<p>First post, here goes nothing. :)</p>
<p>I'm considering Stern for a major in finance. Is it worth the roughly 220k cost? I'm not sure how well the name holds up on Wall Street... I mean I know most banks recruit there, but what % of graduates actually get a job? Is there any sort of inferiority complex with other Ivies/top schools or is it considered to be one of the top schools?</p>
<p>I just want a few opinions on Stern from the cc boards lol (been reading wso too much).</p>
<p>Uh…its one of the most recognized schools in NYC and particularly on WallStreet. Its highly competitive. Its prestigious beyond belief. That is the good news.</p>
<p>The bad news is that its NYU and its hyper competitive and its the Village. Its not a campus per se. Unless of course that is the precise kind of college experience you want and that urban lifestyle is all about you. Then great, and congrats.</p>
<p>On the other hand, dont pick a college for prestige. Pick one for fit and whether you will be happy and thrive there. </p>
<p>Is it worth the price? Depends on whether you have the money or not and if money matters to you. If you are loaded then why worry? If you need loans galore…think twice…going into BIG debt for an undergrad degree is not a good decision. Period.</p>
<p>There is NO inferiority complex at NYU. If there is, its grossly misplaced. People pick Stern over the Ivy League all the time. I know people who picked Fordham over an Ivy League school…scholarship, lifestyle, opportunities etc.</p>
<p>What are your other options? Any ivy would give better acess to The Street as would Duke,MIT and Chicago among others.</p>
<p>better access to WS than Stern? I doubt it. Unless we’re talking about Harvard or Wharton.</p>
<p>Stern isn’t even top 10 for WS. You must be top there whereas kids with slightly above median GPAs at HYPSDDMCCC are in the running.</p>
<p>2college2college, Stern is as effective at placing students into top WS firms and jobs as any Ivy save Harvard, Princeton and Wharton. It is as effective as Brown, Columbia, Cornell or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>And you are wrong about the competition. Whether at an Ivy League (yes, even Harvard)or at Stern, the competition for a front office job at a major WS firm is always very stiff. It’s not like the thousands (and I mean thousandS as in 2,000 or 3,000) of Ivy League students who graduate each year with dreams of working on Wall Street get placed. Most of those will not be placed and will either end up taking a job at TFA or some other gimmicky job or going straight to graduate school.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong though, I am no fan for NYU, Stern included. I think its lack of campus cohesion and community makes it an unleasant college experience. I also think that going into too much debt to attend any program is not worth it. But to say that Stern is not a major target program for IBanks is plain wrong.</p>
<p>I don’t think 2college2college is wrong. Stern is not regarded in the same way HYPSM + other Ivies + Duke/Chicago are. And an undergraduate biz degree, except from Wharton, is not the best degree with which to get into Wall St. Math, Physics and Engineering majors are better prepared than undergrad biz degree holders.</p>
<p>
This is utterly false. Stern doesn’t even publish a proper placement report because it would be exposed for the mediocre feeder into WS banks that it is when one considers the insanely high interest level amongst its student body vs. how aggressively these firms recruit there.</p>
<p>Each Stern class has about 550 students, the vast majority of which (at least 75 percent) are gunning for careers in the financial services, while Dartmouth has a little over a 1,000 students in its ENTIRE GRADUATING CLASS. Even if say 150-200 Dartmouth students are gunning for jobs specifically on Wall Street and recruitment between the two schools was equal, Dartmouth students would have a huge advantage already in the process (5x better chances). However, BB recruiting at the top banks (GS, JPM, MS, CS, BAML, etc.) is a lot better at Dartmouth than NYU Stern so the advantage that Dartmouth has is exponential.</p>
<p>
There are probably 400-500 students at UPenn, 200-250 students at Harvard/Columbia/Cornell, 150-200 students at Dartmouth/Princeton and 100-150 students at Brown/Yale vying for front office slots (IBD/S&T) in 15-20 big WS firm/well-known boutiques that for the most part recruit at all these schools. Some of these banks will take 1-5 new analysts from each of these schools while others will take 5-10 and a few will take 10+ each year depending on the specific firm’s relationship with a specific school.</p>
<p>Ivies like Harvard/Penn/Princeton/Dartmouth where student interest in WS is higher usually get more recruitment from the major banks while other Ivies like Cornell/Columbia/Brown/Yale where student interest is usually lower get less attention from these companies so it all balances out.</p>
<p>So yeah, I would say that 75% of Ivy grads who really want a WS front office job comfortably get placed. The same is not even close to being true at NYU Stern.</p>
<p>
This is easily one of the stupidest and most disrespectful things I have ever read on CC. TFA is an incredibly well-respected program and the majority of Corps members do not use this opportunity as a backup to a Wall Street career. Many college students I know who are interested in TFA are actively involved with tutoring, volunteering, public service, etc. and see TFA as a natural next step to hone their passion for benefiting society by closing the achievement gap in public schools across the country.</p>
<p>Sure, some TFA Corps members go into banking/consulting after their 2-year stint but they transition into their new careers with a profound appreciation of public service and a dedication to fixing the inequalities that exist in America’s schools. The program doesn’t mind grads pursuing banking careers post TFA because they know the wealthier their collective alumni base is, the more influence their organization as a whole can have in shaping public policy in this country to benefit America’s youth.</p>
<p>Luckily, most of the college seniors I know interested in TFA from the Ivies/Stanford/MIT/Duke/Chicago as well as UVA/Cal/Michigan aren’t shortsighted like you Alexandre and see great value in this amazing opportunity to help do their part to fix our country’s public school system. God knows how much better off some of the kids in inner-city Detroit that I tutored in high school would be if they had recent grads from Duke or Stanford teaching their classes than some community-college educated woman who is dealing with a divorce and financial ruin on the side.</p>
<p>My DH, a long time partner in a BB firm, nearly lost his lunch when reading here that Stern is as strong as most ivies. Simply far from true in our experience. Hiring these last 2 years has clearly shown who the top dogs are and Stern was very much out in a cold dog house.</p>
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<p>I always thought that TFA was prestigious. But I kind of get the idea.</p>
<p>TFA is for people who could not get real jobs, and the only real jobs are in investment banks</p>
<p>LOL</p>
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<p>Thats just one bulge bracket. I have a feeling BBs have different favorite schools. Some are consistent across board.</p>
<p>Stern is definitely a good school to go to if you’re aiming for Wall Street. Of course, you’re not going to be guaranteed a spot on WS, but Stern is one of the few schools up there with the Ivies/MIT/Duke/Chicago for WS placement.</p>
<p>I have many good friends at / just graduated from Stern, and in my observation it is not as good as dartmouth, duke, columbia, yale at placing kids on wall street, but not too far off either. It’s probably as good as brown / cornell / university of chicago. but Lesdia’s analysis has some accuracy to it - there is more competition at stern to go into finance than at all the other schools mentioned. Lesdia’s numbers for those interested in wall street at each ivy was pretty accurate, at stern it’s about 400 out of 550 kids who want front office finance positions, at columbia it’s 200-250 and columbia is hit up by most front office divisions of every major bank.</p>
<p>If you do well at stern and want to do trading or investment banking or something of the sort, then that 220k might very well be worth it (as opposed to going to a cheaper and less prestigious state option). traders / asset managers / bankers / private equity analysts, in the long term, earn sums of money that simply dwarf the 220k you’ll spend on a stern education. </p>
<p>If you are not interested in doing something so lucrative or think you might not do really well at stern then it might not be worth it, stern is a target school for many front office divisions though.</p>
<p>I agree with lesdiablesbleus analysis. However, I think Yale and Brown’s numbers of interested students (especially Brown’s given its huge size) are up there with Dartmouth and Princeton.</p>
<p>I believe that Stern is no where near as strong as the top few (Harvard, Wharton, Princeton) and most likely not as strong as Dartmouth, Yale, and Columbia, but I think it’s close to Cornell and UChicago.</p>
<p>RML usually discounts the Ivies heavily. However, although I believe that Alexandre has taken an extreme point of view, he brought up a good point. Alexandre is right that Stern is a great feeder; however like lesdiablesbleus said, the shear number of students in the competition for the spots at Stern makes it unlikely that a typical IB aspirant there would have anywhere close to the possibility of making into IB at a BB compared to the impressive Ivy feeders (throw in Stanford, MIT, and Duke as well). Therefore, I think the point to note here is that for a student attending Stern, it is reasonable to expect to break into IB at a BB (or Lazard, etc.), but you would have to be doing quite well at Stern for that expectation to be near reasonable.</p>
<p>Back to the OP’s definite question, whether Stern is worth the roughly 220k in cost depends on what other choices you have (especially whether you have access to in-state flagships such as Cal, UMich, UVa, etc.)</p>
<p>
Heavily? I don’t think I’m guilty of that. In fact, I think Harvard is the number one university int he universe. </p>
<p>If you think I “discount” the ivies, that’s probably because the Ivy league is comprised of schools belonging to different academic and prestige strata, thus it’s wrong to always group them as one when talking about academic prestige. For example, in terms of academic prestige, Harvard and Brown do not belong to the same group.</p>
<p>
Perhaps with the exception of Harvard, Wharton and Dartmouth, you also have to be doing quite well at a target school to get noticed. </p>
<p>Unless anyone of you can present numbers, I’d stand by my previous statement that Stern is just as good as some Ivies and other top schools to get into IB/MC positions.</p>
<p>“In fact, I think Harvard is the number one university int he universe.”</p>
<p>You got that right. In other posts, you tend to equate an institution’s overall academic strength with its prestige in sub fields such as investment banking, which is often not true.</p>
<p>“better access to WS than Stern? I doubt it. Unless we’re talking about Harvard or Wharton.”</p>
<p>Unless by “access” you mean the amount of time it takes to get from campus to Wall Street, some Ivies other than Harvard or Wharton has better access in terms of placing more students onto Wall Street.</p>
<p>
That is not true. </p>
<p>Again, I believe Harvard is the number one university, closely followed by Yale and Princeton. (Assuming I cannot include non-Ivies.) Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell are one step below. However, for IB placements, the ranking varies. Harvard, Wharton, Princeton and Dartmouth become the first group. Yale drops a bit. Columbia, Brown and Cornell drop 2 steps. </p>
<p>And, by the way, I know how the word “access” was used in the context of this conversation. Yes; Stern grads have as much access to WS jobs as those lower-ranked Ivies grads have. </p>
<p>Job Placement: 93%
Median Starting Salary: $59,800
Top Industries: Financial Services, Accounting, Consulting
Top Employers: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital</p>
<p>If Stern undergrads are getting meaningful access to front office IB & mergers spots that’s a change from when/where I worked there. At that time, Stern was fully competitive at the commercial banks, but at the snootiest investment banks would be relegated to sales, research, etc. Again, all jobs at these places are not the same, all departments are not the same. Some of these hierarchies are probably made less obvious exernally due to the merger of commercial & investment banks, but I wonder how much has change internally, regarding who gets in where.</p>
<p>If they’re doing better now more power to them. But I’d want to hear that from people I know & trust who are still in. Outsiders simply don’t know this.</p>
<p>“Lesdia’s numbers for those interested in wall street at each ivy was pretty accurate, at stern it’s about 400 out of 550 kids who want front office finance positions, at columbia it’s 200-250…”</p>
<p>This presumes there is some sort of quota for what % they must take from each school. To an extent the in-school competition is relevant, in terms of getting an initial interview. But ultimately those who survive the initial round are brought in for in-house interviews and at that point you are not competing just with Stern grads for special jobs reserved for Stern grads, you are competing with everyone brought in, from every school, for those few jobs.</p>
<p>They would like to see good people come in from each place they visit, to justify their recruiting effort, but there is no firm quota or anything. If a particular batch of people are no good, compared to those on other campuses they screen, fewer of them will get invited back. And once you are invited back, you must survive the interview process based on you as an individual, your school will be but one small element in your survival chances then.</p>
<p>Why am I not surprised this turned into a spitting match between the elitists of the Ivy League and all the prestige hounds? For the record, WallStreet is at least 50% culpable for the recent bubbles which blew up (dot.fraud, realestate/mortgage securities, derivatives) and many of those schemes were concocted and peddled by Harvard MBA’s and Dartmouth Tuck MBA’s among other elitist schools. Dont shoot the messenger, its just simple fact. Capitol Hill has a role and so do several Presidents, but WallStreet is ground zero (pardon the pun) of securities bubbles/fraud/scams and peddling sawdust as gold.</p>
<p>"Why am I not surprised this turned into a spitting match between the elitists of the Ivy League and all the prestige hounds? "</p>
<p>Why indeed, since the very topic of this thread is NYU Stern reputation,PRESTIGE…" ?? </p>
<p>I mean how could such a totally “other” topic have veered off into such a drastically off-course direction??</p>
<p>“WallStreet is at least 50%…”
… of what Stern grads are gunning for. So the question of how successfully they get there is quite germane, seems to me, to this particular thread.</p>