These happen parallelly. The job market dictates the pace at which you deal with the job market. If you want a job at a top firm, it is competitive. And the firm is competing for the top kids and wants to lock them up before other firms do.
Apparently, when kids enter IBanking, these days, the PE interviews for two years hence are starting in the first week.
It is very tough to get into the Orchestra, musical comedy, and a bunch of the dance and performing arts groups at my son’s college. There are just limited resources to accommodate these kids. All these groups tour. They can’t possibly take 50 kids on tour.
Prior to entering management consulting, a role I had gave me opportunities to engage with a prime minister, central bank governor and other senior business and public sector leaders. I was quite young then and people often mistook me for an assistant!
I was talking to some kids in a study abroad program when my kid was overseas and asking about how they found the other Americans and connected with them. They noted that they found the kids from the “competitive club” environments to be socially competitive and focused on whether activities or accomplishments were “elite”.
Clearly, not every kid fits neatly into a mold, but it did suggest that being in a place that has that kind of exclusivity may also color world view. I might focus as much on that part of the vibe as much as whether I was going to be invited to participate. It can make you see people as in or out, better or worse, and as potential competitors. Maybe preparation for “the real world” but arguably not one for happiness.
So I researched this (as much as I was able to) as my child was interested in BBA programs (Wharton, Ross, USC, etc). It seems that (at Ross) kids bypassed OCR because alumni of clubs were going to clubs to hire interns. Not much the schools can do to police.
There was a very driven student at Michigan, non Ross, who started his own club and that started being a real powerhouse and “exclusive” though as he put it, he started it as an outsider.
At Princeton the math club (which is free to join), through its email list, controls access of quant and other hiring firms to math kids. And they charge a pretty penny for each recruitment email that is sent out.
Big Tech started it about 10 years ago in a race for talent to keep bright kids interested in tech and away from finance. At that time, they recruited the summer after sophomore year. The finance folks had to catch up and this moved their own pipeline earlier.
There have been some historical attempts,by both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to push the timeline back by agreeing not to recruit, but those were promptly undercut by their competitors so they folded and opened interviews too. Many of these financial places release all their American internships the same day, so even if you don’t want IB, but maybe commercial banking or compliance or technology or accounting internships, they are all on the same schedule now.
I don’t see it changing anytime soon.
Glad the math club can monetize it. Must pay for their social events.
They are flush with money. And I think some firms pay money to get exclusive access to the resume book a week early. It is just silly. Some of the top firms give the kids literally 6-7 months to decide. I don’t know what difference a week makes.
For IB, interviews for post-junior year summer internships happen sophomore year for females and URMs. When offers start going out in the spring of soph year, all of the firms are not moving at the same time unfortunately.
In some cases one can ask for another week or two to decide once they do have an offer, but no certainty that a company the student might prefer makes offers before then.
IB Interviews for non-urm males still start junior year fall (for post junior year summer internships).
I think these candidates are scarce, and firms want to lock them up early.
These candidates are not scarce. It is a highly competitive process with many applicants. Again, it is ALL the females, not just URM females.
Interesting. Good to know.
Earlier at some target schools and of course there is still tech. RBC, always a leader, just opened for all sophomores. They always were on the early side. I dont know of any IB that are still open for summer 23, but I will take your word for it that someone is.
What about clubs that are not:
?
Whether those clubs are competitive admission may be of more interest to more students generally.
@ucbalumnus, as mentioned above, those have ALWAYS been competitive (e.g., through election, selection, or appointment). I am referring mainly to professional organizations and, apparently, in G’town’s case, service clubs.
Sure, it all depends on the culture of the school. It seemed to me that ultra-competitive business clubs were common at largeish top state undergrad schools (Kelley/Ross) and semitarget private schools (USC). I know graduates of HYPSM and top SLACs who never joined a club but isn’t this the nature of the game?
So high barriers to entry to “top” schools but relatively low barriers to “elite” jobs once there? Relatively low barriers to other schools but high barriers to get over in recruiting?
In my prehistoric youth (different country but one with different “levels” of schools), this was true. I had a job out of graduation that a 40 year coworker said was the pinnacle of his career.
Even for those who get into elite schools, there is still competition for the most sought after companies, and competitive clubs to teach the necessary skills.
For example, here is the application process to get into Harvard’s undergrad consulting club:
Yikes. Have things changed that much since the 90s?
That definitely was not my experience in college. I don’t recall there being any competitive process to participate in any clubs except fraternities and sororities. Getting leadership positions within the organization, sure. But everyone and anyone was welcome to participate in the activities. And even some of the competitive things like theater welcomed anyone willing to work in a behind the scenes capacity so you might not be performing, but you could be involved. But that was in the dark ages, I suppose.
It’s pretty clear that a lot of posts on this thread are talking about how things used to be, or how they would like it to be, rather than the current reality.