FYI - for those interested in the broader question of how many colleges have competitive clubs and don’t particularly care about the hyper focus here on IB and consulting, there’s a new thread:
2 Likes
Agree with this. Having spoken now to our family friend (STEM junior). He spent the last 2 years focusing on his major, finding interesting labs to work for. IB not even on his brain. At his college, at least 1 IB handed out a math test, he wrote and returned it.
My spouse walked him through some scenarios this morning. He needs no technical knowledge other than the engineering math he has done for the last 2 years.
STEM → IB is different.
Of course, the kid would love an offer and to try it out. But my hunch is that he is headed towards academia or big tech.
People do leave jobs after a year or two and lateral elsewhere. Or return to school. Or try the job for a summer, decide it is not for them, and branch out to other areas. No one is forcing anyone to take any of these jobs; they are not “locked in” to involuntary servitude.
1 Like
You do a summer internship. You are made an offer, sometimes before and sometimes after. You have a variable amount of time to commit. Sometimes just a few weeks. Sometimes until October. Sometimes you have time until you graduate two years later. Then you can shop around for more interesting opportunities. It is a feature. Not a bug.
2 Likes
Some top headhunters would pay $$$$ for this info.
2 Likes
I agree. The competitive business fraternity has been one of the highlights of S’s college career and he feels very connected to his friends there. It’s definitely not been a “sad way” to spend his time. Yes, there are bursts of time when he’s been really busy with it (first going through recruiting and the prep involved in multiple rounds of interviews and then recently heading up recruiting). However, it hasn’t stopped S from being involved with multiple other activities such as his Greek fraternity and a freshmen orientation/mentoring program. He studied abroad and had his internship/job offers locked up by the beginning of junior year. So, he could relax a bit and really enjoy other things during junior and senior years besides the job search.
3 Likes
But I’m asking here because it’s being discussed on this forum. And you have contributed as much opinion and factual assertion on the matter as anybody, so it’s not a stretch to think you might know. Incidentally, my kids and I are through college, and my grandson is 17+ years off, so the information is not for my current use. If it were, candidly, I’d figure it out.
In the end, my impression is that there is no great steal going on here and the clubs serve a great purpose. But, if I were advising the club, or the university hosting the club, I’d have someone watching over the admission / invitation process as a check, because this appears to be a club that can really give members a leg up. The “you can do it on your own” response falls a little short for me if I’m being honest, at least based on my limited understanding of the process. If I knew more, I might take a another view of it. The point being, the last thing you want is a power drunk student manning the gates and admitting only those who present (using that term broadly) as they do in a club that can really affect your chances for the brass ring.
Consider, we have posts lauding the club’s efficacy and then also assuring the rejected student population that it’s not a big deal if you don’t get in because you can figure it out on your own. Rings a little hollow to the rejected kid I would think. You might see it differently.
To be clear, again, I have no issue with a club like this being competitive based on relevant criteria that clearly connects to the club’s purpose. But I share some level of concern expressed by others that students ought not to be exercising a lot of discretion on more social criteria (there will always be some) in the invitation process. Having some kid decide your kid doesn’t quite seem to have what it takes is not the same as someone who ostensibly can’t sing being rejected by a performing group. It’s only that last piece that would concern me. Remember, the poetry major example was mine. That makes perfect sense. I’m not advocating that everybody deserves to get in.
4 Likes
I have more intimate knowledge of things on the stem side because I have kids in that space, and I try and find out. Things are less structured there anyway. Still networking is important, and you learn about things from seniors who are 1 to 5 years senior to you. One could argue this process is even more exclusionary because the senior has to connect with you one-on-one, outside of the bounds of a club. On the flip side, stem hiring is more anonymous in some sense. Even if you get a referral to a big tech firm like Msft, your interviewer will be some random person assigned to you by the system. Only in the startup world is the hiring very intimate. Quant (which I think of as stem) is roughly 3% of the campus hiring at my son’s school – so not insignificant, but not big. I hear firms would like to know, informally, who the strong kids are, and they chat up the kids that have done internships with them the previous year, or come visit the math club etc. There is a lot of informal gate keeping that happens all over the place. This is a fact of life.
I am two steps removed from the ib/consulting clubs, and have not bothered to find out. I asked my son if he had interest to join. He said it is too much hassle, and said that he is friends with the current head of one of them, and can join if he wants (because that club would like to have my son on board, given where he has placed for summer and full time on his own), but sees no utility. I have not heard of any undue favoritism – if it were rampant, it would have come up in conversation. I suspect the forces governing club membership are similar to other tech clubs that my son has leadership roles in. The club leaders don’t have any strong allegiances to freshmen and sophomores, and have the long term well-being of the club uppermost in their mind. The process can be brutally objective sometimes. My son applied for a university paid silicon valley trek one winter break. He knew 3/4s of the selection committee. He himself led a club the previous year, and could contribute meaningfully on the trip. He said his chances were 50/50. I suggested that maybe he should ask his friend to put a thumb on the scale for him. He said he’d never do that. He said he is well aware of the complexities of the decision (because he was making similar decisions the previous year), and doesn’t want to put pressure. He didn’t get to go. I think the process is often far more objective than it is being made out to be.
2 Likes
When I was looking into Ross for DD22, these types of articles were intriguing:
(kid landed at a Big4)
I read a million (hyperbole!) posts like this about UCLA and some other schools:
To begin with, the school doesn’t give a ■■■■ if you get a job or not. There are really few resources that the school provides to help students place into IB roles (they’ve a program called Sharpe Fellows where they pick up 20-25 sophomores: more on this later). Now that you’re left on your own, you have to utilize online resources and any other club resources that you can get your hands on (that is if you’re in a finance club on campus).
Recruiting into these clubs is crazy hard, they typically take in about 10 people in fall (mostly freshmen, sophomores) and around 6-8 people in winter (almost all freshmen). Each class has about 6K students, probably 2K majoring in Econ/Stats/Math. Assuming even 10% of people majoring in Econ/Stats/Math apply, you’re looking at a best case acceptance rate of 5% (and this number is on the higher side). Keep in mind that you’re competing with other UCLA students who have incredible profiles, so the recruiting is really cut throat. Assuming you get to the final stage of this process, everything depends on luck. I’m telling you this because I have been in this position. You might not get picked in because of some absurd reasons: maybe their club has less female members, so they end up deciding to recruit more female members; maybe you’re an international student and they don’t want to f*** up their placement stats by recruiting too many international students; maybe they don’t like your vibe. It is easiest to recruit as a freshman in fall quarter because you’ve low expectations of you.
Now assuming you’re in one of the top three finance organizations on campus (Bruin Asset Management (BAM), Bruin Value Investing (BVI), Bruin Hedge Fund (BHF)), you’ve got a road set up for you to breeze through. Juniors & Seniors in these clubs will help you get internships at boutique firms in LA (during school year, or summers after freshman and sophomore years).
Case Competitions:
There are two major case competitions hosted by Investment Banks on campus. Houlihan usually has a case related to restructuring that you’d be able to take part in during winter quarter of your freshman and sophomore year. They host this event in association with Bruin Hedge Fund. Houlihan looks through the submission and invites a few teams to their office to present to partners at the firm and have a winner (I’m guessing the winner gets an easy final round interview for internships).
Credit Suisse hosts a case competition with Bruin Asset Management. Their case is usually related to LBOs and like Houlihan’s case, freshman and sophomores get to take part in this event during winter quarter. The first round submissions are filtered by Bruin Asset Management. They typically send teams from their club and maybe one team each from Bruin Value Investing & Bruin Hedge Fund. It’s very hard to get to the final round unless you’re in one of these clubs. My friend’s team didn’t get through even though my friend’s dad (who’s an MD at a PE firm) helped them with their model (I’m sure juniors & seniors at Bruin Asset Management have more knowledge on LBOs than an MD at a PE firm).
Other Programs:
Around winter quarter of your sophomore year, there are a couple of programs: Investment Banking Workshop (managed by Undergraduate Business Society, abbreviated as UBS), Sharp Fellows: Investment Banking Cohort.
The UBS Workshop is managed by seniors who have IB offers and these kids are typically from BAM, BVI & BHF. So once again, if you’re in one of these clubs and know your technicals pretty well, you should get into the workshop. That’s not a prerequisite of course, but the process is 10x easier if you’re in one of these organizations. Getting into this workshop is a really big deal because you get access to private info sessions with firms.
The other program is Sharpe Fellows (hosted by Partnership UCLA) & there is about a 90% overlap between the students here and the ones in the UBS Workshop. It’s almost as if students are placed into Sharpe Fellows based on their status in their workshop. I’m guessing you’d get in pretty easily into this program if you’re already part of the workshop.
Final Comments:
So yeah, if you’re part of one of these organizations & get into the two programs I talked about, you’ve made it. You will get an offer in IB, but the hard part is getting into one of these organizations. It’s crazy that the school just doesn’t care about professional development and a few juniors & seniors at UCLA get to decide whether you will be able to recruit into IB as an undergrad at UCLA. If you’ve interested in finance and have an offer to join UCLA, I’d ask you to reconsider. If you’ve got an offer from UCLA, I’m pretty sure you could have gotten into schools like UVA, UMich or some other semi-target. You’ll get almost no support from the school and will be left on your own to compete with 2K undergrads in your class to fend for yourself. Having the #1 Public University tag will not help you while you’re recruiting.
IBW at Kelley (IU):
I’ve spoken with the assistant director of the IBW. Basically from last year, 200 kids start the process and 70 dropped out before interviews. 69/110 were accepted into the IBW. The remaining 20 interviewed for the capital markets and corporate banking workshop. The average GPA at time of admission to the IBW was 3.91. Were you accepted into the Hutton Honors College? If so, this will drastically increases your chances of acceptance into the IBW. On the flip side, Michigan Ross’s internal acceptance rate has been on the decline and I believe it was in the ≈25% range last year. Ross’s placement rate isn’t easily distinguishable considering not every kid wants to do IB whereas in the IBW the placement rate is 95%+
Overall: statistically speaking, your odds of getting into the IBW and thus an IB role are much higher than your odds of getting into Ross and IB from there. Either way is a gamble, this is just based on the extensive research I’ve done on both schools.
4 Likes
Here’s more (never considered Stern - too close!) from WSO.
I just graduated from Stern, so can provide you with some insights. Clubs are basically OCR. If you’re not part of the major organizations (Finance Society, EHS, etc.), you’re at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to recruiting for IB/consulting (unless you’re URM or have family connections). The Wasserman center is pretty useless and OCR on Handshake is legitimately terrible. During my junior and senior years, I think the only well-known banks that posted OCR positions on Handshake were The main problem with Stern is that it’s really cliquey. If you’re not part of the in-group early on (freshman year), then it’s extremely hard to break in later. Like people won’t want to help you or even talk to you if you’re not part of a frat/club. However, if you want to pursue more unconventional paths like I did (VC, fintech, PE, etc.) then clubs are fairly useless. Just network like a mad man, and you should land something. Also, the PE club was created only a couple of years ago, which is shocking for a target school. Lastly, general members don’t enjoy anywhere near the same benefits. It’s as if you’re not even a member at all. Honestly, I think school-driven OCR is only a thing for top targets like Wharton and some of the Ivies. At most targets (NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke, etc.), you shouldn’t really depend on traditional OCR.
2 Likes
I get what you are saying, but I can see the other side, too.
First, is this really all that different from a music group? If an a cappella group has 5 open positions and 20 students audition, it’s not that there will be 5 who can sing and 15 can’t. Most will be similar and the decision will be made on qualitative measures. The reality is that the girl who went to summer camp with one of the officers probably has a better shot than the freshman no one knows…all other things being equal. But they want to be the best group possible, so that connections are useful but can only compensate for so much.
It’s the same with these kinds of clubs. They want to be able to boast that they won investing competitions, got prestigious summer internships, etc. The applicant from the same boarding school as a club board member could have an advantage, for sure, but they want strong group members who raise the bar regardless of where they went to high school or who they know.
Second, as for the unfairness of 20- and 21-year-old “kids” being the gatekeepers, this won’t be significantly different than when job interviews start for full time positions. Fit does matter, and often the first round of interviews is with a recent graduate, so 22- and 23-year-olds become the gatekeepers. Partners and other senior people may make the ultimate decisions, but the team members doing the initial screenings have a lot of say.
Finally, my view of this age group doesn’t seem to be as pessimistic as yours. The college kids I know really want to do the right thing. DEI initiatives are important to them and far more ingrained than with other age groups. They tend to be more accepting of a lot things than older people are.
I am not naive enough to think this is the case across the board. There is a degree of cronyism everywhere, but I don’t think it’s worse with this age group.
8 Likes
I agree with your concerns to some extent and I’m sure the selection processes can vary widely between different universities and clubs. However, it may not often be as negative a situation as you might guess with a “power drunk student manning the gates”. As I mentioned above my S was just recently in charge of recruitment for his coed business fraternity (where he is VP) and they had less than a 15% acceptance rate. He had about 4-5 friends from various organizations on campus who applied and went through the process (and who he thought would be good fits for the club). None of them made it to the final round. He was a little disappointed but said he was pretty impressed with the candidates chosen.
When my S was doing his MBB interviews, he practiced cases with a variety of people both inside the club and outside. He sought out university alums from in and out of the club as well. Had he not made it into the business fraternity, he would have taken numerous other opportunities to network and learn from others.
5 Likes
Well, those comments kind of explain why the clubs are helpful to employers. No one has time to interview 1000 kids at UCLA or 2000 at Kelley when they only intend to hire maybe 5-10 from each school. GPA screens help a bit, but will still leave hundreds of resumes. Joining a club is an indication of some early interest in and dedication to the subject matter, which is something to distinguish among the applicants.
Places like tech don’t need a third party screener because they can offer an OA to anybody that applies and crank up the difficulty of the OA to adjust the degree of filtering.
Yes, that’s a big advantage in tech. And the finance and consulting worlds try with hirevue and pymetrics and imbellus tests, but it is not as helpful as the tools that tech can use.
My son is very interested in club soccer. Can you say which school your son attends? Thanks!
My D was contacted by Goldman Sachs and she is an engineering major. She had lunch with them and they wanted her on the west coast. To me IB is wallstreet stuff and this sounded more like VC and M&A. She has no interest in that type of career so that was the end of the recruitment.
These threads always end up being about IB and MBB jobs in the NE, but out West people are more into tech, VC, start ups, etc. My kid thought Goldman Sachs was the same as Saks where Nana buys presents… lol.
1 Like
Many large national banks have IB groups in San Fran. Charlotte and Dallas really growing in terms of IB offices (offices of large national banks in addition to regional banks)
For club soccer go to each school’s website for club teams and have your S reach out to the team contact to see how the club is run, how players are selected, etc.
Many club teams are highly selective, often at the schools with very good varsity programs. So Duke womens’ club soccer team, for example, is better than many lower level D1 teams. Club teams may cost big $$ because they do travel a lot, some teams nationally…and the schools usually don’t cover those costs.
Intramurals may be an option too, those teams generally take all comers and don’t play other colleges.
2 Likes
Thanks for the thorough replies to my question and the information sharing. I assume it will be helpful to others, and I hope nobody went out of their way. As I said above, my kids are through - well, not quite, but the last one is well into college and is not heading in this direction. The one in grad school might yet wind up on the consulting side, but I expect recruiting from those ranks differs somewhat.
It looks like the punch line is that these groups are very helpful and significantly increase odds of success, particularly at larger schools like UCLA. I expect for a kid at Harvard or its equivalent, it might be less important, but still super helpful. Most if not all probably agree that it would unfortunate if clubs like these, for which admission arguably involves high stakes, managed admission even partially like the Greek system (a literal popularity contest). But it also seems reasonable to assume it unlikely that kids who are this ambitious and of such single minded purpose would exercise their gatekeeping roles wantonly and without regard to fairness. I didn’t mean to come across as unduly cynical, though I am a cynic by nature.
I guess I’ll still hold on to the idea that career services could do more to support kids in the way these clubs do for their members so that more students would have their odds of success enhanced, particularly at schools with endowments large enough to solve most of the problems of a major US city. It is inconceivable to me that at least a good part of the function of this kind of club can’t be replicated by Harvard’s career center. But so be it.
Thanks again. This has been an education.
1 Like
Even back in the day, when the market was less competitive and fluid, career services were superficial at best in addressing practical, current needs of jobseekers. It was up to the individual to seek out opportunities, and clubs, I believe, have developed because students created them in the existing vacuum.
3 Likes