<p>I was recently admitted to Northwestern and received an early acceptance on March 2 from Cornell's CALS (where the AEM Department is). I'm also waiting to hear back from Dartmouth, Notre Dame, and Emory.</p>
<p>I was wondering which school would be the best for making my way into investment banking. I have heard that Northwestern is recruited very well in Chicago but that one must be in New York in order to rise within a company. That leads me to accepting the Cornell invite. Also, I've heard that because Cornell is an Ivy League school, it has an edge on job recruiting over other schools of the same level of prestige such as Northwestern. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any information about this? Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>Congrats, kojak! I kind of see it as a wash, as you can always try to relocate to a New York office after business school/the analyst stint. I think Dartmouth might actually be your best choice, but good luck anyhow!</p>
<p>I would personally go to Cornell; especially since you applied to CALS you are most likely from NYS. However, I wouldn’t make any decision based on which school is more likely to get you into IB. Wall Street is not going to prefer students because Cornell is Ivy and Northwestern is not but based on who appears to be smarter, more impressive candidates that would do a better job. Or at least, this is how I have interviewed candidates during my Wall St career.</p>
<p>Well, I am from Atlanta. I could go to Georgia Tech with all tuition paid for, but I fear I won’t be able to break into investment banking until completion of graduate school, which would be several years down the road, especially because I won’t be studying engineering. I would probably study economics and applied mathematics there. Also at Ga Tech, the liberal arts college wouldn’t surround me with many extremely ambitious people (I hope that doesn’t sound pretentious or anything). Plus, the female:male ratio is not very favorable for us males at Georgia Tech and I don’t really like the campus.</p>
<p>Would anyone recommend saving 60-80k on student loans and going to Georgia Tech? Or do you think it is worth the student loans for the experience of going somewhere new, attending a top 15 university, and having the job opportunities straight out of undergraduate school?</p>
<p>Definitely go to a top 15 if you want the best opportunity for jobs/recruiting/grad school. I know a friend who went to BU on a full ride over Cornell, got a 4.0, and had quite a bit of difficulty with recruiting (she was trying to break into IB). While you will save money, it will really hurt you because most top firms won’t even come to recruit at GT.</p>
<p>Cornell is a target school for IB firms. D is going to be a business (front office ) analyst this summer at JPM and was a back office summer analyst at GS last summer.</p>
<p>There were very few non-ivy summer analysts.</p>
<p>Those are pretty hefty loans for undergrad. A year ago I would have said no problem if you think you can get a high GPA at a target. Even if you didn’t get a BB job there were enough boutiques and regional firms to absorb most from targets. Now, it’s a different story and who knows what 4 years will bring. The competition is fierce and there will be no guaratee of a high paying ibanking or finance job even for the high stats kids and the majority of interns.</p>
That is definitely not a good sign of the times.
So basically you could go to a great school and have great grades and STILL not get a high paying ibanking or finance job. And even if you did, you’d have nearly ZERO job security.
Those are nearly all the catalysts to get a ‘brain drain’ from a particular field.</p>
<p>To place Dartmouth over Cornells undergrad business program is absolutely absurd. You have already stated you want to go into business, and to get that strong foundation in finance, i think an undergrad business program that is ranked 4th in the nation by business week would be your best option. Plus, Cornell is huge and has a ton of alums which you will find very useful come SA/FT recruiting. Cornell has the 3rd most Alums of any school at Goldman Sachs and 2nd most at JPM. (those are the only two I know of) </p>
<p>Caveat- Notre Dame is also an excellent business school</p>
<p>^Totally untrue. Spoken as a Cornell student I presume? The VAST majority of kids getting elite business jobs post college did not study business as udergrads.</p>
<p>The best way to settle Cornell vs Dartmouth in terms of IB/S&T recruitment would be to get a list of the analyst class in few of the BBs and see how many analysts are taken from each school. Anyone on this board have access to such info? hmom’s claims would only be true if Dartmouth consistently sent more students to BBs for SA and FT positions compared to Cornell</p>
<p>Just ask anyone who has worked on WS for a long time. this isn’t even close. In 30 years working for a BB I can tell you that the nmber of MD’s from Dartmouth is many multiple of those from Cornell. While my bank may be especially Dartmouth strong, it’s representation, especially considering size, is overwhelming. And I’m a Wharton grad…</p>
<p>From my IB analyst class and subsequent buyside positions, there have been more Dartmouth grads than Cornell grads; not that you can’t get there from either school. People put too much emphasis on minor differences in schools. Once you get an interview through on-campus recruiting, resume drop, contacting alums, it still comes down to how you present yourself; not what school you’re from. Yes, your chances would probably be maximized by going to Dartmouth over Cornell, but one can easily go 0 for 8 out of Dartmouth vs 2 for 4 out of Cornell. I got three IB analyst offers getting W/L at both schools. I more wanted to go to a good school to be surrounded by other impressive and accomplished people that would help and inspire me to achieve my fullest potential. Not that it ended up really happening.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you really meant by that. I take it that either you didn’t achieve your fullest potential, that the people you found at a good school weren’t as impressive or accomplished as you thought, or that you didn’t go to what you thought was a “good” school.</p>
<p>Regardless, I find it misleading that people classify those who go to “good” schools as impressive and accomplished. Impressive? Perhaps. Accomplished? Very few.</p>
<p>It’s interesting how everyone’s perspective changes as they age and gain more life experience. Looking back to the time when I applied and decided which school I went to and where my other peers went to (“better” schools), there was very little “accomplishment” done with respect to over one’s lifetime.</p>
<p>I think they were very impressive. But if they are going to be accomplished will be something we will see ten or twenty years out.</p>
<p>“…working for a BB I can tell you that the nmber of MD’s …”</p>
<p>…were, preponderantly,hired at the firm out of an MBA program,and that MBA credential, not undergrad, was responsible for launching their IB careers at their firm.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the above, based on when I was there I would agree that Dartmouth would have been the more highy represented in a typcal analyst class. And that liberal arts majors were far more highly represented there than business major undergrads. But Cornell was not absent either, and that business program there seems to have a higher profile now than it used to have. </p>
<p>But I don’t think one ought to plan one’s whole life based solely on the odds of working, years from now, at just a handful of firms that offer very few jobs to very few people. You can get to college freshman year, find out you suck at economics and love art history.</p>
<p>I think undergrad institution matters more than many think even post MBA is places like WS, consulting firms and PE including VC. The same old bias to hire your people keeps on going. Is it any wonder the overwhelming majority went to both a target undergrad school and MBA program?</p>