<p>erm, sf606508, if those double major kids are directed to the trading floor and research offices, then where do single Finance majors go? i think i might have to have a highly quantitative second major if i hope to gain admission into graduate programs like Princeton's Masters in Finance, Columbia's Financial Engineering etc</p>
<p>so instead of math as a second major, what else do you reccomend? I have the option of taking actuarial science and statistics at Stern as second majors....please give me feedback O_o</p>
<p>by the way sf606508, my interests lie in quantitative trading...like i want a job at one of those trading desks which are involved in exotic derivatives trading, which involve a lot of quantitative analysis...so i don't see what could possibly be wrong with a second major in math</p>
<p>If you're interested in quantitative trading, double majoring in math and finance is the way to go since both disciplines really complement each other. Most of finance is math-related so having a strong math background will help you appreciate more the stuff you learn in finance. </p>
<p>sf606508, GPA is important but we're not talking about medical school here. Recruiters for the upper echelon I-banks aren't clueless. They know that double-majoring takes a lot more time, requires more classes and inevitably will have a negative effect on GPA for some. I'd say once you have a 3.4-3.5/4.0 (lower for engineering majors), your grades become less important and it comes down to the interviews.</p>
<p>Schools that get you recruited are called targets. There isn't some definitive list, but rather certain schools that are certainly targets (ivies, mit, stanford, duke etc) and schools that are debatable (think vandy, ucla, michigan etc) and then schools that are certainly not targets (texas, bu etc). Targets tend to be recuited by all the top banks, and heavily. They place numerous students at the top banks/pe/hf firms on a regular basis.</p>
<p>EDIT: I realize you can get into IB if you're not from a target, I never said otherwise, but arguing that it's easier to get into IB from texas as opposed to harvard is stupid. They are called targets for a reason.</p>
<p>by the way, is the pay (on an average) higher in investment banking or in trading, quant analysis, portfolio management etc? when I read those articles about the exorbitantly high bonuses that 1st year, 2nd year associates etc get in their 20s, are those high bonuses going to just bankers doing M&A deals or also to those quant analysts, etc ?</p>
<p>The bonus you make as a trader depends on how well your desk does. On the highest levels you're going to make more $$ as a trader than at an IBD (which may be why trading jobs are much harder to get). You'll also work less as a trader than as an IB analyst (still, you're not going to be pulling 40 hour weeks). Like an IBD however your bonus will fluctuate...meaning that in some years (say for the last 2 or 3) bonuses will be very high, and for other years bonuses will be very low.</p>
<p>Listen, despite little interest in a career in this field, I have a feeling that most people in this thread are in either high school or haven't graduated college yet. </p>
<p>If you go to Ivy League or the other top schools (Duke, MIT, Chicago) whatever. You pretty much get the same education anywhere. But if you go to those top schools, you'll probably get recruited right into IB. </p>
<p>If you suck, you get demoted.</p>
<p>If you start as an analyst and you do a good job, you can become an IB from experience or get your MBA.</p>
<p>In the end, its how hard you work which will bring in the wealth. Just don't get absorbed in the career, or you'll have no reason to have that much money.</p>
<p>Oh, I got most of these facts from job websites, such as vault.com and some various people.</p>
<p>"targets" are targets because all the big banks hit them up (lehman, ms, ml, gs) and they frequently place numerous graduates in the firms. I haven't checked it out but I doubt GW (which was on the linked list) does either. NW is a great school, I'd say it's a lower target (which is great...there aren't that many targets), but it's no WHP. </p>
<p>There is no definitive list of targets. Certain schools are always considered strong targets (think hyp), certain schools are considered on the weaker end (nw, brown) but still targets, certain schools can be classified as yes/no (ucla, umich, wustl, vandy, uva, gtown) while other schools are certainly not targets (wisconsin, rpi etc)</p>
<p>Texas IB isn't the IB that everybody in this thread imagines. They aren't pulling in the nyc salaries or doing the nyc deals.</p>
<p>I'm going to be an intern in S&T this summer. I got a list of all the interns at my bank and their respective schools from HR last week. This list includes interns in IBD, Sales, Trading, Finance, and Compliance. Unfortunately, i don't know what each person does. But here are the most represented schools. Keep in mind that this is only one bank.</p>
<p>NYU 21 (Stern =13)
Penn 20 (Wharton=10)
MIT 12 (Sloan =5)
UVA 11 (McIntire = 9)
Princeton 9<br>
Georgetown 9<br>
Cornell 9<br>
Duke 9<br>
Columbia 9<br>
Carnegie Mellon 8<br>
Rutgers 6<br>
BC 5<br>
Chicago 4<br>
Colby 4<br>
Michigan 3<br>
Dartmouth 2<br>
Harvard 2
Yale 1
Stanford 1</p>
<p>and a bunch of non target schools with single representation. No berkeley or UCLA. Lacking in west coast schools in general. You get an idea of how banks have their own lists of "favourite target schools".</p>