Why don't banks target many state schools?

The world is not fair, and the best thing to do is worry about the things you have control over instead of complaining. There are fairly obvious reasons why the banks do what they do, and if you cannot understand why these decisions are logical from their perspective then you don’t deserve an offer anyway.

"No one ever got fired for buying IBM" An old buy side saying and works for hiring too.

Hiring from an Ivy is just viewed as "safer" than hiring from a public school. That's never going to change.

It's definitely not fair but "it is what it is." The only caveat is the smart public school kids figure out a way to make it and that motivation will get them further in their careers than a lazy 2.0 kid from H.

This has been answered so many times before, and like the Liam Gallagher said, if you can't see why banks do what they do then you don't deserve an offer/are quite naive as to how things work.

it's like saying why did this person in the top 25% of X prep school get into an ivy and the valedictorian at some random public school didn't...at the end of the day colleges are businesses and want to bring in the people they feel will eventually donate/make them money (Preston from Deerfield with rich connections)...the same exact thing applies to ACTUAL businesses..

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Why would I take someone who slacked off in high school or just simply is not smart? Why would I trot out a random state school kid to my client when I could bring out an Ivy Leaguer instead? Simply put, an Ivy League kid is safer and I'd much rather have an average Ivy Leaguer over the top state schooler.

I'm telling you. This economy sucks. There are not enough companies ready to hire at solid pay. We've been lied to. You wouldn't have so much social unrest if the economy was firing on all cylinders the way it's supposed to and economic benefits are being efficiently distributed throughout the economy. Everyone's got someone to blame. This country is a total mess.

I didn't go to Harvard or Penn State, but did go to an Ivy and had plenty of friends from high school/grade school who went to state schools ranked around the same as Penn State. The 2.0 kid from Harvard is getting precisely 0 looks from IB unless they're one of the few incredibly well-connected kids in the class (in which case, they're getting looks regardless of where they go to school). There are also probably fewer than 10 kids/class from Harvard or similar schools graduating with ~2.0 GPA--even the dumbest football, lacrosse, and hockey players from my school could carry a 2.5 with little trouble (hard to get below a C in almost any class, and they always took 1-2 easy classes/term that would end up as a B or B+).

The student with 3.4 at Harvard will have an easier time getting IB looks than the kid with 3.5-3.6 from PSU. That's really what most people here are complaining about. Is that fair? Not totally. But I can almost guarantee you in >90% of cases, the Harvard kid is smarter than the PSU kid. I had friends at my alma mater who had a 3.3./3.4, and with almost no exceptions they were smarter than pretty much anyone from my high school who went to the state's honor program.

The bigger concern is the 3.9 finance whiz from PSU who deserves as many or more looks than the 3.3 history major from HYP. In many cases, they get those looks but not without tremendous hustle, awareness (both self-awareness and awareness of IB recruiting details), and luck. But top talent will shine through eventually in most cases, just taking a little longer from certain schools. Some of the smartest people I've ever worked with went to schools most people on here would never aspire to attend, but they found success eventually after many years.

I think the "who's smarter" debate is a little overblown. I'm willing to bet it has more to do with tradition than the idea that there are no smart kids at Penn State. "Tradition" was such a hardon back in the day with all those waspy people in the North East, it's really not surprising that it's been a long standing practice to only focus on kids from select schools all because they share the same collegiate conference.

I'm not really sure if it makes sense or not. I think it makes more sense to ask, why aren't there more better paying places to work, so the industry isn't clogged up? I mean, money is such an easy answer to how to attract more talent. The banks, with training programs and pay, generally do a much better job of attracting talent, despite the constant inundation of shit they get from pretty much every corner.

Just go do a masters at a target.

Banking isn’t hard to learn... and it’s probably one of the most prestige oriented careers where your school name actually matters. You should already know this.

It's also not fair that you have the freedom to complain about such trivial matters like this while there are people who were unfortunate to to be born in an area of the world where they are relegated to being slaves for their entire lives wishing only for a fraction of the freedom you have.

So relax and learn to realize how lucky you are as your life situation is likely still better than 99% of people that have ever lived.

When has any kid from Harvard with a 2.0 gotten an offer from a bank? Sure, the standard will be lower with respect to GPA requirement but most of the Harvard kids I know that landed offers from my bank had 3.7+ GPAs in quantitative subjects (e.g., economics, statistics, computer science).

I know this site usually rags a bit on Cornell (although this post seemed to build some unity) but the top 5% of the school is absolutely brilliant. The work ethic of some of the top engineering, architecture, and pre-med students is insane.

For some reason, there are a good number of people on this website that think kids who go to target schools are lazy bums that have their jobs handed to them on a silver platter. While there are definitely more than a handful of kids who leverage their connections, you'd be surprised by how hard the majority of kids at target schools grind (particularly the Asian / Indian non-legacy kids).

There are a bunch of top tier private schools with undergraduate business programs that will offer applicant pools, that are on average, significantly stronger than the ones at the schools that you listed (e.g., Penn, Cornell, NYU, Notre Dame, Georgetown, WashU, USC, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, BC, etc.) as well as top tier public schools (e.g., Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, UT-Austin, UNC). And then of course, there are all of the super talented kids who busted their asses off to get into schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the like. Yes, there will always be kids with connections who land offers but a majority of the candidates from these schools will be pretty smart people who will be able to pick up the job pretty quickly, even if they aren't coming from finance backgrounds.

Penn State is a good school and the cream of the crop will place on Wall Street. I understand the desire for greater opportunity but at the end of the day, there are a ton of super qualified kids gunning for a limited number of positions.

The system works fine. I got in from a non-target and a few of my peers got into IB as well. If you’re really dying to do finance you’ll put in the work to make it happen. Plenty of kids at my school just aren’t interested or don’t like the lifestyle.

it kinda seems like banks are doing JUST fine with their current talent model lmao

80%+ of ivy league students grinded like hell to land their acceptances. that alone is a pretty good indicator that they have the capacity to meet the demands of the industry. going to a state school doesnt say anything about whether you're able to achieve at a high level. sure, there are a handful of kids every year with stacked resumes who deserve a good look, but there arent enough of them to justify building out a recruiting pipeline. these banks need you to come to them, not the other way around; if you make that effort, youll be rewarded.