I intend to go into a career in finance. I got into both Kelley and Michigan LSA. I know I can still get into Ross by preadmit or transfer, but I am going with a possible scenario here. What would be better for getting a good job? Thanks.
When you say finance, do you mean working:
- in the finance department of a non-financial firm
- at a commercial bank anywhere in the country
- at an investment bank on Wall Street
For the first two, I don’t think it matters whether you go to Kelley or Michigan. For the third, I think Michigan, Ross in particular, does have a significant edge.
Thanks I meant the third option
In that case, I think Michigan is the way to go. Even LSA will probably will serve you as well as, if not better than, Kelley. However, Ross is a different animal altogether, second only to Harvard and Wharton.
@Alexandre I would be careful of saying second- Princeton, Chicago, Stanford, and MIT students sometimes have the upper hand when compared to Michigan Ross (even if some of them do not have undergrad business schools, but then again, neither does Harvard). But I do agree with Michigan LSA Econ > Kelley (non-IB workshop) and Michigan Ross >> Kelley (with or without IB workshop).
“@Alexandre I would be careful of saying second- Princeton, Chicago, Stanford, and MIT students sometimes have the upper hand when compared to Michigan Ross (even if some of them do not have undergrad business schools, but then again, neither does Harvard).”
yikesyikesyikes, “second to” does not preclude others from being as effective as Ross. It merely suggests that only two or three institutions/programs are better than Ross. Harvard, Wharton and Princeton are, from my experience and extensive research on the subject, more heavily recruited than Ross. Chicago, MIT and Stanford are not. Obviously, in isolated cases that may be the case, but when it comes to Wall Street placement overall, Ross is at least as effective as Chicago, MIT and Stanford.
Ross usually has 150 or so seniors seeking jobs in investment banking, roughly half of which will end up getting offers from firms such as BOAML, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lazard, Morgan Stanley etc…Not many universities or programs do better than that.
I can’t disagree with those numbers, although the issue with Chicago, MIT, and Stanford is student interest in IB being lower (resulting in less students going into IB). Just ask the nice folks at Wall Street Oasis about target schools, and they say Stanford and MIT usually always come up on top of Ross for desirability. Besides that, Ross is definitely a good school if you want to go IB (or any other finance route)- certainly better than Kelley.
“the issue with Chicago, MIT, and Stanford is student interest in IB being lower (resulting in less students going into IB).”
That is also the case with Michigan…and Ross. As a whole, very few students outside of Ross at Michigan are interested in IBanking. Even within Ross, only 30% or so seek IBanking positions, which for an elite program is relatively low.
“Just ask the nice folks at Wall Street Oasis about target schools, and they sayStanford and MIT usually always come up on top of Ross for desirability.”
I did ask those folks. I personally worked in IBanking in the late 1990w, and back then, Michigan was considered one of the most desirable hunting grounds. MIT and Stanford (and Chicago for that matter) were non-entities. That is perhaps, as you mentioned, because students do not apply for such jobs in large numbers, but then I am not sure why they would be sought after more than Ross students.
To be honest, I am not sure how accurate WSO really is. But assuming that it is accurate, according to this WSO survey, Michigan is one of the top 3 IBanking hunting grounds:
Again, I am not sure this accurate. What I do know is that Chicago, MIT and Stanford are not significantly better than Ross as you seem to think. The numbers simply do not support your claim. And stating that Wall Street would RATHER have more students from Chicago, MIT and Stanford apply so that they could pick them over Ross student sounds very speculative. 
Seriously, where IBanking is concerned, Michigan/Ross would be roughly in the same ballpark as Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford and UVa.
Where did you get the numbers for interest in IB Ross? As a current student at Michigan, I frequently hear the number is closer to 50% of students at Ross would like IB, but many self select out since they’re GPA isn’t too great.
And I would say a good amount of students outside of Ross want IB as well, they just were not able to get into Ross.
50% is way too high. That’s more Wharton/Stern levels. Ross simply does not attract that many IBanking types. It attracts many Consulting and Manufacturing types as well. Ross itself always says that it seeks to admit a balanced class. I would say 20% consulting, 30% IBanking, 20% Manufacturing/Tech/Pharma/Petro, 15% Marketing and sales, 15% services (finance and accounting). The 50% figure may include students aiming for accounting and non-IBanking finance jobs.
If you aren’t admitted Pre-admit to Ross are you better off going to Kelley? What other majors look good at Michigan for business types that aren’t crazy competitive to get into? Econ looks like it requires math level 2 which could be a tough grade.