Which school is better for ibanking? Northwestern economic majort or Emory Goizueta business school?

northwestern

Northwestern.

Thirded.

Both schools are equally good. I know for a fact that MS, GS and a whole bunch of other banks actually come and recruit at Emory

northwestern

Just because banks go recruit at a place doesn't mean that it's as good as another place where banks recruit. Is Emory as good as Wharton? I mean banks recruit at both places, right?

Northwestern by a mile. Very smart kids come out of that place too.

Northwestern

That rep is pretty accurate if you're a Kellogg grad -- they don't have a great rep among recruiters because they tend to be arrogant. That said, the undergraduate program is very different. For example, the standard econometrics course at NU blows Harvard's out of the water. The problem is because almost every student takes at least one econ course, and there are too many econ majors, they make it very, very difficult to complete the major. The result is if you're an econ major with a semi-decent GPA, then recruiters will think well of you.

Many recruiters don't want to see so many narrow minded kids in their undergraduate. Sure they recruit from many undergraduate business schools (Wharton, Haas, Stern, etc), but statistically, they are increasingly taking more liberal arts backgrounds.

As a recruiter from a bulge bracket told me last week, "frankly, I find undergraduate business majors boring."

The econ major is becoming more and more diluted at every university, as an increasing number of students feel it gives them an "edge" in the business field. It seems it's becoming more a rite of passage than a real learning of skills that translate well into banking. Let's be honest, bottom line, banking is glorified sales. The skills needed to succeed are simply a strong work ethic and a quick learner. So my suggestion is you following a path where you you will be able to grow. Doing business undergrad may limit you in that regard, but you can certainly get just as much in terms of personal fullfilment as doing a liberal arts undergrad. Wherever you end up, if you just have an open mind and push yourself outside your comfort zone, you'll be an attractive candidate for ibanking.

nystateofmind, took the words out of my mouth. Also Kellogg isn't any more or less arrogant than any other MBA business schools ">M7. At various times I have heard that HBS, Stanford, Sloan and Tuck are all hated by recruiters because the students are too arrogant.

And I had to laugh at the "semi-decent" GPA- recruiting is such a crapshoot and is so competitive that even great GPAs aren't guaranteed of anything.

i go to NU and econ is by far the most popular major here. a "semi-decent" gpa in econ doesnt mean shit, anyone can get a 3.3-3.4 in econ. im an econ major/polisci minor and i have a GPA within that mediocre range by getting drunk 4 nites out of the week, barely studying for exams, and focusing a lot more on my internships/networking/ECs than on academics. an Econ major from NU is really nothing impressive in my opinion since every dumbass at NU does it.

I actually have taken econometrics at Harvard. A colleague of mine took metrics at Northwestern, and they really are different courses. I wasn't saying that NU blows Harvard out of the water, but that NU's metrics class is a lot more rigorous.

I also wasn't trying to solve the undergrad recruiting paradigm, rather stating that having a semi-decent gpa (which in my book, I see a 3.7 as decent), can improve your odds of being tossed into the interview pile. Obviously there are people with low gpa's who get great jobs and people with high gpa's who don't, but having a higher gpa can only really increase your chances of getting a good job.

Lastly, by bringing up that recruiter's point of view, I wasn't stating that as a fact, rather just bringing up an opinion which you don't commonly hear. As WSO has plenty of misguided undergrads (even high schoolers), I want to make it clear that if you are interested in finance, that doesn't mean you have to go to an undergrad business school.

No D's in this mouth.

Also, as h4zin lives up NU's rep as echoed earlier in this thread, we can see that even undergraduates have the capacity of being cosy with their subpar performance.

If I were to make a rash generalization (seeded with a sliver of truth), I would say that NU kids tend to think that their EC's will carry them into a BB. When i'm looking through a couple hundred resumes, numbers tend to stick out more than having a bunch of glorified titles celebrating your ability to replicate ineffective bureaucracy at the undergraduate level.

If 3.7 is 'decent', then I guess 3.3-3.5 is 'semi-decent'?

I guess you can slap a semi in front of anything and make a point. I am semi-awesome!

I went to a school with (objectively) better recruiting than NW and I safely say that 3.3-3.4 (around the median), which I would call decent (no semis for me!), would rarely get you interviews with multiple BBs unless you had 1) significant prior experience, 2) a very rigorous major, or 3) some fantastic, non-BS extracurriculars.

A 'semi-decent' GPA in Econ certainly doesn't cut it anymore (did it ever?).

If you want to study business then go Emory, if not, do northwestern. You rather want to be good at what you do than study something and hate it just to get a job. Four years is long... Trust me, engineering at a top engineering school sucked for four years...