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more attractive and friendlier women, mayhap?
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<p>We're talking Chicago, not LA or the South. I didn't know Chicago was known for its attractive women. I'd venture to guess that they're more friendly / homely / ungolddiggerish / etc. than NYers, but midwestern chicks hot? I have no idea where you're getting this from.</p>
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Seriously, visit your friends at Florida State sometime, or Arizona State. The ugliest, shyest girl at the party would be like an automatic admit to Delta Gamma at Columbia. I'm exaggerating for effect, but really, there's a lot of truth here.
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<p>It's 95% truth. The plain-looking chicks at these schools still try to be hot, so they take care of themselves, i.e., wear nice clothes / work out / maintain a proper diet / have good hairstylists. It's a different mentality, and plain-looking chicks at Columbia don't put in that sort of effort.</p>
<p>True, Columbia girls are not the prettiest, but then Ivies are not good looking in general. Whenever you go to a nice club, you'll see plenty of hot chicks, so it's not like there's no supply in New York, you just need to be at the right places. </p>
<p>Also, I'm sure UChicago compared to Florida State is pretty ugly too, so... Oh and there's always NYU, they have plenty of fine dimes.</p>
<p>To answer the OP, if he/she cares still. The answer is that it is highly respected. The more nuanced answer is that banking and finance in general is very nepotistic, so it really depends on how things are going right now. columbia does very well at bulge banks, and whereas i know for instance bulge banks are recruiting less and less in places like chicago, they still retain a full presence at columbia because it is in nyc, the opportunity cost of recruiting is low. </p>
<p>as for the actual process - you mostly compete with fellow columbians for spots, more so than it feels like you are ‘beat out’ by peer schools. so each bank or firm will decide how many from each school they want to hire, and then choose from the school. it is not necessarily the most meritocratic way, but it is how it is. i have friends working in every level of finance out of columbia - many who have done very well for themselves, and after two years of grinding it out have jumped over to private equity and less strenuous worlds than i-banking. most top firms recruit from columbia. so the real question is: will i have the chance to work in finance? the opportunities are plenty. does that mean you may be doing i-b at gs? maybe not, it is highly competitive. in fact it is highly competitive to land that gig at columbia as it is at harvard. but you still have a better chance if you go to columbia to get in (because other students have made the trip before and current students probably are on the hiring committee) than most schools out there.</p>
<p>no this is wrong, employers decide how many people they take from a first round to a superday at a given school, but during the final round it’s a free-for-all, you compete against fellow Columbians just as much as you compete against kids from other universities. and employers will often take many from one and none from another.</p>
<p>I sense a bit of homerism here. First I want to say I come in peace, and I have no dog in the HYP Wharton Stanford vs Columbia fight. I go to lowly Michigan.</p>
<p>I have interned for two bulge brackets front offices and will be joining a reputable fund in a quantitative position after graduation. Throughout my two previous internships, there were definitely significantly more Harvard/Wharton kids than Columbia kids in front office positions (IBD+S&T). I have also met more Harvard and Wharton graduates than Columbia graduates on the trading floor. On the other hand, Columbia vs Yale/Princeton/Stanford were probably ties in terms of numbers in the internship class, and I have definitely met as many Columbia alums as I have met Yale or Princeton alums. </p>
<p>If you ask me, I would say Columbia loses by a bit compared to Harvard and Wharton in terms of front office placements, but is comparable to the rest mentioned here.</p>
<p>Also, the financial engineering aspect was brought up here. Coming from and having done well on a quantitative derivative structuring desk, I do not find financial engineering as useful as people give it credit for. If you want to do the most hardcore/quantitative bespoke stuff,you will need a phd no matter what. If you want to do the normal quantitative flow structuring stuff or stat arb crap(which are generally the desks that fin eng grads end up joining), all you really need is a math background, some programming ability, and john hull+natenberg+whatever books apply to your asset classes, and you can do just as well as any MFE grads.</p>
<p>^these are all fair points and I don’t think people will disagree with this assessment. there are some quant trading and quant investment groups who favor FE students over Econ or engineering kids, but if a company wants hardcore quant abilities to model derivatives or the like, they usually side with phds in phy, math, stat, cs</p>
<p>Morgan Stanle CEO James P. Gorman
CitiBank CEO Vikram Pandit
Goldman Sachs, Warren Buffet one of the largest shareholder
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co Henry Kravis, hedge fund manager
Wall Street quant Emanuel Derman (Goldman Sachs).
etc. </p>
<p>There are more Columbia graduates than Wharton at the very top management level on Wall Street.</p>
<p>^All of those individuals graduated from GSB or did their graduate studies at Columbia. NONE of them were Columbia undergrads, which is generally the theme of the Columbia Alumni Network. It just goes to show that there are some schools that gain stardom because of their undergraduate education and others that become famous because of their graduate program strength. Columbia is one of the latter schools.</p>
<p>^no, vikram pandit was an undergrad here. also if we’re talking about general stardom, Obama was an undergrad. look up seas undrgrad and Columbia college alumni. I will agree that wharton tends to place slightly better than Columbia on wall street for undergrad.</p>
<p>but confidentialcoll, this thread is about Columbia undergraduate school students in comparision to other undergraduate schools, is it not?..so why mix in its Graduate School students?</p>
<p>but there are some pretty balling columbia ugrad alums. co-head of kkr north america pe, the first black partner at gs (now the head of sales trading over at morgan stanley), a flurry of folks that fill up the ranks at banks, and have moved on to form their own groups (advent capital)</p>
<p>Funny, I guess Duke’s stardom can then be attributed solely to its basketball team’s success since neither the undergrad nor grad schools are that strong–although Trinity arguably is borderline…</p>
I actually like Columbia more than Wharton (applied to both), but you’re completely delusional. After a quick google search, notable Wharton grads on Wall Street:</p>
<p>Richard Bloch - Founder & CEO H & R Block
Geoff Boisi - CEO JP Morgan Chase
Warren Buffett - CEO Berkshire Hathaway
I.W. Burnham - Founder Burnham and Company -> Drexel Burnham Lambert
Steven Cohen - Founder SAC Capital
Robert Kapito - President Blackrock
Peter Lynch - Vice Chairman Fidelity
Howard Marks - Oaktree Capital
Michael Milken - Junk Bond King
Ken Moelis - Founder Moelis & Co.
Daniel Och - Founder Och-Ziff Capital
Ronald Perelman - LBOs
Dwayne Rayner - CEO Renaissance Capital
Henning Schulte-Null - CEO & Chairman Allianz Bank
Lawrence Tint - Chairman Barclays
Allen Wheat - CEO & Chairman Credit Suisse
Robert Wolf - President & CEO UBS Americas
Peter Wuffli - CEO UBS AG</p>
<ul>
<li>Governors, Chairmen & Presidents of over 30 Central Banks (Indonesia, Japan, Portugal etc.)</li>
</ul>
<p>Columbia and Penn are both excellent schools, but if you’re discussing “dominance on Wall Street”, there’s no question that Wharton is #1 (closely followed by Harvard).</p>