<p>I've heard that to go into investment banking/wall street, you just need to go to a prestigious university, does that mean I can go to an Ivy League like Dartmouth and study anything? Like I am interested in global development since I already have the name of the school?</p>
<p>IBanks generally don’t care what major you are if you go to a prestigious university.</p>
<p>I’ve just recently been thinking about this. I’ve connected with two alumni, from Columbia, who have been sort of giving me informational interviews about IB and Wall Street life. Both of them were Poli-Sci majors. I was baffled.</p>
<p>It depends as you can be an art history major from Princeton and get in easily but an art history major from Cornell will need to work alittle harder. Banks are really big prestige whores haha</p>
<p>^lol read Liar’s Poker, he was an art history major at Princeton and got laughed out of his interviews. Even If you’re at a top school, you will still need to beat out kids from your school with more relevant majors (economics, etc). You’ll need to tell a pretty good story to explain why you want to make a drastic switch.</p>
<p>I think I’ve had it with the brand-name and presitge thing. IB can’t be the right place for me.</p>
<p>^^OK, cool. My D1 was not a business, finance, management major, or whatever you call it at your school. She did take an accounting and finance course as electives. </p>
<p>She was hired by a BB from a target-Cornell.</p>
<p>I am new to the site</p>
<p>@morrismm Thanks for posting that. That makes me feel a lot better as I am planning on transferring to Cornell to break into IB.</p>
<p>It’s true that you don’t have to study finance/econ/business to go into IB, but it’s more difficult if you don’t. Why would banks hire an art history major when there are tons of econ majors from the same school looking for the same job?</p>
<p>School you are attending is most important.</p>
<p>Just because you major in Economics doesn’t mean you’ll beat out the art history major. Whoever has better stats, interviews and know their ***** better will get the job. You don’t need to major in economics to know how to do modeling. Your major don’t get you in and it definitely won’t keep you out.</p>
<p>It depends on what role you want to play. If you want to work on a sales desk or in IBD, then pedigree matters. It probably matters more than any supposed skills you bring to the table. </p>
<p>If you want to work at a hedge fund (where the real money has been for the last 15 years), then graduate from a top 5 comp sci program. It’s probably not a coincidence that Google, Apple, or Facebook tend to compete for the same pool of candidates that top HF’s like DE Shaw do.</p>
<p>^places like DE Shaw and AQR are not representative of the hedge fund industry. Most HFs don’t require a programming/technical background</p>
<p>^ That’s true. If you want to be a Quant, sure a Comp Sci degree or MIT won’t hurt.</p>
<p>Duecey loves to spread misinformation. Quant funds are a small subsection of overall hedge funds by assets and fund count (about 15%). Also, no hedge fund recruits out of undergrad, period. The only way you’re getting into a hedge fund straight out of college is through a platform (if you get hired by Blackrock, and then placed into their hedge funds), or as a janitor.</p>
<p>Plenty of hedge funds recruit out of undergrad. Some examples are Bridgewater, D.E. Shaw, Citadel, AQR, and Sankaty Advisors.</p>
<p>Yes, few Hedge Funds do recruit out of UG. But they only recruit the creme of the crop(in their eyes), which is Wharton 3.8+ guys. MAYBE a decent HF recruit some at HPMC, but that’s in specific cases.</p>
<p>Bridgewater recruits out of undergrad for its back office because they’re cheap. Same for a lot of the other quants. The vast, vast majority of front office are sourced from industry or MBAs. Even for firms like Bridgewater.</p>
<p>Where do you guys go to school? Bridgewater is consistently a top 5 employer of Dartmouth graduates, which puts it in the company of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, and Bain. 5+ Dartmouth kids go to Bridgewater per year in Management Associate or Investment Associate roles, both of which begin at a base of $100K. (That’s not back office.)</p>
<p>Sankaty, Citadel, D.E. Shaw, and AQR also regularly take Dartmouth students, though you’re correct that they don’t take many – maybe 1 or 2 per year, if that. These funds run small and lean, so that’s actually quite a lot in the context of the size of their analyst class.</p>