<p>I'm a freshman at a top ~30 university (think Emory, Tufts, USC, etc.). I've heard that UChicago has been making great leaps over a short period time in terms of overall reputation, prestige, and corporate recruiting for finance and consulting. I'm currently interested in investment banking or private equity as a long-term career. Would it be worth transferring in this case?</p>
<p>If i recall correctly, the UChicago transfer admission rate is somewhere ~3%.</p>
<p>With that being said, I don’t think UChicago has been “making great leaps in overall reputation and prestige”. Chicago has always been one of the greatest academic powerhouses in the US (back in the 1920’s, the big three were Chicago, Harvard, and Columbia). The only thing it’s been making leaps in is its selectivity and the USNews ranking. (by selectivity, i mean admissions rate, for that the quality, academic-wise, of the students have always been superb, regardless of whether the admissions rate was >30% or in the single digits)</p>
<p>I just love the city of Chicago though. I’m just curious how the corporate recruiting is compared to say, Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, or even Wharton. Right now my transfer list consists of the following: Harvard, Columbia, Penn-Wharton, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Dartmouth, and (maybe) Brown. I feel like in terms of overall character of the school (and overall corporate recruiting), these are good fits for me.</p>
<p>Also, is there some sort of list of banks that do on-campus recruiting at UChicago?</p>
<ul>
<li>Every I-bank and boutique worth its salt interviews on campus or has a conduit for graduates. There are about 15 or so schools in the US that fall into bucket of being recruited by all institutions. Chicago is one of them. The schools you list as other transfer options are also in the same category. PE firms do not recruit college graduates as a general rule; they hire from IBD and equity research analyst programs so they do not incur training costs. </li>
</ul>
<p>-The number of students who want banking and get banking is are way down from 2006. While going to these schools may improve your chances, with the exception of Wharton most have sub 20% of students getting into a decent banking or consulting training programs post-graduation. From Harvard’s senior survey (arguably the best placing school less Wharton)… “Another 15 percent will be working in finance, nearly doubling the 9 percent who entered the sector last year but still paling in comparison to 2007, when before the financial crisis, 47 percent of graduating seniors went into finance.” I will add that of these students, almost all are STEM or economics majors who graduate with honors. Post financial crisis, liberal arts major need not apply. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Analyst training dollars are also collapsing (Goldman Sachs will no longer train but hire laterally from other banks), which means that getting a business degree from a school like UCLA, Texas, UNC, etc. may actually better position you to get hired into something financial (private wealth management, fund accounting, big four advisory) and then work your way towards a hotter role (or “towards the money” in WS speak). Realistically, you also have to ask yourself if you think you can swing being a top tier student at an Ivy caliber school if you did not get in out of HS (also, in what major if it differs from what you are currently studying?). Most reasonable assumption is you are a median performer, and median students academically and extracurricular-wise don’t stand out in recruiters eyes. </p></li>
<li><p>Not trying to be harsh, but I get this question all the time from students at selective colleges and my general answer is to the tune of: there is nothing wrong with trying to get an internship, and working hard to convert that internship into a full time offer, but there are too many people applying for too few spots to make a career in banking or consulting post-college your base case. Keep several options open, and having a strong appreciation for chance.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>For as far as I know, uchicago is VERY popular in Asian countries like Turkey, India and Japan. Look how many nobel laureates are from Asian.</p>
<p>^Don’t forget another little country called Middle Kingdom in Asia. The University of Chicago has been and is being held in extremely high esteem over there.</p>
<p>The student body is becoming more pre-professional, and Career Advancement is doing a good job getting more employers to recruit from here. I don’t have a comprehensive list but I know JPM and CS are the big banks that recruit here, and at the most recent career fair there were SocGen, Baird, Bain, AQR, Dimensional, and a couple other prop/quant firms.</p>
<p>You can’t compare Chicago to Wharton because Wharton is solely a business school and Chicago isn’t…obviously Wharton has better recruitment.</p>
<p>I agree with chigoggle: Chicago is extremely presitigious and has been for a while! I’d love to get in.</p>
<p>A while? It has been so for decades, largely due to the prestige accumulated by its scholars (particularly Friedman). Its prestige is becoming more apparent to high schoolers due to aggressive marketing and bump in US News rankings.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize this during recruiting season as a Junior or Senior, but Uchicago is viewed quite positively at Wall Street and in Consulting. Especially for IBanking/Trading at JPMorgan and CS (the CEO’s an alum) we’ve consistently placed 10-20 ish people per class.</p>
<p>For big three consulting its probably still much less than Harvard or Yale, I only know 2 or 3 people that place into them. But Deloitte, LEK, Accenture and alot of the top tier boutique Chicago firms recruit heavily here.</p>
<p>We also have another secret weapon: Booth. I’ve noticed that Booth alums are really nice to undergrads too and treat them the same. In my last 2 years of school in particular there were much more joint events between the two and I think they definitely think of us less as just the weirdos who build breeder nuclear reactors for fun.</p>
<p>I would echo those thoughts. JPM and CS are the two biggest banks on campus, and we have info sessions from the likes of GS, MS, and BAML as well.</p>
<p>Next Wednesday (I think), Brady Dougan (CEO of Credit Suisse and UChicago college alum) is actually coming to campus to host a CS info session. I’m personally very excited about it.</p>
<p>UChicago has always been a well-known top tier school but it is definitely becoming more well-known and prestigious especially now that it was ranked in the top 5 schools in the nation for a years now.</p>