Why is WUSTL viewed in such a negative light on this forum?
Just curious why WUSTL doesn't have that great of a reputation on here. It's one of the schools I'm considering for my undergrad and having looked at career outcomes, it seems to trail only Wharton, Tepper, Stern, McIntire, Dyson and arguably Georgetown & UMich. Wouldn't this make WUSTL a target at the undergrad level or at the very least one of the top semi-targets?
Additionally, they sent 40% of their class of 2019 to the Northeast region with an average starting salary of $85,000.
I would love to hear some insight on this. Thanks.
How can we answer that? Universities become target due to their history and this is built up over many years. That WUSTL is not a semi target is just as it is. You can't change that as it is fundamentally anchored in the minds of people what a semi target is and what is not.
Makes sense, although I do see most people calling Wash. U a regional target at the very least and a low semi-target for NY.
Only thing that confuses me is how Wash. U, despite being just a "semi-target" outperforms many targets in terms of average salary as a whole and placement into NY IBD.
Congrats on getting into WUSTL, sorry you got rejected from real targets and fun semi targets.
WUSTL has good career outcomes because their students come from extremely wealthy and connected families.
"The median family income of a student from WashU is $272,000, and 84% come from the top 20 percent."
Although you are a dick, you did somewhat answer my question, so thanks.
Also, I did get into UNC, Kelley and Emory as well, which I'm also considering, I was just a bit confused on why WUSTL is said to have bad OCR despite the high average salary.
UNC > kelley = emory > wustl
Compared to the other programs you listed, WUSTL has the worst B School ranking on US News (T30 now, albeit this is for MBAs, there really is no good Ugrad B school ranking any more so it will have to suffice). Gtown-McDonough is almost as bad, but the policy focus of the school and strong alumni network makes it a more interesting play for banks to come recruit (I can name 10 Hoyas at my firm off the top of my head). Tepper being the next lowest is still ranked 33% higher (19 vs 30 this year). The rest are T15 graduate programs where most WSO users would at least consider getting their MBA from (Sub Dyson for Johnson and McIntire for Darden- the MBA equivalent). When I think WUSTL I think medicine, not business and it shows in the rankings.
Part of this is its location is not as OCR friendly (far from the Northeast, far from Chicago where UChi and Northwestern are, far from Texas where there a bunch of powerhouse schools that have huge #s of recruits within a 2 hours drive of each other, far from the southeast schools like Vandy/UNC/Emory).
When you look at the other schools you got into,.. UNC is known for being uber competitive in state, MBA is T20 = semi-target Emory is a T20 MBA and used to be known as a Top-5 ugrad b school when they had those rankings = semi-target Kelley has competitive IB practicum program = semi-target in this program non target everywhere else WUSTL, high ranked college, bad business school = non-target (almost a semi-target) where you need to hustle to get a job in IB
WashU isn’t a target because the ocr sucks. It’s that simple. Reasons for that are less clear - some blame it on awkward location but it mostly comes down to the fact that banks have historically not recruited much there, so it takes work to get them out.
I don't think people on this forum believe it is a bad school - it's obviously one of the top schools in the country in terms of student caliber, professors, research opportunities, etc.
However, I do think a lot of people (myself included) that when comparing to other top schools for investment banking placement out of undergrad, ceteris paribus, it is not that good. There's a weak WUSTL alumni presence at a lot of banks, which means a lot of banks don't recruit on campus. Obviously there are some exceptions, I'm sure there are some people who have broken in, whether by connections or pure grit, but I do think most of what you read on this site is driven by a belief that the placement is not what you would expect for a school of its caliber.
Lack of prestige
Lived in STL for a while, so have some perspective. Like others have stated, don’t go to WashU if you’re looking to go into finance. Simply not that connected with the larger banks and has a smaller presence in chicago. If you’re considering medicine, I’d highly recommend it.
Current washu student here. Some of ther reasons people have state above are true but I would say by far the two largest factors are
WashU isn't a coastal school and isn't as close to Chicago as Uchicago or NU which impacts alumni presence and one's ability to network. In terms of interest, washU is still mainly a 'consulting' school so IB is overall seen as a less well-trodden path. That being said most people that commit themselves to IB (as opposed to being half-in/out ib and consulting) land good roles and roles primarily in NY. (e.g. Of the 20 people a year in washu's investment banking association 19-20 land ib roles and >15 are in NY)
Can anybody join the IBA or do you have to apply? What's the acceptance rate if it's application based?
Application-based. Can't speak to the acceptance rate even though placements are great for those who get in, there are also many people who place even without joining wuib.
I'm sure their average placement is good, hence the 85k average salary. But IB is in a different realm. Yeah sure base is 85k, but all-in, first year, you should be looking at 140k. In 3 years if you get the associate promote, your all-in should be 300k. 3 years after working for the average WUSTL placement, mot likely being corporate finance or whatever, is probably 100k-120k, plus maybe a 10% bonus if lucky. So in this case, yeah the average graduate does much better than someone at a non-elite state school, but it still doesn't compare to IB.
Other commenters have elaborated on why (lack of alumni, awkward location, etc)
Bro income stats are for the average base salary. This is true across most surveys on finance salaries.
Oh my school does average base and average bonus. Regardless, non-IB bonuses aren't usually higher than 10% of base so the point still stands
Sure, you can make that much at the top BB IB firms. However, if we are comparing WUSTL on just an average base salary basis, it's higher than all the ugrad. competitors except for Wharton, Stern, Tepper, McIntire and Dyson. So because the average is this high, it means some people from WUSTL must be getting those top IB jobs in NY, hence why the average salary skews so much higher than other places like Notre Dame, UNC, UT Austin, Emory, Kelley, etc.
Also the pool from WUSTL is also smaller than most business schools - theres maybe about 200 undergraduate business students and of that, probably 40 actually are interested in IB. Have seen people go to all the BBs (GS/JPM/BAML) and also to EBs (MC/PWP/LAZ) and OCR is consistently getting better each year.
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