@momprofof9904: Why ?
IB & PE are mostly about financial modeling, not esoteric math concepts.
P.S. @merc81 : I agree that Baruch places a lot of folks on Wall Street just for the reasons that you noted: location & curriculum & large enrollment (12,000 to 15,000) all focused on finance, accounting & business.
Though having a back-up plan is always a good idea, I’m struggling to think of a school more different from Dartmouth than NYU. It may be a good option if literally the only thing OP cares about is placement to Wall Street, but it differs from Duke and Dartmouth in virtually every other regard - size, campus layout and setting, social cohesiveness, class sizes, emphasis on the liberal arts, school spirit, etc.
Applying ED to Dartmouth/Duke and EA to a few similar schools (e.g. UVA) may be a better plan. ED II is not a bad option for those rejected in the ED I round, but most candidates are deferred and want to see how they fare in the RD round.
@Publisher My background in computational partial differential equations and university researchers specializing in computational models usually have this type of background, or similar, at least in the math world. The OP"s description sounded more “mathy” to me and so that’s why I thought it would be helpful if the student is advanced in math.
If the student was working with profs in some other field, I agree with you that advanced math concepts are not needed.
@warblersrule From the OP’s question, I inferred that Wall Street placement was the main goal, and so suggested NYU ED2. I know kids of friends with similar goals and stats, and NYU-Stern was the one that many were successful in getting admission to, as opposed to Ivies, Duke, etc.
@momprof9904 4.5 is out of 5.33, and my school does not release unweighted GPA, so I don’t know exactly what it is. My parents have saved up for my college so that shouldn’t be a problem. I know how good Stern’s placement is but I really don’t want to spend 4 years in a university that has no campus and is in a city. I’d prefer a more suburban/quiet/relaxing atmosphere, hence why I liked Dartmouth and Duke the most. @warblersrule yeah you’re right, my next choices are UVA, Michigan, and Cornell.
@JerseyStudent1 Unweighted GPA of your academic courses should be easy to calculate by yourself using your grade reports and a spreadsheet. UW GPA is what universities will look at since each high school has its own weighting scheme. The spread of grades and the level of course rigor will be reflected in the transcript rather than the GPA.
Sophisticated / Advanced Math is necessary for hedge funds, but for IB (investment banking) & for PE (private equity) many come from accounting, finance and / or economics backgrounds.
Just yesterday I reviewed resumes of two very successful investment bankers. Both based in New York City. One with over 15 years experience & the other, now retired, with over 30 years IB experience in NYC. Both came from schools never mentioned as IB target schools. One majored in accounting & the other accounting & finance. Both resumes were largely about financial modeling.
OP: Your plan to major in economics with applied math & statistics should yield great employment opportunities whether you attend Duke or Dartmouth. Add a specialty masters in data analytics for one career direction or get experience in financial modeling for a career in IB and eventually PE.
As an example of how varied “target” & “semi-target” school lists are, for the firms you mentioned in the original post in this thread one source lists the following as target schools:
Indiana University
Vanderbilt
UCal-Berkeley
USC
UCLA
Dartmouth College
Illinois
UNC-Chapel Hill
University of Waterloo
University of Western Ontario
For the nine Bulge Bracket banks, targets are listed as:
Penn, NYU, Harvard, Cambridge, Cornell, Texas-Austin, Columbia, Chicago, Michigan. While this list omits Northwestern as a target, it includes it as a semi-target. The semi-target list also includes Duke & Cambridge which are listed also as target schools.
Semi-targets for Bulge Bracket banks are listed as: Northwestern, Yale, Boston College, Virginia, UCLA, London School of Economics, Princeton, Georgetown, Arizona State, BYU, Georgia Tech & Penn State.
Regardless of the school you choose, your college GPA will need to be stellar to be considered by a top IB - or - you will need connections.
Enjoy the quiet fun and relaxing time in college before entering an analyst program at any bank. But don’t get too used to it. Lol.
@Defensor
Do you work on the Street? What is your “Big 4” claim based on? According to the following link, more than 3 schools are more represented than Duke.
https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/2018/05/21/top-feeder-schools-to-wall-street/
^None of these come from the banks, but from a different database that captures some self-reported activity.
Coming from Duke or Dartmouth, there will be alums you can contact and your degree will have value. Pick the school where you think you’ll enjoy your 4 years, in and out of the classroom, the best.
@momprofof9904’s experience is obviously geared towards financial analytics/ strategies groups, and related groups involved with financial risk management, that work on trading floors.
The people who staff those groups are some of the most brilliant people there are. When I was working on the street, Fischer Black headed the financial strategies group at Goldman Sachs.
@privatebanker is describing activities more associated with the “banking” side, where one is more dealing with , eg, financial projections relating to future cash flow /net icome/value of projects or enterprises . I agree that there are far more of those people involved with that, and their mathematical training need not be as extensive. There may be complex and time consuming financial modeling, but it may not require much higher math.
When I left it started to get interesting where the value of an enterprise, such as a gas-fired power plant, might be valued as a series of options governing its operation, rather than as a conventional financial projection, and the required analytical skill sets were crossing over more. at least in this particular area. But I’m sure it is still the case that the more demanding analyses are kept in the confines of small groups of quants, and most typical work does not require people with that same math level.
My particular firm really liked Dartmouth, back in the day.
As to which has better “odds” at: “… boutique firms/PE firms such as Blackstone, Lazard, Moelis, and Evercore”, currently, I’ve no idea.
But I’m guessing those places re pretty choosy, and you would need to stand out to get in. From either school.
So which ever seems like the best platform for you to grow and thrive, “best fit”,would be the best choice. IMO.
Sell-side firms, whether bulge bracket banks or boutique investment banks, are primarily in the business of “distribution”, distributing financial products and services. Investment bankers are really highly sophisticated and glorified salespeople. So interpersonal skills are the most sought after. No sophisticated math skills are needed, other than for traders of esoteric derivatives products and their quant support staff on the market making or proprietary trading side of the businesses.
Buy-side firms, such as hedge funds and PE funds, generally tend to hire more experienced people. They do target a few schools for some “unusually” talented graduates, usually, but always, in some highly quantitative fields.
Dartmouth and Duke are equally targeted by sell-side firms, but neither is generally the target for buy-side firms.
There is not a meaningful difference between the 2 in terms of one institution being more highly regarded than the other by the IB or PE firms. What will be determinative will be your course selection, grades and how well you present yourself in interviews and pre-interview networking functions. Of course connections (family, friends, professors) will certainly help get your foot in some doors. So with that said, choose the school that will fit you the best and thereby give you the better chance to be academically successful.
If you chose to follow your math background and options/optimization projects towards a more quant/financial engineering direction, you might look up what schools are currently tops at that. When I was paying attention, MIT, Princeton, CMU (at graduate level at least)… But I suspect more hiring for these jobs may still be at the graduate level. Frankly my firm was hiring ex-physics PhDs for those jobs.
Back in the day.