I have seen that most elite schools send a large percentage of their students either into consulting or financial services even though they don’t offer business/finance. These students usually take economics. I am a high school junior interested in finance and love the smaller size, smaller classes, etc of liberal arts colleges. My question is how do people who major in econ get jobs in finance? Business majors usually have more application based classes like banking or valuations compared to econ which is more theoretical. Would I be at a disadvantage by studying econ at a liberal arts college? What about econ instead of finance at top universities that don’t have finance? I understand top investment banks hire econ majors from HYP and other super elite colleges. What about for jobs other than IB though?
Some liberal arts colleges do have business schools. You can look into Bucknell, URichmond, Muhlenberg to name a few.
You won’t be at a disadvantage with an econ major at a good LAC for getting a finance job. Most training programs are going to teach you what you need to know for the job and are going to value, intellect, critical thinking and writing skills which you will gain from a LAC education
Students who attend one of a few liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Hamilton, Williams, Wellesley, Grinnell, Carleton) have the option of enrolling in an online certificate program offered by Harvard Business School. This type of early exposure to one of the country’s prominent business schools would seem to be promising for a student interested in finance.
(“Harvard Business School Expands Online Initiative to Liberal Arts Colleges,” WGBH News.)
Add some solid quantitative skills to that econ major and you’ll be fine. Some of the NE LACs are particularly connected to the financial world. Visit the career placement office when you tour the LACs you’re interested in and find out which companies interview on campus or have offered internships to students at that school in the recent past. Ask if there are alums working in the finance industry who provide informational interviews. A good career placement center should be able to tell you where their students end up and how they got there.
I went to Williams and a lot of my classmates went into finance. It’s definitely a recruiting source for the big firms.
Williams, Amherst, but also Colgate or Hamilton. Very connected. Major in something quantitative, or Econ or Gov + something quantitative for a minor.
For economics, these LACs are extremely strong:
Williams
Wellesley
Middlebury
Wesleyan
Hamilton
Claremont McKenna
(“Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges,” IDEAS.)
Seconding Wellesley.
Of the Midd grads in 2014
16% went into financial services
5% went into consulting
Anyone have suggestions for colleges with econ but some kind of finance preparation? Like UChicago only has econ, but has Chicago Careers In Business to prepare people with goals to be in business/finance.
I think a lot of “preparation” comes in internships, not classrooms.
So what exactly should I be looking for in a college to see if its a good school to get into a career in finance? I guess the percentage going into financial services is useful to see how many people from a college go into that field. Anything else?
You would have the opportunity to receive classroom preparation in finance at a well chosen LAC. Look for courses with titles such as, or similar to, Financial Economics and International Finance. By simply taking courses along these lines after the prerequisites for them, you will have in essence designed your own mini-finance degree of about seven courses. Should you come to find you are seeking a more specialized undergraduate education than this, then at that point it would appear that a college with a business major would be more appropriate for you.
Well, it depends on what you mean by finance. There’s finance and then there’s finance.
If your goal is big Wall Street banks/firms - the kind of finance jobs that come with a hefty signing bonus, a high salary, and an extensive alumni network for jobs afterwards - then you do need to aim for an elite school, but what you major in matters less. Something quantitative is better - math, economics, even physics. Some statistics and applied math classes are focused on finance. But really what’s important is the big name. I’ve seen kids from Columbia with majors in psychology go into finance.
But finance is a vast field with many jobs, and most of them are not at prestigious Wall Street firms. Think of all the companies, small and medium too, that need finance. There are tech companies in Silicon Valley and Seattle that need finance; there are small nonprofits that need finance; there are smaller banks and consulting firms that need finance…I mean, the military has a finance specialty. The government has finance, too (public finance). So do school systems and hospitals.
Another place to look into if you are interested in business in a small LAC environment is Babson College - it’s an LAC dedicated to business.
@juillet I wouldn’t mind doing big “Wall Street finance” but that isn’t really my only goal. I’m leaning towards corporate finance/consulting. Im not sure how much prestige matters for this compared to investment banking at GS.
Here is a link to linkedin’s rankings of the best undergraduate programs for Investment Banking https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/edu/rankings/us/undergraduate-investment-banking?trk=edu-rankings-ctg-card, you’ll find Wellesley, Amherst, and Middlebury, all LACs, listed among the top 20 schools in the US.
Here is a financial career planning document from Babson. It lists the recommended courses (beyond the core liberal arts and core business courses) and activities for several career paths in finance.
Glad you found LinkedIn.
Beyond the Top 25 list consider evaluating each college that interests you. For example, Swarthmore is touted as a phD and nonprofit feeder but … LinkedIn data show Swarthmore and Middlebury have nearly the same percentage of grads that work for either JP Morgan of Goldman Sachs.