<p>thanks johnwesley, you've been really really helpful :)</p>
<p>I don't have an anti-LAC mindset. In fact, I even applied to two of them so I obviously have respect for them. </p>
<p>With that said, I never once posted anything that said he can't get an investment banking job out of Wesleyan. I'm being frank with him by telling him his chances may not be as good as if he went to a more well-known university. I've seen several lists that dilineate the undergraduate schools attended by the analysts, and not once did I see any Wesleyan graduates.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if you feel the need to inflate the value of your alma mater as you have done previously by saying that Wesleyan has the best small-school economics in the country (Williams? Claremont McKenna?), but I am giving an objective point of view. The original poster is obviously going to listen to you because you are telling him what he wants to hear, but I encourage him to some personal research to find out the answer to his question.</p>
<p>FWIW, my experience would suggest that uc-benz is not completely off-base. However my experience is not recent.</p>
<p>When I worked in investment banking, my firm did not visit many LACs for on-campus interviews. At least the investment banking group didn't; I don't know for certain about sales & trading, research, etc. There were some schools where they would interview because it was no extra trouble for them to get there, since they were in town recruiting anyway (eg a school near a major city, or undergrad colleges of schools with big MBA programs). For some others there may have been alumni connections or client relationship considerations at work. But in the end only a handful of LACs were visited.</p>
<p>The reason is not that there wouldn't be good students, but simply too few to justify a special trip to an isolated location.</p>
<p>Despite not being visited on-campus, several top LAC grads did get hired. These students had to make extra efforts to get interviewed and in the queue, but they certainly did get jobs. Possibly not in proportion to the quality of their student bodies though. In some cases I recall, they got jobs because they knew someone in high places personally. But the people I recall came only from a few schools, not the full gamut of quality LACs.</p>
<p>The New York interview situation that was described here does not seem so great to me. Though certainly better than nothing. It may not be particularly convenient, or inexpensive, to just truck on down to NYC from, say, Middlebury VT on a particular day to attend an interview with a firm that in the end does not hire many of the people it interviews. The people who get interviewed on campus have life much easier. </p>
<p>I do not recall now precisely which schools were visited on-campus, and it might be different now in any event. But I have to believe Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown remain pretty good bets. They were certainly humongously represented among analysts at my firm when I was there. I remember one time when we were looking for someone for a particular analyst postition someone just handed me the Brown resume book.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, I think some LACs will give you a great shot. But they are not all equal in this respect. I think it is a big advantage for the student if the firm interviews on campus.</p>
<p>middtownkid, you should just call or email the career center at wes for specific placement statistics. i'm sure someone there would be able to help you.</p>
<p>also, since it seems that your national university and wesleyan are so different in many ways, does it then come down to what sort of experience you want for college? if your national university is well-known for business and your priority is placement at an investment bank in four years rather than the type of college you attend, then maybe that might be the best option?</p>
<p>good luck whatever you decide!</p>
<p>Posters and lurkers alike know that I seldom make an assertion I can't back up with a cite. I invite UC_Benz or anyone else to do the same. On the contrary, to suggest that the OP forego the experience of one of America's best known small colleges because someone else can't find them listed in a particular directory, in a particular company, in a particular year is kind of irresponsible. And a trip to New York from Middletown, CT is not that expensive, believe me. Wesleyan only graduates about 700 students a year, so, they're not going to cut a wide swath no matter where it is you happen to be interning this summer. But, the freaking Chief Economic Advisor for JPMorgan is a Wesleyan graduate. Keep looking, you'll find him.</p>
<p>Here's some more support for UC_Benz. I've been tracking the campus recruiting activities of Citicorp for the last two years, and JPMorganChase for this year. Sorry, no Wesleyan. See for yourself -</p>
<p>JPMorganChase:
<a href="http://careers.jpmorganchase.com/ba-programs/ba-campus-events.html%5B/url%5D">http://careers.jpmorganchase.com/ba-programs/ba-campus-events.html</a></p>
<p>Citicorp:
<a href="http://www.citigroup.com/citigroup/oncampus/homepage/calendar.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.citigroup.com/citigroup/oncampus/homepage/calendar.htm</a></p>
<p>Note that JPMorgan has quite an elaborate programs at some of the locations (e.g., Columbia, Cornell, NYU)</p>
<p>"Chief Economic Advisor for JPMorgan is a Wesleyan graduate"</p>
<p>Did he begin his career there directly after graduating from Wesleyan?</p>
<p>I still think of JPM as a commercial bank, not an investment bank, but that's just an obsolete mindset these days I guess. Historically commercial banks were much looser than investment banks in their hiring practices. Although JPM was about the snootiest of the commercial banks.</p>
<p>The chief economic advisor for JPMorgan is not an investment banker. JPMorgan is a multi-national company that hires thousands of positions and only a hanful of those positions are in investment banking. So yes, it is fairly easy to get a job at an investment bank; whether you are actually an investment banker or not is another story.</p>
<p>John, I think you're being a little too defensive about your alma mater. No one in this thread ever suggested that Wesleyan wasn't a good college; however, investment bank recruiting is a complex animal. It is driven by prestige moreso than any other position out there, and to be honest, Wesleyan isn't very prestigious which is not to say it's not a good university.</p>
<p>Let's just go with your assertations for the moment and say Wesleyan is indeed an i-bank hunting ground. Do you honestly think an applicant from Wesleyan is going to get the nod over an equal applicant from, say Wharton or UMich? I highly doubt it. There are many more "higher-ups" from these kind of schools in investment banks than Wesleyan.</p>
<p>UC_Benz - I don't know what you mean by i-bank hunting ground. Obviously, the idea that Wesleyan may actually have students with a serious interest in I-banking and that I-Banks (as well as commercial banks with substantial I-bank holdings) bend over backwards to accomodate those students, challenges your world view on some level. For example, you keep mentioning Michigan and Berkeley (two fine state universities) as exemplars of prestige. Yet, according to the Wall Street Journal survey of business and professional feeder schools, both of them finish several notches (many notches in the case Berkeley) below Wesleyan in that survey. I'm not saying this to be defensive, I'm merely suggesting you should loosen up and open your mind a little bit.</p>
<p>This isn't an argument about whether you can actually get an investment banking job out of Wesleyan. YOU CAN. I'm merely giving advice to someone who is making a huge commitment by coming to the United States and expecting an I-Banking job. Of course one can not expect an I-Banking job anywhere, but to increase his chances I recommended that he go to a school with a better history of placing graduates into I-Banking. I don't even see the discrepancy of the list of schools I previously posted. All of them place into I-Banking better than Wesleyan does.</p>
<p>And I wasn't going to bring up rankings because I don't particularily like them. Especially the Wall Street Journal one because it only takes into account a VERY limited number of schools based on the total amount of people in the school regardless of whether they wanted to apply to these schools or not. We can refer to the US News where Wesleyan is the #9 LAC which would not put it in the top 30 of the national universities listing.</p>
<p>"We can refer to the US News where Wesleyan is the #9 LAC which would not put it in the top 30 of the national universities listing."</p>
<p>You've finally said something we can both agree on.:)</p>
<p>But, if by that you mean, Wesleyan wouldn't place in the top 30 national colleges AND universities in the country, you're wrong.:)</p>
<p>definitely not in top 20 :) top 30? not sure</p>
<p>the bottom line is that wesleyan is an excellent school and if you go there of course you can get an i-banking job. But like uc_benz has been saying, going to a michigan,berkeley,nyu,virginia, etc.... where there is an actual undergraduate business program will increase your chances in obtaining a job in any business field for that matter. my dad is a higher-level manager at morgan stanley and he has repeatedly told me they recruit HEAVILY at the schools i mentioned above as well as williams, swarthmore, and amherst.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was referring to both colleges and universities. But it's not a big deal, I was only making light of using rankings to justify anything in this thread.</p>
<p>BigRed summarized my argument very nicely. I have nothing against Wesleyan; in fact, I think it is a great school. However, the original poster was referring to investment banking so I was basically telling him "Yeah, you can get into investment banking from Wesleyan, but don't expect the same kind of attention that you would get at more prestigious universities."</p>
<p>okay, this thread's getting a little silly. middtownkid, just research your schools thoroughly, as well as some of the companies you're interested in. if you were to become an investment banker, i doubt your senior associates would consider any research you do on a company as thorough if you just presented them a couple of pulldown menus from a company website.</p>
<p>unfortunately, this thread has become just another prestige ***** contest like others on here. all on the topic of investment banking. what a surprise.</p>
<p>that's male-genitalia contest</p>
<p>good luck, everyone!</p>
<p>ive talked to a current student at wes who has just received a job offer from an ibank, and was told there are on-campus interviews of ibanks and that they are interested in gd wes students... thanks guys for the input, guess i've figured out the real situation.</p>
<p>middtownkid, glad you did some personal research to get the answer to your question, as uc_benz and i suggested. and as monydad pointed out in his post, students are at a real advantage for getting hired if firms recruit on campus. so, they do recruit at wesleyan, after all, just as my cousin said they did. not surprising really, at least to me. i'm not sure why so many of the posters in this thread were dead set on convincing you otherwise. wesleyan's student body, statistically (SAT, grades, etc.), is as gifted, if not more so, as the student bodies of some of those higher profile schools with more structured business programs (northwestern, michigan, etc.), so it makes sense that top firms would be interested in its strong graduates; just as they would be in strong graduates with analytical skills (business major or not) of any good school. best of luck to you, and see you at wesleyan this fall or whenever and if ever you attend!</p>