<p>Wharton. Investment analyst positions at most firms. I believe Wharton students are up to average on three offers per person. I would not be surprised in years to come with the recent increase in assets available for the average Wharton student to have four offers sitting on them. VC is a small industry, however, if you compare the alumni you can possibly contact to get your foot in the door .. the possibilities are endless. Compared with alumni with other schools, who never have been able to break into VC .. well, it's near impossible. </p>
<p>Believe me, all I can do is look at the recruiting that is available there. I do not currently go to a place where we have any recruitment at all, let alone a dearing HF. </p>
<p>More importantly, if your goal was to work at a HF at Columbia, it would have been easier if you only worked toward networking to that goal.</p>
<p>oh, i thought you were referring to undergraduate institutions, since you compared it as "better than an undergraduate place", etc. Certainly Wharton, HBS and Stanford GSB are probably the only 3 places on the planet where it's not impossible to get a VC job.</p>
<p>As for working in hedge funds coming out of columbia, it's not that hard to get an interview with DE Shaw or Bridgewater, who have strong columbia connections, but every other place will want to see an internship or superlative success in something vaguely applicable. An analyst position at a hedge fund isn't unheard-of for top-10 colleges, but the experience you get and security you'd have at a larger more established i-bank is probably preferable anyway.</p>