I know most of the top schools place very well in the finance field, and students that want to get into finance study econ at those schools since most don’t have undergrad business schools. I am interested in studying as a finance major, so I pretty much dismissed schools with only econ. However, I saw some schools have only econ, but still have programs for students interested in finance. For example, UChicago has only econ major but has a three year Trott business program for their undergrads. Are there any other top schools that have something similar? I need pretty significant financial aid, so that’s why I mentioned top schools that I might’ve dismissed before for not having finance undergrad. I have solid merit options, so I’m looking at the higher end where I can get need met.
Some schools that have economics but not business or finance as a major may have finance type electives within the economics department. Check course catalogs to see.
For some finance type jobs, more math and statistics may be preferred.
Not necessarily. A friends kid got a job at Goldman Sachs while studying CS. If you want a Wall Street job, take the most math you can.
Schools with strong economics programs will typically offer electives in topics such as financial economics and international finance. You could compare these offerings to what you might otherwise take in a full finance program. As a supplemental program, this HBS partnership could be worthwhile for a student with your interests:
Princeton has a finance certificate. HH used to be the director/advisor there, and he is good. But he is now at Columbia. But I bet their finance certificate should be still very strong. UPenn of course has Wharton.
Wharton will match need. It’s the top finance program if that’s what you really want.
Obviously Penn has Wharton if you want to major in finance, which is the best finance program in the country. You can concentrate in finance at Wharton and take as many Econ classes as you want in CAS. Another option is to do an Econ major at Penn CAS, and supplement your Econ degree with as many Wharton classes you want, and still take advantage of all the superior business recruiting opportunities Penn has. Also a very small number of students each year, (1-2 students max) do a dual degree between CAS Econ and Wharton. But that might be overkill since you can already freely take as many Econ classes as you want as a Wharton student and as many Wharton classes as you want as a Penn Econ student.
Penn has a nearly $11 billion endowment and they do dedicate a lot of money to financial aid so I am pretty confident they will match your need.
@Penn95 Out of genuine curiosity, what benefit is there to doing econ and simply taking finance classes on the side? Also, I think it’s incorrect to say the recruiting opportunities are still available. When a company is only interviewing 14 to 28 kids, being in Wharton is a massive advantage. Networking can overcome that in some cases, but it’s much much tougher.
@NashSaddle this is not true at all. People familiar with Penn will concur. The advantage is that you still have finance and business knowledge that Econ students from other universities do not have. Recruiters do want people from diverse backgrounds, otherwise they would hire only from undergrad business schools and that actually does not happen. Recruiters for most business jobs do not favor wharton kids over non-wharton kids they just look at strength of resumes and interest/experience in business like they do at all other elite schools.Also recruiting events are open to all undergrads at Penn.
The only time wharton has an clear advantage over non-wharton is for recruiting to top PE firms straight out of undergrad (think KKR, TPG, Blackstone, Warburg, Carlyle etc.) . These firms only recruit at Wharton and Harvard, virtually no other undergraduate school, and each one of these firms takes only 2-3 people who are amongst the very tippy top students in their class.
Apart from that recruiting opportunities are pretty comparable. Take a look at how Econ major grads did for business recruiting last year at Penn. Not too shabby I would say.
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/files/FINAL_REPORT_COMBINED.pdf
@Penn95 My point is only in regards to the top jobs, which are utterly lacking from the report you linked. Not just PE, but any hedge funds, as well as the top banks. Yes, an econ major can still get Wells Fargo, Jefferies, or even occasionally Goldman. But to any high school students reading this, it’s misleading to suggest an econ major competes with Wharton. You don’t see Lazard, Evercore, PJT, Centerview, Quatalyst or any of the top boutique banks. I can list a myriad of more firms but it’s futile. Overall, yes you can still easily do IB if you study econ and do well, but you won’t get the truly special opportunities that make Wharton stand out.
I get that there is an advantage to studying econ here opposed to maybe Brown or Columbia, but what advantage is there to studying econ at Penn opposed to simply being in Wharton, if you’re just going to pursue finance anyway? There isn’t one.
@NashSaddle
I never said there was an advantage of Econ at Penn vs Wharton at Penn when it comes to business jobs, of course not, that is definitely untrue and would be completely absurd to claim. What I said is that for most jobs there is not an explicit disadvantage. Simply the fact that one is not at Wharton will not limit them for most business jobs as most recruiting opportunities are open to all and your specific qualifications matter after that point. Of course for the tippy top jobs wharton will dominate even simply by virtue of interest, background and self-selection of its student body.
Top jobs are far from utterly lacking from the report I linked. There are people going to Goldman, MS, JP Morgan, you do see Evercore and Greenhill and even some top PE (Blackstone and Bain Capital). Keep in mind that this is just for the Econ department, which is not big at all, and there are many more people majoring in IR, PPE and other majors in CAS who get many of these tops jobs too. Also many Penn engineers get many of these jobs (JPM,MS, Lazard, McKinsey, BCG etc).
Keep in mind that self-selection is at play here. A big percentage of Econ majors at Penn are not going for these business jobs. Quite a few people who started as Econ majors at Penn decided early that they would like to study business and go into really hardcore finance, and managed to internally transfer to Wharton from CAS.
The tippy top hedge funds are very much like top PE for straight out of undergrad recruiting. The brunt of the recruiting happens at Wharton and Harvard and getting someone from anywhere else is super rare. For the two Econ majors who got Blackstone and Bain Capital last year the way it probably happened was that these two firms came to recruit at Wharton but just like almost every other business firm that comes to Penn they opened their application process to everyone at Penn. And it so happened that two very qualified candidates were Econ majors. A econ major at Columbia or Brown as you say would most likely not have had the chance to be considered.
On the whole I do think there is a certain advantage at Penn over non-HYP ivies for ppl interested in business because of access to Wharton classes, Wharton clubs and resources which are open to all and rather unique amongst all schools. Now Wharton specifically has an advantage over all ivies (incl. Yale and Princeton) and i would say is neck and neck or even at a slightly superior position than Harvard.
I’m not going to say that Clark University is a “top school” but they do have a 5 years accelerated Masters in Finance where you can get a BA in Econ + the MSF in 5 years and I believe the 5th year is tuition free. Might be worth checking out?