<p>well guys, there are finance jobs that ARENT investment banking. (surprise, surprise =P)
how does columbia fare for trading, consulting, risk management, hedge funds etcetc, as well as smaller/medium sized banks?</p>
<p>Admissionsgeek - I think you are totally spot on with you assessment. Kudos to having a pretty nice depth on how things work, even while still being an undergrad.</p>
<p>collegeftw - I don’t think there’s going to be a huge difference between Columbia and Dartmouth. Dartmouth seems to do extraordinarily well, much better than people would probably guess, partially because the alumni are fiercely loyal. It also has a longer and stronger legacy in business than most of the non-HYP Ivy schools. With that in mind Columbia is really strong as well, we are talking about marginal, if not non-existent, differences between the two.</p>
<p>Collegeftw with all due respect I think you place a little too much on a USNEWS ranking. After a while you’ll see that USNEWS ranking’s overall effects take place over the scope of years, not one year. That’s why, as I previously mentioned, WashU still doesn’t do as well as its peers in grad degree placement or job placement in spite of being in the top 15 schools for almost 10 years now. There’s a lot more to an Ivy than “competing” amongst the other Ivies - for all intensive purposes the non-HYP Ivies (outside Cornell) all place about equally into graduate schools and do very well in recruiting. I would probably place less importance on the “prestige” of Columbia, and think more about how it will fit well with you. Just some advice.</p>
<p>slipper - i’m a grad of columbia.</p>
<p>Ha my apologies, well then congrats!</p>
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<p>That’s odd, I received this newsletter yesterday:</p>
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<p>"…but it tends not to produce the same kind of high wired folks "</p>
<p>It produces all sorts of folks, including “high wired” folks (probably, whatever that means). In sufficient absolute numbers, usually, Just not as a percentage. There is far greater diversity in objectives and abilities there than at most of the other schools, particularly given the nature of the missions, and admissions, at its seven distinct colleges. But from what I observed the students there who deserved great things achieved them, and they were plenty of them. Though no doubt smaller as a percentage, due to the great diversity of the student body.
As indication of the differences, only 1/3 of its student body is studying in its Arts & Sciences college.</p>
<p>shrugging, they recruited in '06, '07 and '08, so i’m curious what changed. maybe folks were not accepting their offers. but in my day bcg was not recruiting at columbia, whereas it was just bain and mck and i got finals for both.</p>
<p>agreed mony, and i mean no disrespect to cornell, i grew up in its shadow in upstate ny, and i know it better than any other ivy save columbia. i just am more realistic about it, and the goals of the institution often are more reminiscent of places like northwestern which is another amazing academic institution, but often see itself less internationally (if even there is the counterpoint that each of these two schools have international campuses). n’western is a hub for chicagoland and the midwest and serves as kind of the place to go for a lot of local elites and aspiring students (in a way that uchicago does not). cornell is the same sort of place especially because of its massive contingent from long island and from upstate that often perceive cornell as access to a great education, and appreciate it for its education, and are not ravenous about what happens next. most of my friends from cornell go back home to where i grew up, find great jobs and stick it out and grow in their profession, or are in other second-tier cities becoming critical there. but i know few of them that are in nyc, sf, bos, or chi. there is something i appreciate and enjoy about that, and why i think cornell in the end will always be relevant, whereas the arms race befitting the other schools will only bring chaos to other schools. in the shadow of all this crap, cornell has bet long term and built a university foundation that lets it teach everyone from future vets to future hoteliers.</p>
<p>When one reads research like this, it is tempting to go red in the face and rue all the money spent by now. Unless you go to those who really are in the trade… those who really do the hiring.</p>
<p>For SEAS undergrads doing Financial Engineering a good source is <a href=“http://advancedtrading.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209102204&cid=quant-center[/url]”>http://advancedtrading.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209102204&cid=quant-center</a></p>
<p>In financial engineering, which means the trading desk, Columbia is at the top of the pack.</p>
<p>I can’t account for who you know admissionsgeek, but there are boatloads of cornell alums in NYC, and the Chicago alumni club is also very active. I lived in both those cities. Per a recent event mailer, there are over 1,000 Cornellians (known by the alumni club)in the Scarsdale area alone.
[ I know several alums in SF and Boston too, but have not personally been involved in alumni events there, as I have in the other two cities.</p>
<p>The slice of humanity you’ve evidently been disproportionally exposed to certainly exists there, so yes it is more diverse, but so do these others.</p>
<p>haha monydad - the fact that there are 1000 alums in scarsdale is unsurprising, when there were 40 kids from scarsdale high at cornell the year my friends attended.</p>
<p>the real testament to your influence is how strong are you away from the home base… cornell in europe, asia and latin america is minimal compared to other ivy+ schools. and this is especially more visible considering cornell’s larger class size.</p>
<p>“but i know few of them that are in nyc…”
“the fact that there are 1000 alums in scarsdale is unsurprising”</p>
<p>Will the real admissionsgeek please stand up??</p>
<p>“cornell in europe, asia and latin america is minimal compared to other ivy+ schools.”</p>
<p>That’s not true either.</p>
<p>^Maybe not compared to Dartmouth or Brown, but the other Ivies all have a much larger graduate school presence.</p>
<p>scarsdale = nyc? i just said i was unsurprised. moving back home, taking over mom/dad’s job, it would be entirely consistent with the fact that i never met many cornell grads during my time living in nyc.</p>
<p>did i find them in my friend circles when i lived in nyc? no. did i meet a lot of yalies, columbians, stanfordians, harvardians and princetonians? yes. the non-columbians i met were through friends who worked at banks, consulting firms, for google in the city, through networking events, through ivy+ grad events. the only cornellian i met worked for an architecture firm, but he went to columbia for grad school first. this isn’t the pantheon of cornell grads, but it could suggest that either i have a VERY skewed perception, or that cornell grads stick to themselves.</p>
<p>^or it might just be random that you have not met so many cornell alums, there doesn’t always have to be a reason when you observe a small pattern.</p>
<p>There are boatloads of cornell alums all over nyc.</p>
<p>Maybe they avoid you.</p>
<p>i hear i intimidate them. but it is good to know that you’re up in scarsdale now, it gives a lot of context to the world you must navigate as a parent. is there a public school district more ravenous than scarsdale?</p>
<p>"the other Ivies all have a much larger graduate school presence. "</p>
<p>[United</a> States National Research Council rankings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Research_Council_rankings]United”>United States National Research Council rankings - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I haven’t seen comprehensible comparisons for the newer one, but FWIW:
<a href=“http://www.gradschool.cornell.edu/pubs_and_forms/pubs/9_27_nrc_summary_report2%20FINAL.pdf[/url]”>http://www.gradschool.cornell.edu/pubs_and_forms/pubs/9_27_nrc_summary_report2%20FINAL.pdf</a></p>
<p>I actually do not live in Scarsdale. I got forwarded that flier from some friends.</p>
<p>regarding asia, here’s an authoritative source:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/989339-most-famous-us-school-brand-names-asia.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/989339-most-famous-us-school-brand-names-asia.html?</a></p>
<p>Sorry for this diversion, you may now go back to discussing how Columbia actually isn’t second rate.</p>
<p>I don’t attend any of the schools listed and without question know this article is false.</p>
<p>I, like a huge portion of undergraduate students in this country, am interested in finance and investment banking. My cousin went to Princeton, graduated top 5%, and worked 2 years as an analyst at an investment bank before getting the opportunity to work at a very prominent and high paying private equity firm (he would have loved to work there right off the bat, but didn’t get the job). My best friends roommate, who attends a very good UC school, just signed an offer from that very prominent and high paying private equity firm.</p>
<p>Long story short: Yes, attending a very prestigious university can certainly be one way in to a great job, but it’s not the only way. Anyone who thinks that, who was educated at one of those ‘elite’ universities, is in my eyes very uneducated.</p>
<p>Hi Nyctola,
Your comments goes to show that it really doesn’t matter where a person goes to school, when it comes to finding a job at an investment bank. As long as the school as the type of curriculum that interests the student, the good grades and achievements will follow suit, regardless of where he goes to college. In my honest opinion, I would go to a prestigious university for the academics, as long as the school has the type of program that I am looking to study for, like Economic Sociology.</p>