<p>Maybe my presumptions about finance or consulting recruiting is wrong. I did get to read an article that demonstrated Williams College, a tiny school, had a better per capita placement of its alums into top Wall st companies compared to Harvard.</p>
<p>I do know, for fact, that the size of a school you attend influences law recruiting. Harvard Law School places noticeably worse into BigLaw compared to Yale and Stanford Law, which have significantly fewer student body. Georgetown Law places significantly worse than Cornell or Northwestern Law, its academic peers, since it has a huge student body. Law firms would need to hire and do recruiting from each top school in order to maintain good relationship with each top school, want variety, etc. I imagine this kind of analogy could be a bit applicable to finance recruiting as well, but I may be wrong.</p>
<p>Sorry to burst your bubble. I don’t think undergrad business ranking is that useful or relevant. That magazine you speak of ranked Notre Dame like number 2 for undergrad business few years back. What matters is the top company recruiting, wall street placement (IBD and Consulting), number of companies recruiting, alumni placement per capita, etc. Not some random useless ranking. Also, most top undergrad schools don’t even have a business major. (Harvard et al) Just look at Cornell MBA ranking. MBA ranking is more legit. Cornell MBA has turned into a second tier program, sad to see this since it used to be a top 10-12 school.</p>
<p>Sorry to burst your bubble. You argue that ratings only count when they support your negative thesis. That for an undergrad studying business at Cornell, both top 5 and top 10 rankings of the program he is actually studying in are not meaningful. But one ranking of an MBA program he is not enrolled is the only thing relevant!</p>
<p>Schools like Indiana Kelly, Notre Dame, USC, U of Texas, UIUC, etc are ranked ‘top’ business schools from those magazines. Yet, anyone going to any of those schools over any Ivies, in the hopes of landing a top finance offer, is doing himself a serious disservice. I hope you realize what I mean by that.</p>
<p>The reason could be more students from Williams are interested in IB, whereas a school like Cornell, more students are interested in other professions.</p>
<p>My daughter only looked for front office positions. Which company to work for is very dependent on fit, just like a college. She didn´t like GS culture and the direction of company. She wanted a firm that was more global for the product(s) she was interested in. She had few firms to choose from, and everyone was surprised by her choice, but she made the decision after she did a lot of research and speaking with many people. Her analyst class is going to be trained in London for 2 months before they are placed, other firms are only investing few weeks to train their analysts. Prestige isn´t everything, it needs to be the right fit.</p>
<p>Cornell is not a stand-alone, solely liberal arts college known to have a particular strength and emphasis in economics, it is a diverse university, consisting of seven different undergraduate colleges with different missions. Cornell has particularly high diversity in the fields of study it offers, including a relatively high emphasis on science-related and other majors for whom banking is a less common destination. Its student body is more diverse in capabilities, and probably personality types as well, than a liberal arts college alone, with proportionally more people who are not "IB’ types from the outset. There are probably a smaller proportion of students at Cornell who would want investment banking, and also a smaller proportion who are really suitable for it. Fortunately, given its size and reputation, that small proportion still translates into enough people to attract recruiters, and the evidence suggests if you are good enough you can still get interviewed and get an IB job coming out of Cornell. Even if not everyone else there is just the same as you are.</p>
<p>To get an IB job you do not merely have to stand out vs. the other prospective candidates from Cornell, it’s not like they are forced to hire specific numbers from any school. You have to stand out vs. all the candidates being interviewed and considered in the country, including the candidates from the several schools that are yet more selective in admissions in the first place than Cornell is. If there is a smaller percentage attaining the very most elite destinations, this would only be consistent with the smaller percentage who have the absolutely most elite capabilities at entry, and so should surprise nobody. Aside from the smaller percentage who may have interests in these areas at entry. </p>
<p>The important thing is not what % of this entire highly diverse student body winds up in IB, regardless of the proportion there that is actually interested and qualified for it, but whether you can achieve it from there if you are good enough, and fit. Some places admit higher proportions of people from the outset who are good enough, fit, and want those careers. Because of what those places offer. If you do not fit, or are not good enough, and go to one of those other schools, you probably will not wind up in IB either.</p>
<p>@behappy
lazykid is right when he says that your bloomberg rankings are misguided. if you take away your own bias, you will see how silly you sound when you support bloomberg rankings implying that you believe notre dame is the 2nd best undergrad business program. </p>
<p>usnews has the most accurate rankings; if you ask 20 people on this forum, i bet you usnews will be regarded as the most accurate rankings for undergrad.</p>
<p>Nooblet, are you aware how wildly subjective any of these rankings are? Have you read Malcolm Gladwell’s brilliant critique in the New Yorker of the many weaknesses/biases of the US News ratings? Do you understand the methodology US News employs in ranking undergrad business programs? And, for the record, US News ranks Cornell’s undergrad business top 10.</p>
First of all he said most accurate, not 100% accurate. Second, did you read Gladwell’s article? Because I did and it wasn’t particularly groundbreaking. I believe you were the one who cited rankings in the first place anyway, while lazykid and nooblet were the ones who pointed out that undergrad business rankings don’t work because they leave out obvious exceptions (HYP etc.), but if one were to use them U.S. News MBA would be most accurate (partly because it includes a lot of the non-business undergrad schools).</p>
<p>I’ve read the Gladwell article. I question whether you have. It’s funny that in looking at undergrad B-schools, you prefer US News ranking of unconnected MBA schools, rather than their ranking of the actual programs. Cmon. That’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>An individual who wants to land a top job out of college should go to a prestigious UG to increase the chance. UG Business rankings don’t mean jack. Employers don’t even care. Employers in general don’t care if so and such school has high ‘ranked’ department. What matters is the aggregate prestige of the university and perceived strength of the student body that draws recruiters. You would have to be absolutely, stunningly, and horribly nuts to turn down Harvard or Princeton and go attend Notre Dame to study its highly ranked ‘business’ major so that you can land a ‘good job.’ This is where I was getting at, and sadly, you don’t seem to understand it.</p>
<p>^
That’s not totally true. When you get into the real world, you’ll learn that professionals know the best programs in their field and don’t really get caught up on prestige beyond the generic “smart stamp” it provides across a wide spectrum of schools. If Syracuse has a particularly strong program in their field, they will tend to look more favorably on the Syracuse grad than a Harvard grad from a lesser program in that field.</p>
<p>You can’t mistake the outcome of Williams College in question. It is a tiny school, yet places more alums to top Wall Street companies, in sheer volume, than the vast majority of other highly-ranked schools that are way bigger in size. I guess Williams having more students wanting to do IB could be the case, yet, such a stellar placement result wouldn’t be yielded at just an average, no-name LAC. Dartmouth is another similar case, in which many alums are placed at top tier firms despite its tiny student body. Among top schools, I maintain that attending a smaller school works as a positive factor for an individual going through recruiting season.</p>
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<p>Yes, prestige isn’t everything. I am sure she made the correct choice for her. Yet, the reason many people desire high-profile firms is due to better networking, connections, and potentially better exit opportunities. Lawyers do the same when picking firms. Some are more prestige-driven and accept V10 offers despite ‘worse’ working hours. Some pick ‘lesser’ ranked firm because of better fit. Many lawyers agree that launching your career at a higher ranked law firm helps you build better connections in the industry which leads to better exit opportunities down the road. Lastly, working at a ‘big name’ firm works to boost your ego, big time.</p>
<p>We were talking about landing ‘top jobs’ post college, i.e. IBD or Management Consulting. And the question is whether UG ‘business’ ranking is useful or even legit. </p>
<p>Consulting and finance recruiting is largely prestige-driven. There are kids from Harvard, Dartmouth, and Williams who majored in English or Philosophy that land offers from top finance and consulting firms. You would be hard-pressed to find any person who lands such top offers, especially in management consulting, who went to study ‘business’ at a non-target school. Simply put, going to Harvard and majoring in English is a better move for Wall St placement than going to Notre Dame and studying business.</p>
<p>@lazy, very good post about law, but do know that the law field no matter what school is very difficult in terms of securing employment. unless your family is a major client at a large firm or if your family has a partner at a firm, the law business is very risky these days. Yeah, going to HYS law school is always great, but even kids from those schools are having trouble getting work. My cousin is at Columbia law, which is a very highly regarded school, second year, and she says that even the professors are saying that law school - unless you have a connection, is very risky. Before you commit to law these days, remember that even if you can get into HYS law and graduate high up and are on a review or journal does not mean you get a job and most government hirings are frozen.
If you look at the Wall street journal article about law school and jobs (a few weeks ago) they may be right when they say that it is back to the 1950s when connections mattered more than school. Better to graduate a no name law and have a job connection than graduate #1 at Yale. I think that unfortunately may be right. When my dad went to law school, it was like everyone got a job no matter what. these days, top school or 4th tier school, there are a ton of unemployed lawyers. I hope you have good luck if you decide to go to law school.
don’t focus on rankings, focus on connections.
you would rather graduate no name law and have a job than Stanford law and have no job - my opinion</p>
<p>This is incorrect, and Yale doesn’t even rank its students. Having strong grades at Yale would essentially guarantee you a big firm job, even in this economy, unless you completely f-up all of your interviews.</p>
<p>Having strong grades at any of T-14 schools would position you very well for big firm gig. Where the trouble comes in is for many who are below median; being below median at Harvard Law isn’t the best place to be nowadays.</p>
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<p>Rankings matter a lot, much more so than undergrad rankings, when securing employment. Additionally, 99.9999% of people on this planet don’t have a family member who is a partner at a big firm.</p>
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<p>This is credited, yet, the higher ranked law school you attend, the potential risk of unemployment is diminished. That is why many lawyers and law students would advise you to not even attend a law school, if you can’t get into a top 20, or even a top 14, law school.</p>
<p>Good points, but I think you place way too much emphasis on rankings.
I know you, like I, may be young, but the world out there is about connections.
You would rather have a connection and graduate no name school.
It is not only about a family member at a firm. Cahill - a large NY firm just made their first partner in a while - his uncle was a major client.
Just know that going to law school - no matter where you go or where you graduate - there is definitely no guarantee of work and a lot of lawyers, even from top schools wind up teaching or doing something else according to the Journal article.
The law is not like nursing or accounting where if you finish - no matter what the school and no matter where you graduate in the class - you can always get some kind of job in the field. The law used to be like that and will probably come back big time when the economy comes back - someday soon let’s hope.
My cousin at Columbia likes the law and is a very good student, but she has met students last year who graduated with top grades and can’t find work. I think Columbia is a pretty good law school, but don’t know too much about law schools. Just try to build connections - it seems that is what matters more than what school you went to
going to law school with absolutely no work connection seems a little risky, even if it is Yale law
all this - my personal opinion.
very good luck to you</p>
<p>I think lazykid’s missed his vocation. He should be a college admissions counselor, doing what he loves best: discussing college rankings, statistics, numbers, and mythbusting.
Just look at the number of posts he put on this thread already. Its hilarious.</p>
<p>I would not go that far, I am sure he is a nice person, but understandably when it comes to deciding to go to law school it is very uncertain and a lot of people have to convince themselves that what they are doing is right. spending 3 years reading cases and competing for grades and not having any work is very scary - but it is unfortunately true of grads from all of the nation’s law schools, even the top ones according to the Journal.
If you love law and don’t mind the risk of not having a job in the field, then going to law school still is a good idea because our passion is what we all should seek.
the article talks about some kid that graduated a top school and high up in his class and could not get work and started a law suit against the school for return of his tuition money on the grounds that they portrayed themselves as having great “success” at placement in the law profession. If that kid wins his law suit, every law school in the country is in trouble.</p>