBD or same pay; but it gives people an easy, precedented, and somewhat glamorized career path after graduation. Plus, the main point isn't about those programs specifically, it's about all of the programs like those. There's so many entry level jobs out there these days that are relatively ephemeral but a career springboard nonetheless.
They are off to consulting. Without the big fat bonus waiting for them down the road, Ivy kids are not going to investment banks anymore. Instead, they want something more "impactful", which is what McKenzie and Google sell them.
Tell me more about this McKenzie, it sounds very preftigious.
LOL, You got me, man
For what it's worth, I have heard multiple recruiters say that it was so nice to be at my school (semi-target) after being at Wharton or another ivy. Though it is a broad stereotype, who would you rather interview and work with, a kid from a "less prestigious" school who knows that he/she will have to work their ass of and is also socially adept, or a finance-type ivy leaguer who thinks the job should be handed to them and comes off as cocky and belittling? Again, I am not saying this is common or even prevalent at all (and there are these type of kids at all schools) but have heard this insinuated by multiple recruiters.
This type of person is actually not that common at Ivies. Most kids at Ivies I see these days were nerds in high school (think about the top 5 kids in your high school class...I doubt they were jocks). I will say there is a homogeneity to the Ivy league applicants that can be tiresome.
There are a lot of categories for people at ivies.
I will say that there are a lot more rich kids here. Some of the rich kids come off as a little more entitled than what I remember students at UIUC coming off as. The vast majority don't come off as entitled at all once you get a little bit of context. The grad students are also a lot chiller and look/sound more like people at state schools.
Having spent five years between my undergrad and grad school, I do remember noticing that there was a certain way that all of these people would speak that was really annoying. It was like talking to a bunch of people at a country club or an art exhibit. Normal people do not talk- err, "speak"- in carefully measured tones, enunciate their articles, and use obscure adjectives. I remember that what I allow to be confidence today I called arrogance five years ago. I remember that many of them came off like they had this assumption that people were measured by their school (rather than their intellect or their accomplishments), and that was really annoying. The fact that ~55% of an incoming analyst class would come from ~11 east coast schools + Stanford reinforced this whole line of thinking for everyone involved. Of course even then I realized there were a lot of exceptions in terms of people.
It's important to realize that there's a big gap between peoples' perceptions here, and perceptions define our reality. If you perceive a Princeton MFin running around talking about how smart people really don't go to Berkeley, and you go to Berkeley, that Princeton MFin is a douchebag. In reality, he may just have said something thoughtless (and categorically incorrect), and didn't fully understand its implications. People at these schools do this all the time, just like everyone else.
I think there is a problem in this country where, for all of the smarts that these people have, they don't necessarily have more wisdom about the broader social dynamic and what looks douchey to the everyday guy. On Wall Street, where perhaps a majority of people are from schools like these, the social dynamic actually changes to the point where what would normally get called out as douchey no longer gets called out. In the earlier days of WSO, when there was a lot of trolling going on, I did a lot of calling people out.
Now that there is less trolling and that to some extent other people on the forums have called me out for having some biases against the ivies, I don't do that as much, or as harshly. I'm not going to say it's acceptable for people to behave a certain way, but I think some of this may make it more understandable. It's not that Ivy Leaguers are sometimes assholes who act cocky and belittling- it's that we are sometimes idiots who come say things that come off as cocky and belittling completely unintentionally. We are human like everyone else. Some of us were are alumns of "non-targets" and are very proud of our undergrads.
Look, I'm 28 and I've said stuff on WSO that I regret and that has been cocky and belittling (I didn't mean for it to be- it just came out that way). It was stuff that would have sounded one way when I was a UIUC alumn and I would have completely gotten away with, and it sounds completely differently in the context of my graduate degree. I got called out on it, and I admitted that I was an idiot and apologized.
If a 28 year old who spent five years as a working professional makes these mistakes, a 22 year old undergrad is going to make them, too. Again, it doesn't excuse it, but I argue that it makes it a little more understandable.
UIUC's, Berkeley's, Georgia Tech's, and UT Austin'scomputer science programs also outrank nearly every Ivy, and they get similar placements, along with Caltech, CMU, MIT, and Stanford. Actually this summer I worked at a hedge fund with a very large high frequency operation and 2/3 of our interns there were from state schools. These are people who will have direct P&L responsibilities when they start full time.I'm still not even sure how to compare Princeton's engineers against UIUC's engineers, or if one group can be called smarter or more accomplished than the other. Both groups of people are exceptionally smart, exceptionally accomplished, and exceptionally hard-working. Both schools have a lot of people I'd enjoy working with. I do know that despite all the talk about anti-grade-inflation policies, it's easier to get a decent grades in engineering classes at Princeton than UIUC. UIUC typically curves to a 2.5 GPA; Princeton curves to a ~3.3-3.4 in Engineering.
State school kids look at $100K/year and they see something a lot different than the average kid at Princeton. $100K is not "Three semesters of expenses at this institution" or "half of what my friend Max turned down from AQR". Back in 2007, it was"twice what my friends are making" or "Five times what I'm living on, including tuition!" They're willing to work a little harder for it and they're going to stay a little more loyal for it. While I'm always going to pull for a UIUC or Princeton alumn, if there are two equal candidates- one from an ivy and one from a state school, I know the state schooler is going to treat a $100K/year job with a little more respect. And if our team already has a lot of people from ivies on it, I know the state schooler is going to think a little bit differently than us. For an IBD or consulting role, you have to balance that against the marketability of their background,
Bottom line is that the ivies do not have a monopoly on smart people and there are students at other schools who are as smart and as accomplished as the students we can find at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Assuming we find a candidate where that's the case, what is so horrible about setting the same standards for them as we set for candidates at target schools?
In the real world, few people give a shit about where you went to school by the time you're pushing 30. You need to produce on the job. Do you think I was going to let the fact that I went to UC Boulder hold me back from being successful? Once I started making money, nobody remembered where I went to school.
I certainly haven't seen people obsess over where they went to school as much as I have on WSO. It's pretty strange.
Legit.
Why can't this thread just die already?
I think OP has set a WSO record for having the most monkey shit thrown at you.
Holy shiet poor horse
lol fair enough, I'm done. @"IlliniProgrammer", looks like you get the last word.
lol
Current non target at an EB and can confirm that the current SA class has less than 10 non targets in the entire group.
Odio ab perferendis commodi iusto incidunt quo aut. Similique reiciendis laboriosam est. Quis ad assumenda temporibus atque nemo sed eveniet. Non rerum accusamus quidem illum tenetur est veniam eum.
Earum consequatur facilis dolorem molestias. Deserunt totam quia occaecati eos culpa. Ipsa nulla ducimus aut architecto atque. Assumenda facilis atque voluptas impedit quibusdam. Explicabo aperiam aliquid odio qui suscipit. Ipsam nostrum iure numquam.
Voluptatem voluptate qui reiciendis sunt necessitatibus necessitatibus. Quisquam explicabo a qui ut repellat in non. Ea necessitatibus sapiente et. Quam modi est velit. Quia consequatur non non. Perferendis cumque distinctio ex minima. Fugiat cum commodi voluptas et ullam.
Ad nihil eligendi et modi eveniet. Laborum ducimus nobis totam velit sint. Libero dolores a vel sequi tempore porro. Doloremque voluptas animi sapiente iure repellendus nam veritatis. Magni repellendus recusandae quia eum.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Id consequatur quibusdam harum provident non. Rerum aut autem velit expedita. Velit id perferendis reiciendis nulla ullam.
Explicabo ut ratione molestiae qui. Officiis tenetur sit exercitationem quaerat. Et est nobis esse dolores quos voluptas.
Omnis voluptatem doloribus doloremque voluptatem. Iure inventore totam doloribus sunt ipsam laboriosam aut. Nam et dignissimos maiores sequi cum in.
Architecto quaerat et et aspernatur quae. Omnis aliquid sed id enim eos est voluptatem. Velit ut eveniet omnis doloribus quia vero magni.
Et enim cumque enim odit ratione aut hic. Delectus qui beatae asperiores nihil. Cum quasi nesciunt voluptas saepe nemo. Non neque possimus aperiam quae aut. Aperiam vero cumque rerum inventore laboriosam quae.
Vel et aperiam quas enim. Voluptatem quibusdam omnis mollitia cum nemo est reiciendis ea. Quia inventore sit quia suscipit.
Fugit debitis sed aut ex rerum sit. Consequuntur ut possimus rerum nobis. Et molestias perferendis error. Veritatis quo maxime impedit officiis voluptate autem mollitia.
Modi sed voluptas rerum et ut quia quibusdam. Eligendi magni officiis aut ab molestiae dignissimos praesentium repudiandae. Distinctio ut iste rerum cumque sed.
Tenetur aperiam similique molestiae impedit error voluptatibus animi. Incidunt ipsa quas consequatur tenetur sed et voluptates. Consequatur praesentium ut consequatur iure.
Est enim et sit. Nesciunt reiciendis ut et nostrum est dolore. Modi non consequatur cupiditate animi nam et. Dignissimos officiis et labore qui et est exercitationem. Id aperiam molestiae perferendis sed cum quae reiciendis.
Autem fugit quia similique velit maiores omnis suscipit. Fugiat corrupti et atque assumenda est tempore aut sint. Aut velit ut expedita quas laborum quia. Recusandae quod eos dolorum eum iure. Pariatur sed explicabo ut quasi consequuntur perferendis. Perferendis ut iste non omnis veritatis. Qui officia aut aut rerum aut.