Stanford Wall Street Placement East Coast

I'm currently trying to decide whether or not to attend Stanford or Princeton for undergrad. I want to eventually work on wall street in NYC after graduation. But I also have some interest in entrepreneurship, although I don't consider myself very techie, so if I did play a role in startups, it would be on the more management/marketing side. At the moment, I definitely see myself more on wall street than in a startup/tech company, although both are possibilities.

Knowing this, which school should I go to? In addition, how is Stanford's presence on the east coast in terms of finance. I know how important the alumni network is, and I'm afraid most of that network for Stanford is on the west coast. Would I be at a disadvantage going to Stanford instead of Princeton when pursuing a Wall Street career in the east?

Also, do companies like Goldman or JP Morgan in NYC have interns from Stanford over the summer? Or is that uncommon? Stanford operates on a quarter system so school finishes later than when most banking internships start. Will these companies based in NYC actually go to Stanford to recruit?

 

Being in your shoes, I would 100% choose Stanford over Princeton and I'm an East Coast person. Both schools are recognized as the best of the best and will give you the opportunity to pursue whatever finance career you want. There's definitely less Stanford grads on Wall Street, but it's more or less down to self selection. If that's what you want and you prepare adequately for it, being at Stanford won't hold you back.

 

GS has a handful of kids from Stanford in IB this summer. I would agree with hot1590 and say that it is likely there are more kids interested in traditional NYC IB at Princeton than Stanford. Honestly both are such great schools that I don't think choosing one over the other will really limit your options. It's going to come down more on your ability/drive than anything else.

 

I won't discount Stanford simply because it is less represented on the Street. As others have mentioned, representation is a function of self-selection. Simply put, Stanford's student body has more diversity of interests.

To the extent that banking remains an interest of yours and you make an effort to join some finance / business clubs and reach out to alumni on the Street, East Coast placement from Stanford is entirely plausible. Stanford has two strong investment funds for students to get involved in: The Blyth Fund, which is student-run, and The Cardinal Fund, which is a six-quarter Asset Management, portfolio strategy, and finance bootcamp course that counts as electives for the Economics major. There is also a finance track within the Economics program, so you can specialize further if that is something you would like to do as well. Stanford's entrepreneurial, techy, computer science reputation overshadows finance, but it definitely exists at the school and there are resources to help you.

To provide more concrete placement data: Out of the ~10 students in Morgan Stanley's Freshman Internship Program for summer 2015, the only two kids in IBD were Stanford students. There was a third Stanford kid in GCM as well, I believe. Of course, this is only one program at one firm for one summer but I do think if you are interested in finance the East Coast opportunities are plentiful. Any skew towards West Coast for placement is largely because many of the SF / Menlo Park offices of banks recruit locally. This doesn't erase East Coast opportunities, however, it just provides more additional opportunities.

 

As a Stanford grad who has worked in IB, I can tell you that placement in NYC is not great coming from Stanford in comparison to top east coast schools. Mainly because there are just not as many people/alumni in IB from Stanford on the east coast. In addition, the quality of life at Stanford is also one of (if not the) highest out of any top college, and many students are not interested in pulling all nighters on Wall Street and doing the analyst lifestyle. But there is also some strong hiring bias against west coast kids on the east coast, and what I mean by that is this (and I have gotten this question in interviews in NYC in addition to others as well): "We have trouble retaining west coast hires for more than 2 years in NYC because all you guys go straight back to CA to do either buyside or a startup...are you one of those kids?"

Just a thought. Hope this helps.

 
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As a Stanford grad who has worked in IB, I can tell you that placement in NYC is not great coming from Stanford in comparison to top east coast schools. Mainly because there are just not as many people/alumni in IB from Stanford on the east coast. In addition, the quality of life at Stanford is also one of (if not the) highest out of any top college, and many students are not interested in pulling all nighters on Wall Street and doing the analyst lifestyle. But there is also some strong hiring bias against west coast kids on the east coast, and what I mean by that is this (and I have gotten this question in interviews in NYC in addition to others as well): "We have trouble retaining west coast hires for more than 2 years in NYC because all you guys go straight back to CA to do either buyside or a startup...are you one of those kids?"

Just a thought. Hope this helps.

Winners bring a bigger bag than you do. I have a degree in meritocracy.
 

I can confirm that at least as of a few years ago many major banks sent recruiters to Stanford career fairs. I explicitly remember seeing GS, JPM, MS, and BofA. All the big name prop shops also recruit at Stanford. Several European banks also had recruiting events, but those may have been focused on recruiting technical talent on the quant side, which I was paying more attention to at the time.

 

Simply put, these are both fantastic schools. If you want to be in IB, neither school will hold you back. Try and think about factors outside recruitment, especially because you're between two tier 1 schools. After a year or two of college, you might not even be interested in IB anymore; in fact, you might be totally turned off to finance in general. It's cliche, but you're going to grow and change a lot over the coming few years, and its possible your interests will change wildly.

 

On one hand, Stanford, where you could easily break into banking or a startup, have some of the best weather in the US, great sports and women, in the heart of Silicon Valley....while on the other hand, Princeton, where you could easily break into banking, pretty easily head to a startup, but is based in NJ...am I missing something or is this a pretty straightforward decision?

Either way OP, the world is your oyster, so enjoy the next 4 years.

 

There's more than one alumni of both schools in my closest group of friends. As someone who went to neither school, interned at one of the top BB/EB groups everyone on this forum jerks it to, and went to another of those same top BB/EB groups after school, here's what I can tell you.

Princeton has really bad grade deflation. I obviously didn't experience it firsthand, but the guys there said it was .3-.4 relative to other schools. A kid I interned with had a 3.28 (and got into one of these elite firms on his own merits, he had no networking connection).

Depending on where you're from and how you look at things, Princeton has either a pretty clubby or pretty stuffy culture. Eating clubs are a big influence on campus life and the social scene. If you're from that sort of background, there's nothing amiss. If you're not, it can feel like you're cut out of the core of things.

Princeton has a lot of kids interested in finance and consulting. That means there's a larger proportion of the student body applying for each opportunity. The GS, MS, and buy-side info sessions are absolutely swamped each year.

Princeton is in New Jersey (albeit one of the nicest parts). The campus is the classic Ivy League archetype that probably rushes into your brain the minute you think "college." Long, sweeping paths - gorgeous quads - historical buildings that are older than the nation - green everywhere - tall, leafy trees ... until winter. Then it's welcome to the hurt.

Stanford's campus is sweeping, open, and sunny. It's prototypical California.

Academics are challenging but fair. None of my friends complained about the grading (but no one said it was easy; some did joke about the well-known inflation at Harvard).

The student body is very international and very diverse in terms of interest. The revolving door between campus and Silicon Valley is obviously well-known, but there's more. Some people are set on going to law school, others to grad school for academia, others are interested in engineering and working for one of the big bio/chem/mech/aero/etc. giants that are out there, others are chasing compsci in the pursuit of the classic Bay Area thing, others are burning with ambition for their own business, etc.

For your career interest, that means you're going up against a smaller fraction of the student body for the same interests. If you're concerned about placement, I'll say it simply: if you want to get to NYC BB IBD and fail somehow, it won't be because Stanford was a hindrance. Every BB recruits there. A number of buy-side firms recruit there (and there only), like Golden Gate, some small NorCal hedge funds, and a number of VC funds.

You may not be on campus looking to live a vibrant social life, but it's worth mentioning that the girls there are more conventionally attractive and fun than at any of the six Ivy campuses I visited during undergrad. Also worth mentioning is a fantastic sports scene (led by an amazing football program that's a perennial bowl participant and now playoff contender).

At the end of the day, both schools will position you remarkably well for the future. You have a champagne problem. The decision ultimately comes down to how you subjectively score each dimension between the two schools.

Were I advising a younger relative or mentee, I'd make a strong case for Stanford:

a) By most people's measuring stick (weather, sports, girls, Greeklife), it's a way more fun place to spend four years b) Your immediate career interests (NYC banking) are not only very achievable but perhaps easier on relative terms than Princeton c) If b-school is on your radar, the only other school ad-coms look as favorably upon is Harvard; GSB also really loves Stanford undergrads d) The world is increasingly driven by technology; being in the geographical and intellectual heart of that industry during undergrad is a rare privilege e) You'll have a much less homogeneous network from undergrad

Good luck either way, and congrats.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 
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I'm using a throwaway account so as to not associate this post with the ones I've made in the past. TL;DR - I think turning down Stanford will be a mistake, but not one that will hurt you.

Currently at Stanford studying Computer Science, and heavily involved with both the finance and tech communities here.

You'll find that the finance undergrad vibe at Stanford is very different from the impression you might have from Wall Street Oasis -- maybe it's California, maybe it's the good weather, but the attitude towards everything is just more "chill" here. People don't approach internship hunting and networking with the same level of OCD that WSO kids seem to -- for better or worse, there are a lot of perks associated with going to Stanford, and one of those is banking internships being handed to you on a platter, IF THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT (more on this below).

Contrary to what folks might post here, I can attest that bulge bracket banks and elite boutiques bend over backwards to hire us -- it's just that the vast majority of Stanford kids end up not wanting to banking. If you come out to Silicon Valley, you'll find an entrepreneurial spirit permeating every membrane of life that makes settling for boring corporate jobs such as banking or consulting very difficult. Many kids who think they want to do banking end up going and doing biz dev/strategy at a big tech company or a well-funded startup (which isn't nearly as risky a career move as people on this forum make it out to be) or do Venture Capital. You get to do finance-y work that is MUCH more interesting/exciting while earning a similar amount of money, and enjoy a much, much, MUCH higher quality of life.

Also, the average person in Silicon Valley is much less of a dick than the average person on the Street -- don't underestimate how large an impact this has on your mental health. I say this as someone who as only done finance internships these past few years (so I am familiar with that ecosystem) but has a predominantly techie friend circle...the difference in my general happiness based on where I am and who I'm interacting with at any given point is substantial.

With regard to the people who are saying that we don't have an undergrad finance major and so you're less prepared for the technicals -- interviewers are aware of this and adjust accordingly. Stanford kids never really get hard technicals beyond what you'll learn by skimming WSO guide a couple of days before your interview. Banks aren't stupid or psycho -- they know that if you were able to get into Stanford and maintain a decent GPA here, you're smart enough to do the grunt work that an analyst needs to do.

While the Stanford grad above is right that there isn't phenomenal Stanford representation on the East Coast, there is enough for you to get a job (just crack open the Alumni database, find 2-3 people at whichever office you want to work, and shoot an email -- that's enough to get you an interview). Stanford is very well represented in the elite West Coast offices -- thinking Morgan Stanley Menlo Park, Lazard SF, Goldman TMT, JPM TMT, Evercore Menlo etc....

Also, don't assume you won't end up doing an engineering/techie major. The vast majority of Computer Science majors had no idea they liked CS coming into Stanford -- the introductory CS course, CS 106A (which you will end up early on in college, if only because of peer pressure -- there are some 800 students in that class) is so phenomenally well taught that people forget how shitty their AP CS and calculus teachers in high school were. The CS department invests heavily in getting kids excited about the subject and holding their hand as they dip their feet in.

Finally, I will say this -- a TON of kids come to Stanford thinking they want to do finance, spend a summer or two interning in banking/consulting and McKinsey/Goldman/JPM/Morgan Stanley, and decide not to pursue it full time for the reasons I listed above. Don't optimize for a career path that you're not even sure you want to do. As the poster above put it well, if you don't get the Wall Street job that you want from Stanford, you wouldn't have got it from Princeton.

 

"Don't optimize for a career path that you're not even sure you want to do. " This is one of the most reasoned sentences on this website I have seen written by a college student.

+1 SB

 

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