Interesting read hopefully this motivates any hard working non-target students who need a little pick me up. Feel free to post your opinion on the article.
I want somebody that's smart, hungry, not spoiled. Someone that comes in and actually says, 'I'll work 15, 18, 20 hours a day — just give me a shot. I'll mop floors, I just want an opportunity to learn,'" he said. "I'm not impressed by fancy schools — doesn't matter to me.
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Love the article. Good post.
Haha, that's exactly the way he is off the camera. I know a few people, including Buzzy at Cougar and I'm actually quite surprised he agreed to do an interview.
Either ways, great post!
Thanks guys glad you liked it. While I do believe the an Ivy League education is impressive there are kids out there who are smarter and work harder.... shame we live in a world where the name means everything. Hopefully more people will adapt this way of thinking like Mr.Buzzy
What you say is true.. but I would still say that a fund would achieve a higher batting average picking kids from top 10 school than the bottom 100...
There are always exceptions.. but it's far from the norm.
I agree you shouldn't be overly impressed with where someone went to school, that certainly should not be the only qualification. That is never impressive to me in isolation. That being said, recruiting efforts would be highly inefficient if you spent as much time recruiting from South Dakota State as you did at MIT. To pretend you would have an equal likelihood of finding good candidates at each school would be to completely deny reality. It doesn't mean you can't find someone good at a shitty school, but I don't like the odds if I'm recruiting.
Edit Title: These Two Wall Street CEOs Aren't Impressed By Fancy Schools
You might want to re-read my post again.
While I'm not impressed with a good school, I wouldn't be recruiting at crappy schools either. You may find a diamond in the rough at a crummy school, but why bother with that when there's an open field of diamonds in plain sight at a good school.
Sorry if that was unclear.
No worries, I read you man. I'm a non-target guy myself and agree that it isn't worth the resources to find diamonds in the rough. It's just a matter of cost/benefit. What I took from the article is that there are those out there who don't automatically dismiss candidates due to the fact that they didn't attend a small handful of schools. I think that's a good thing.
@"DickFuld" I completely agree with that statement...I would like to think that if you aren't marketing yourself properly then you are not a diamond at all....however that being said there is an abundance of ivy league kids who think they are entitled to the best and first simply becuase they are in a Ivy. Now does this apply to all Ivy kids absolutely not..I am sure they are smart hard working students but there are students like this everywhere. I just wish people would stop looking at the name only or using it to get ahead without anything else. But the world was not built like this and must deal with the cards that I was given but I would be damned if some snotty dimwitted silver spoon ivy league kid is going to tell me that I will not succeded simply because I did not attend a certain school.
I love @"DickFuld"
so how does a diamond know if they are a diamond? external influences/environment can have a lot of influences on one's self worth. shitty parents/friends, shitty school, etc etc
What makes me upset is that I was learning about Finance in junior high school, got interested at a very young age and went at it that way. I never felt like I should be passed over by someone because I didn't attend an Ivy. I was already hardworking and interested.
I did not graduate from one, but I think fancy school graduates earned their bragging rights fair and square.
Bullshit you earn your bragging rights when you do somthing like have great grades, be active in the community help others, or put in the work. Just cause you got in a nice school (Mommy and Daddy connections) graduate with minimal requirements, wasted your time partying slacking off and then demanding a job cause of that name. I personally know a friend that came over with his family from an impoverished country worked his ass of in high school declined offers from 2 ivy leagues to go to a top undergraduate school which gave him more aid, will be graduating 3.9 GPa and worked throughout college not for himself but for his brother in order for him to attend a top engineering school. But that kid that did bare minimal should get bragging rights nonetheless for doing nothing. You get bragging rights for working no matter what school you are just not from a schools name only.
dude stop cherry picking counter examples. what many have already said (including myself earlier) is true 100%. there are higher ratio of qualified candidate at an ivy than there is at non target. i graduated from an ivy, and everytime I talk to my brother (who attends a top state school) or any of my friends from high school, the quality of education is beyond subpar. sure the SAT/ACT and grades aren't the best measure of intellect, but a school full of 1400+ (old SAT out of 1600) is going to destroy most kids at any state school (avg SAT score at a top public in each state was around 1050 back when i was applying to schools).
i get it, you hate the schools that have become the standard and a ticket to an industry that many people covet, but the degree we earn at an ivy is often (not all the time) superior to what you would get at a state school (in all four years at my school, i just had one class that had more than 12 kids - often, it was less than 10). BS.
Wow sure getting into and graduating from a fancy school is as easy as how you described it.
It's not a black and white world. It's never a choice between hiring the slacker Ivy grad with mommy and daddy connections vs. the hard-working non-target kid that worked throughout college. It's hard to break into finance from a non-target because there are numerous hard-working target school grads from modest means.
Most people who go to top schools work hard and drive themselves to their limits, as they don't have the ""Mommy and Daddy connections."" These so-called "connections" that help kids enter prestigious schools aren't as prevalent as you'd think.
I'm sorry you're still unnecessarily bitter over going to a "non-target" school.
Once in a while I need articles like this to keep me going
Glad it helps.
Study in the best school of my country. And I can say that there are many other students of lower schools that are better prepared than my colleagues.
the school name will not save him.
Always funny to read the whining by non-targets.
It's not nearly as uncommon to see people from non-targets on Wall Street as this message board makes it seem.
Whining?? No I just refuse to be brought down cause of my schools name.Whining is complaining and not doing anything about it or putting in work in...... with that stated I can voice my opinion or what I think. It is like me saying you will not get in shape because of you genetics.......(1) Whine/bitch and still not get your fat ass to the gym or (2) Use that negative comment to get motivated even more.
You go, girl.
EDIT: Why the fuck do all my posts get posted twice? They're not that great...
l.
As DickFuld said, it is because of supply and demand that only the top schools are targeted. Similar to med school, where the average test scores are quite high, if so many people didn't want it, then more schools could be targeted. It really doesn't have anything to do with your intelligence, test scores are just a quick way to filter out students.
This guy reminds me of the first couple of people who gave me a shot. It's true that if you don't have stellar credentials from certain schools that it becomes harder to find a way in. It just requires the will to push beyond the status quo.
On a side note, BI is still kind of scattered but I've found that I check there before other publications lately. Anyone else notice this?
Yes and I hate myself for it.
If I was a CEO I to would want hungry kids to grow my wealth as I give them 1-5% raises a year.
Man, where did this discussion end up?
Look, I think we can all agree that avg ivy grad > avg non-target grad. Is it possible that the top non-target student could be more intelligent/hardworking than an ivy student? Absolutely, but the burden of proof is on the non-target.
A non-target may or may not have a longer/rougher path, but I tend to believe (call me an idealist) that those who go on to achieve great things would do so regardless of the school they attended.
It's not like there's any shortage of Ivy Leaguers who are willing to grind it out and work 15 and 18 and 20 hours a day.
If you go to a non-target and want it bad enough, you'll work you're ass off to get that offer, doing whatever it takes. In the end, regardless of where you end up, you'll find that that path you took was in itself beneficial. You'll learn a lot (about yourself and in an academic/business sense), meet a lot of people, and find it to be a humbling experience. If you do make it, it will feel like much more of an accomplishment due to the effort put in and you'll never take it for granted.
Listen to rap every once and a while. They know all about the hustle and making something from nothing. Jay-Z went from sellin' rock on the street to being a billionaire and banging Beyonce. He didn't have a trust fund to buy his first ounce with, hell, he probably started with low margin dime bags of weed. Started from the bottom, now we here. Although Drake is a bad example, it epitomizes making it and clearly rappers appreciate their lavish lifestyle more than if they would have just been born spitting mad flows, making bank, and showering women in Rose and benjaminz.
Banking is the white collar grind, the upper-middle class hustle.
Love this silver banana
-deleted
I thought there was an error that I could not quote @"MokeAnalyst" post above, but turns out I can.
I'll email this thread to Buzzy. If he writes anything funny/insightful back, I'll post it (granted only if I get his permission).
If I met this man I would mop every floor in his damned building if he gave me a 15 minute informational interview.
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