I’m very heavily considering applying to Cornell’s Dyson School of Business ED because I’m a legacy at Cornell, but I’m worried that it’s not practical for reasons of cost and WS recruiting. Do students at Cornell get jobs on Wall Street at a rate worth the exorbitant cost of attendance? I get that I’m not going to be able to take some GPA raising major like I’d be able to at HYP, but am I likely to get more than one super day assuming I work hard and am in the top 25 percent or so of my class? The reason I’m asking all this is because I’m also a legacy at my state school, where I can attend college basically for free thanks to a combination of merit aid and in-state tuition reductions. If Cornell doesn’t place people too well I’ll probably shift my ED to a different Ivy or just attend the state school.
I worked on Wall Street several zillion eons ago, so take this for what it’s worth.
My firm recruited at some reasonable subset of the best schools in the country, with the strongest pool of students. Our positions were highly coveted at the time, and we were able to hire from “the best of the best”.
We did recruit at Cornell, and we did have new Cornell grads in my department.
However, as a whole, at the time, the Cornell student body was somewhat less outstanding, across the board, as HYPS and a few others. And Cornell’s undergraduate enrollment is larger than most of the others. So as a “rate”, as you put it, I imagine Cornell did worse than a number of them.
If they treat the university as a “target school”- with the associated recruiting effort and focus that suggests- then It comes down to if the individual is “good enough”, by the criteria that matters to the employer. Not just compared to others at Cornell, but compared to others they can hire from all those other target schools too. Some are, obviously, but not everyone. It’s not really whether Cornell places well, as a whole, but more like whether you as an individual pass muster. They hire people, not schools.
I imagine there is some (pretty high) GPA cutoff, but, beyond that, to get a job they have to like you, after running a gauntlet of multiple interviews, and you have to “fit”. Better than all the others, from all the other schools, they can get for the same slot.
It is not easy. Or at least it wasn’t easy then.
My older daughter received multi offers from major WS firms when she graduated. I can’t believe it, but it is almost 10 years now. I know many of her friends went to work at WS firms. My nephews who graduated from the Hotel School also went to work at IBs.
She has stayed at the same firm and has done a lot of recruiting. Aside from her day job, she is responsible for her firm’s Associate/Analyst in the US. Every year they review schools they want to do on campus recruiting. It usually requires senior people “pushing” for their alma mater. Cornell is a larger than other schools therefore there are more alumni at any given firm. My daughter said Cornell has pretty loyal alumni. Her manager at her firm was a Cornell graduate. He hired her as a summer analyst and mentored her to be a Director at her firm.
You don’t have to be in Dyson to be eligible for WS recruiting. A lot of Hotel, Engineering, A&S students get offers. The key is to get 3.5+ GPA. I’ve heard they recruit as early as sophomore year instead of junior year now, therefore it is important to get good GPA early on.
When deciding where to apply, IIRC the Dyson acceptance rate is probably lower than the HYP acceptance rate. It’s a really difficult school to get into.
I graduated in 2014. Lots of friends got jobs on WS. It’s ultra competitive, as one would expect. If you can join the right student organizations, especially the Business Frats, retain at least a 3.5 GPA, you have a good shot.