But what does the kid want to study? There isn’t any indication here of what gets him excited…
I was just confused because he mentioned CFA and also alternative asset funds. Most retail advisors are not CFAs. Ive seen maybe a small handful.
Private banking involves working for a company that may still be client facing but is still a corporate job.
If anyone is curious here’s a fairly large firm I’m aware of. Click on the pics and you can see the resumes. You see top schools and never heard of schools. You see CFAs, CFPs… I know some have people with life insurance licenses, CPAs and EAs.
Note they have different locations and they are at the top. You need to toggle through locations but you can see how they hire by geography. I was thinking this kind of firm, these roles. OP can guide if I’m off track.
If u don’t see the cities go to the menu and get to know us. You can see the different locations there.
RIA firm. That makes sense. I’m still not sure how well the associates do.
I looked up a couple of the advisors and they started out with several broker dealers and then moved on.
To make a good living, you have to have a minimum of $50 million in assets. And if theyre salaried, they probably max out pretty quickly.
I covered most of the broker dealers but not RIAs so not sure what their comp structure is.
Love your screen name. You def know what you are saying 
Interesting that there’s both a dentist and an engineer, with their CFP designations, working there. Those are some crossovers that I never would have expected.
Goes to show even the best laid plans - aren’t necessarily the best laid plans One doesn’t know. There’s also a Duke JD, a CMU quant with Wharton MBA who is also an enrolled agent, and then colleges that you never hear of.
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The only person that I know that does this type of work is a PhD in archeology (from Oxford). Worked in London. And later on Jersey (the Channel island not the state).
Good luck to your son OP.
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2nd career for many people. Client facing financial services is sales. You make money accumulating assets and charge fees/commissions. The barrier to entry is low - you have to pass a couple of exams (ie Series 7, 63) and take some continuing education every few years.
The CFP exam is fairly easy if you’ve passed more rigorous professional exams (ie CPA, bar exam, CFA). CFA is by far the most difficult.
The trend for the last many years is to create an advisory fee based service - “manage” assets and charge clients 1%. This creates an annual fee so if an advisor has a $100 million book, he starts off every year with $1 million in production. The actual payout at broker dealers goes through a grid (payout system). In the wirehouses (Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Wells Fargo), payout typically ranges from 35-50%. In the banks, it’s all over the place but usually 25-50%. Independent advisors 50-90% but they have to pay their own expenses.
Im not familiar with RIAs or their models. They are fiduciaries and are not registered with FINRA. They are fee based only.
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Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, UVA, Washington and Lee , and maybe Rice are the only southern schools where asset management and wealth management are realistic or even likely.
The issue with this list (great schools) are that few kids even have a chance of getting in - whether OP can or not - but it would eliminate an insanely high percentage of kids ever from the field. And obviously there’s many more fine schools in the south than these - with easier admissions.
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I follow Elon’s Love School of Business on LinkedIn. Recently read of two students who interned with Goldman Sachs in NY and were offered jobs after graduation. One was in Asset Management and the other is a Risk Analyst. It’s not the south, but ultimately it’s the motivated students who get internships and job offers. Another student is representing Elon in the 22-23 CFA institute Research Challenge, which provides hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Good luck.
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Exactly, including schools that place in many areas of finance, including asset and wealth management. U Miami, UF, UT Austin, TAMU, TCU, SMU, UGA, UNC Charlotte, Georgia Tech, just to name a few. Many don’t understand that the majority of recruiting does not happen on campus anymore, so that is far less of a barrier than it might have been a decade ago. LinkedIn, among other developments, has changed recruiting for the better and made top finance jobs more accessible than they had been.
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But OP asked about asset management, not other finance jobs. If you want to sell insurance or do back office data stuff UGA or GAtech might be good choices but for front office roles not so much. These are the schools with good placement. UTAustin is a conundrum as it has decent placement but it’s so large that most students there won’t get placed anywhere good.
All of those schools I mentioned place into both asset and wealth management, a simple LinkedIn search will verify. I do agree with the poster who made the point that wealth management jobs are often not one’s first job out of college. So in that case, the undergrad school matters relatively less. I tend to not trust third party sites like college transitions for accuracy in reporting and analyzing data.
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Then what do you trust? College transition is using Linkin data like you are using. The point of OPs post is to find which schools give them greatest likelihood. However you can get an assist management job from any school technically.
I’m actually still a bit confused on what OP is seeking…and maybe i was headed the wrong place?
Anyway, OP will know their son’s chances and already had a list that looked a bit lower than these schools - and I’m sure will investigate to see if these are a fit, etc.
This was my confusion as well. When I first read the post, I thought, well, go anywhere. Doesn’t really matter that much. So, at the two extremes, you have the kid trying to sell you retail products at Charles Schwab and you have the portfolio asset manager at Blackrock. Two different people.
There is still that individual wealth management person that runs the IB track and, for a variety of reasons, ends up in wealth management. Our former Treasurer was Duke applied math, Columbia MBA and did her years at Goldman in Manhattan and wound up in the wealth management division. I’d guess that if Goldman wealth management is the goal, then you need to pay attention to where you go to school. OTOH, I’m not under the impression that the people at Fisher Investments had to run through the gauntlet of the finance bro list of target schools.
Of that list, the only one with which I’m somewhat familiar is Skidmore’s business program (which is often paired as a double major with econ). I don’t think there is any sophomore year application, and I personally know that they’re placing kids with Morgan Stanley (not retail office product pedaling) as well as the consulting side of the Big 4.
I guess I’m still confused - both for all the reasons you mention, AND because nobody needs four years of studying to become a wealth manager. What does the kid want out of his education???
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Dear contributors, I appreciate the thoughts and analysis of many of you. I do want to give you some feedback on your commentary about “confusion” as I am a frequent enough contributor and participant in CC. Please do not assume this is a dad that does not know the difference between wealth management and alternative or other asset management; I think we are fortunate enough to the kid has looked into those and mentioned them as interesting separate tracks/jobs. I especially appreciate the insights on the challenges of one or another track, however.
Please do not fight the hypothetical (suggesting it is somewhat inane) as the question was framed this way for a particular reason and looking for a particular input; which many of you have kindly provided without fighting it too much.
Please give OP in this and other posts the benefit of doubt as to how he communicates with his kid and why the question is being asked. All of this “confusion” is basically saying OP must be an idiot.
Please focus on being helpful. Just some feedback for the overall benefit of College Confidential.
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