<p>PimpDaddy1, please read my previous post just above yours. I guess it all depends on if we are talking about IB on Wall Street or IB on any street. :)</p>
<p>wouldn't a finance degree from undergraduate business get you a slight egde over an econ degree..?</p>
<p>Sam, you make a good point but keep in mind that the vast majority of good starting IB/S&T jobs are in NY. SF and Chicago offices are often smaller and don't run the training programs that NY does. I have a number of friends who have guaranteed transfers to Cali offices but they have to do their first two years in NY since that's where the class starts. Consulting is a slightly different story with regional offices often taking kids from nearby schools but for banking/s&t starting job opportunities in non-NY offices are tough to come by.</p>
<p>thing is, i-banking is very 1.0...</p>
<p>
[quote]
For example, must a student who got into both Cornell and Hamilton go to Cornell in order to get a job on Wall Street? Must a student who got into both Penn State and U Michigan go to U Michigan in order to get a job on Wall Street? How about W&L vs Duke? Or Emory vs Dartmouth? My point is that the students have more leeway in their choices than they often recognize and is consistently presented on CC and other college forums
[/quote]
</p>
<p>hawkette,</p>
<p>The number of students capable of succeeding in investment banking far exceeds the number of available positions.</p>
<p>Having said, with all due respect hawkette, giving the impression that recruiting between WUSTL and Duke or Dartmouth and Emory is even remotely comparable is ABSOLUTELY false. </p>
<p>Yes, talented students from these schools CAN make it to Wall Street, but it is incredibly more difficult for them. WUSTL is still not even considered a target by a great deal of firms -- the same can be said for Emory.</p>
<p>If an individual is truly set on working on Wall Street, it is important that he or she takes into account the "Street reputation" of the universities he or she is considering. Prestige is still very much a factor in recruiting.</p>
<p>Agreed. There is absolutely no question this is true. The Dartmouth's, Dukes, Princetons of the world are a HUGE leg up even over schools only a few spots behind them.</p>
<p>Big article on the front of today's WSJ about Goldman's success in avoiding and exploiting the mess in the subprime mortgage market. It may not be investment banking, but clearly shows how much impact areas outside investment banking are having at that firm. The same level of influence is true to varying degrees at other broker-dealers on the Street and, of course, the hedge fund world is replete with such stories. </p>
<p>Suggestion for those considering Wall Street careers: look at the whole picture from traditional investment banking to the trading areas to the investment areas. There are plenty of great opportunities outside of the two-year investment banking analyst programs. Investment banking gets a lot of the press and prestige, but the big money is much more commonly and consistently being made in the trading parts of the business. </p>
<p>BTW, one of the key players in the WSJ article, Michael Swensen, is one of those (undeserving?) helmet-sport athletes (hockey) who got into and graduated from Williams. Another key person mentioned is Dan Sparks, who runs GS's mortgage business. Take a look at the link below to see where he came from and what he likes and contributes lots of money to:</p>
<p>Do you think he'd bother to talk to someone smart who came from outside of the traditional swath of colleges?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Big article on the front of today's WSJ about Goldman's success in avoiding and exploiting the mess in the subprime mortgage market.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, they were shorting their position as they sold CDOs.</p>
<p>I find it funny now that Secretary Paulson is now orchestrating a bailout, when his former company wasn't affected.</p>
<p>Anybody with a half-way decent brain could sense that this mortgage mess was a disaster waiting to happen. </p>
<p>Most of the fingers of blame can be pointed to Alan Greenspan's Fed for keeping interest rates too low for too long. Now, Bernanke is doing the same...trying to keep the party going a couple more hours. </p>
<p>Stagflation here we come!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anybody with a half-way decent brain could sense that this mortgage mess was a disaster waiting to happen.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, but there's a big difference between 'knowing' that a financial bubble is underway and actually being able to compensate for it. You can lose your shirt in making the 'right' bet against an irrational bubble as the bubble grows ever more irrational. As Keynes once said: "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." Similarly, a lot of traders lost a lot of money making the 'right' bet against the dotcom bubble of the late 90's as the dotcoms climbed ever higher. Sure, they were proved right at the end, but that didn't help them as they had already incurred major losses.</p>
<p>The difficulty in profiting from financial bubbles is not just a matter of discovering a misvaluation, but also in determining when the rest of the market is going to realize the misvaluation. In other words, not only do you have to be right about the numbers, you also have to be right about the timing. Betting against an inflated market does you no good if the market doesn't turn when your bets are active. </p>
<p>Heck, for the purposes of your own employment, it's actually safer for you to follow an irrational crowd and lose money than to bet against an irrational crowd and lose money, as at least, in the former situation, you can just blame your losses on the market. You will have, but so will plenty of other people. However, in the latter situation, you will be the only one that has lost money when everybody else has made money, which means that you will surely be fired.</p>
<p>There is a lot of conjecture and vague disinformation in this post.</p>
<p>ibanking recruiting is going to mirror very closely consulting recruiting, here is the list of the most highly recruited campuses by consulting firms as published by the vault:</p>
<p>Tier 1:
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Penn</p>
<p>Tier 2:
Dartmouth
Northwestern
Princeton</p>
<p>Tier 3:
MIT
Michigan</p>
<p>Tier 4:
Duke
UVA
Cal
Amherst
Columbia
Williams</p>
<p>Tier 5:
Brown
Cornell
UChicago
Emory
Rice
UNC
UIUC
Notre Dame
UT - Austin
BYU
Georgetown
SMU
Claremont Colleges</p>
<p>so as you see, be careful with what people post on cc, georgetown and nyu aren't recruited as highly as people on here are stating, while schools like northwestern, williams, and amherst are recruited much more highly than people would make you believe</p>
<p>Based off whom I have spoken with on the Street (HR and bankers) in addition to my experience on the Street during the summer(s)</p>
<p>I do not think those tiers mirror banking recruiting, though it gives an interesting perspective. Tier 1 is solid; however, Princeton should be included. </p>
<p>Also, Northwestern is not as highly recruited as Dartmouth or Princeton.</p>
<p>Additionally, Cal definitely and some would argue UVA (though still highly recruited) are not as recruited as any of the other schools mentioned in Tier 4.</p>
<p>Anyone who ranks any of the Ivies as a "Tier 5" school has never worked at a bulge bracket Wall Street firm. </p>
<p>Absolute rubbish.</p>
<p>Agreed. Brown and Cornell should never be considered Tier 5. </p>
<p>Neither should Chicago. That list is not accurate based off what I have witnessed and discussed with professionals.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Additionally, Cal definitely and some would argue UVA (though still highly recruited) are not as recruited as any of the other schools mentioned in Tier 4.
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</p>
<p>Really? If that is so, then Businessweek was bogus. Is that what you're trying to say.</p>
<p>Here's what Businessweek reported:</p>
<p>*BERKELEY (NO. 3)</p>
<p>Don't be fooled by students lounging outdoors in the Haas Courtyard at University of California at Berkeley's gloriously sunny campus. At the Haas School of Business, the two-year undergraduate experience is packaged much like an MBA program, complete with advanced courses and a summer cohort system that allows students to progress as a group. But recruiter satisfaction, not the program's MBA-like structure, explains why Haas rocketed up nine spots to No. 3. In 2006 recruiters ranked Berkeley 41st. This year: No. 1.</p>
<p>What changed their minds? Haas cranked up its recruiting efforts, staffing Berkeley's undergraduate career center with an accounts manager who reaches out to potential employers and helps place students. This fall alone, 584 companies attended career fairs at Berkeley, up from 501 last fall, including a new early-bird event in November that helped employers get a head start on intern recruiting. The fair was one of a dozen held on campus throughout the year, where the likes of Intuit (INTU ), Cisco Systems (CSCO ), and Google (GOOG ) sought out students more vigorously alongside such newcomers as Bloomberg.</p>
<p>Berkeley also lavishes white-glove treatment on recruiters, who get fresh fruit and other perks, including student guides. "When our employers step out of their cars, they are taken by the hand by students," says Tom Devlin, director of the center. To confer VIP status on such leading recruiters as McKinsey, Microsoft (MSFT ), and Goldman Sachs (GS ), the school put them in a group of their own called the Berkeley Circle. Members get prominent placement on the career center Web site and are encouraged to provide advice on what their companies are looking for in undergrad business majors.</p>
<p>Of course, companies wouldn't be descending on Berkeley if they weren't happy with the product. JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM ). recruiter Sasha Price says Berkeley students have a rare combination of business knowhow and communication skills that belies their youth. "We have had some interviewers say to us: My God, these Haas students know more than some of the MBAs we've just hired,'" Price says.</p>
<p>Although students at times feel shortchanged when MBAs get preferential treatment in everything from faculty to facilities, as they do at many other schools, there are no complaints from undergrads when it comes to the job search. Stephen Wan, a senior who will be working in Apple Inc.'s (AAPL ) finance department this fall, says he has yet to see an unhappy employer on the Berkeley campus. It's not just the weather.
*</p>
<p>When he said Cal, I thought he was referring to Caltech not Berkeley. I'm aware of Haas' reputation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, Northwestern is not as highly recruited as Dartmouth or Princeton.
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</p>
<p>you just think that because you're from the east coast, it's so funny to recognize an east coaster. every major finance firm in chicago recruits intensely at northwestern, especially the big ibanks</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyone who ranks any of the Ivies as a "Tier 5" school has never worked at a bulge bracket Wall Street firm. </p>
<p>Absolute rubbish.
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</p>
<p>it wasn't my ranking, it was published recruiting information by Bain, Mercer, BCG, Monitor, and McKinsey.</p>
<p>all ivy league schools are not created equal, and many schools exist that have students more desirable than the lower end of the ivy league, as this information attests to.</p>
<p>
[quote]
you just think that because you're from the east coast, it's so funny to recognize an east coaster. every major finance firm in chicago recruits intensely at northwestern, especially the big ibanks
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, I am an East Coaster, but my information comes from HR of various investment banks as well as seeing various resume books of FT and SA programs and finally summers on the Street, not of information from consulting firms that you then try to use as an accurate depiction of investment banking recruitment.</p>
<p>I never said Northwestern wasnt heavily recruited, but it is not AS recruited as Princeton or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>
[quote]
it wasn't my ranking, it was published recruiting information by Bain, Mercer, BCG, Monitor, and McKinsey.</p>
<p>all ivy league schools are not created equal, and many schools exist that have students more desirable than the lower end of the ivy league, as this information attests to.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>1) Show me official McKinsey, BCG, Bain, etc. recruiting material which states that schools such as Brown, Cornell and Chicago are "Tier 5" schools. Oh, what's that? You don't have such materials? Thought so.</p>
<p>2) No one ever said that ALL Ivy schools are created EQUAL. Who said that? Now that we've mowed that incredibly flimsy Strawman down, I can certainly tell you that Brown, Cornell and Chicago are indeed well represented at the top Consulting and I-Banking firms... and certainly wouldn't take a back seat to graduates of UVA, Michigan and Cal as your post would suggest.</p>
<p>to be fair, MC recruiting doesn't necessarily mirror IB one.</p>
<p>on the other hand, northwestern is recruited by top IB firms, at least as far as the MMSS major goes: Current</a> Recruiters, Current Students, MMSS, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, Northwestern University
perhaps some of you don't see many of them in nyc because they are mostly in chicago?</p>