Who would have the upperhand in trying to land a job on Wall Street within a 6 month period after undergraduate graduation? Suppose they all have 3.9 GPAs and significant involvement in activities. All are well spoken and interview well. All have the same drive and ambition.
A Yale economics major.
A Wharton graduate with a concentration in finance.
A Northeastern finance major with a year and a half of paid co-op experience at JP Morgan.
Suppose they’re all candiates for a job at Merryl Linch.
<p>Here's the problem Banana, coop students at an investment bank from a second tier school are not getting "investment banker" jobs. They'll get jobs in accounting and other support areas, but Suze is correct, they are not going to get the jobs that lead to becomming a managing director. At my long time firm, a management consulting firm, the vast majority of workers were not from top schools, but all of the actual consultants were. So there is a big difference between working for an investment bank and being an investment banker that is subtle and may be hard to understand.</p>
<p>Zagat, can a person become an investment banker on the west coast if that person goes to a west coast school? Let's leave out Stanford. Don't Claremont, Berkeley and USC students have a shot at west coast investment banks?</p>
<p>Well most ibankers need to do a stint in NYC or London or another hub (Hong Kong maybe). Almost none get hired directly out here although when things are hot in Silicon Valley that cound again change. My nephew was hired directly into an ibank in Palo Alto out of Stanford several years ago and then got laid off when the whole bank's office fell apart in post dot com mayhem. Clearly Stanford and Haas kids get interviewed.</p>
<p>In our superifical world, prestigue and brand is everything. Those who graduate from a top name school always get better pay and probably end up at better firms, which holds true for both lawyers and doctors. Besides many people who are uneducated in the ways of stocks and want to invest a part of their savings probably feel safer to have a Wharton business graduate handling than someone from Northwestern with experience. I mean honestly it's like getting surgery. Would you rather have some person who graduated from Harvard Medical or Drexel?</p>
<p>In the top programs people make connections.....investors looking for opportunity and also introductions from folks who already have Ibank relationships. Not everyone at Wharton is a regular joe/jane undergrad....some are from the industry thru family or friends.....self made wealth...many opps exist right in the school. Google coming out of Stanford is an example of this type of connection.</p>
<p>They got seed captial from faculty and friends at Stanford.......got introductions and help from business folks......the creators of Google were geeks who needed some help.</p>
<p>The new COO of Microsoft went to................ It was not in the top 100. Some hidebound firms that offer little other than a name and dubious advice seem to still rely on name schools. Firms that actually produce things people buy seem to be more egalitarian.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that in industry, many work their way up the ladder from all sorts of schools. In all honesty, it seems to be the service firms that still require top school degrees. The irony? All of the Sam Walton's and Bill Gates' who demand that their consultants be ivy league grads.</p>
<p>The Wharton grad would have the best shot. Do remember that recruiters do have preferences for their alma mater. I met a top official at Goldman Sachs who graduated from Rice. He is a HUGE Rice fan. He made a comment along the lines of, "I could go to Wharton anyday and recruit kids, but it's much harder to get the Rice (i.e., Texas residents) students interested." One told him, "I can't live in New York City! I'm from Tyler!"</p>
<p>I think the point is that it's hard to find many native New yorkers on Fifth and Park Avenues. What you'll find are the uber ambitious from Texas, Missouri, Paris, Kansas, London, Modesto and every other town on earth.</p>