Yikesyikesyikes, I was not referring to learning finance. Who cares about learning finance? i was referring to placement. Look at Dyson’s placement data and compare them to Ross’. You will notice a subtle but clear edge in favor of the latter. Roughly 40 Dyson students are placed in BB firms annually, compared to 80 from Ross. Since Ross is twice the size of Dyson, one would naturally assume that two are even where finance is concerned. However, Dyson students are significantly more finance-centric than Ross students. Ross has a much larger management and marketing lean than Dyson.
It is difficult to compare Ross and Dyson with placement data since Ross and Dyson structure their placement data very differently. The only comparable data between the two is median salary for all the business/AEM majors within the respective schools, which is a essentially a useless statistic (especially since jobs like IB/Trading pay the most, and there are different numbers/proportions of students interested in such work as each school).
I was just speaking about Dyson vs. Ross placement by anecdotal experience, which is not reliable, so you may very well be right (but the placement data does not qualify it).
I agree yikesyikesyikes. It is hard to compare. But i have seen no evidence over the years that would suggest that any undergraduate business program has a significantly superior placement record in banking than Ross save Wharton. Dyson is, at best, on par with Ross, but not better as you seem to think. And as far as management consulting goes, the edge is definitely on Ross’ side.
Alexandre, where is your fewer than 1% statistic from? I don’t doubt it, it’s just interesting. Anyway, who cares about the difficulty of getting in to the school.There’s no harm in applying. In regards to Wharton vs Ross, it doesn’t seem too comparable to me. Some career plan data:
Wharton - http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/files/WHA_2015cp.pdf
Ross -https://michiganross.umich.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/Community/pdfs/recruiters_guide_lr_f.pdf
If you want to go to a top firm in particular, such as Blackstone, KKR, Silver Lake, Warburg Pincus, etc… then the difference is particularly distinct. Also, it’s pretty widely regarded that HYPW plus some other top schools provide by far the best opportunities. These are dated but it’s essentially the same still, in terms of target rankings: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/feeder-schools http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/comprehensive-list-of-target-schools
NashSaddle, you have been misinformed. It not widely regarded that many universities provide “by far better opportunities” than Ross when it comes to professional placement. Wharton offers an advantage to be sure. But Wharton is Wharton. Do not make the mistake of associating schools like Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth or Duke to Wharton when it comes to professional placement. Only Harvard and perhaps Princeton are in Wharton’s league. Those links you provided are not based on any verified data, but on opinions of amateurs like ourselves. The wallstreetoasis did in fact publish a ranking based on actual Wall Street Investment Bank recruitment data, and Wharton, Stern and Ross were the top 3, in that order. Only Harcard came close. Cornell was 5th, but by a large margin.
I personally do not buy that ranking by the way. You won’t usually see me using it in my posts, and if I do, I will admit that it is not verifiable. But to suggest that a whole bunch of universities provide their graduates with “far better opportunities” than Ross is not accurate. Wharton, yes. Harvard, yes. Princeton, may as well. That’s about it.
Sure, I’ve seen that as well, but as you said, it’s not really verifiable, and it’s only IB. And it’s totally fair that the WSO links I posted are simply opinions, likely very biased ones. My initial point from the beginning though was that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (and MIT for quant shops) offer opportunities that aren’t generally as available to students at Ross, or Dyson, or wherever. In terms of volume Ross does very well. If you want to do IB I’m sure it’s great. But the top buyside jobs only recruit at a select number of schools.
To be fair, most desirable buy-side positions do not really take undergrads (and undergrads that go right into such jobs are often pidgeonholing themselves early in their careers).
Right, which is why I think the few schools they do recruit from have a special edge.Out of genuine curiosity, why do you think they’re pigeonholed? It’s usually the top students from the top schools that go there, and from my own personal experience (a very limited sample size, although the whole sample isn’t that really that large) they do quite well.
Can somebody include their thoughts on Georgetown, CMU, and BC compared to other schools mentioned here like Cornell and Michigan? I was assuming Georgetown was one of the tops for finance and the others were slightly lower.
I say so because a lot of buy-side jobs will likely confine you to a career in finance, and that too perhaps a very specific track. The best example of this is prop trading - it offers arguably the best potential pay, but offers few transferable skills to sellside BB S&T and other exit ops.
Ah, yeah that’s a really good point. Most people who take the buyside route are probably perfectly content with that, but there are definitely risks.
Thank you for all the comments.
Haas is undervalued. But it’s recognized as second, tied with MIT for undergrad business program by USNWR. Haas rivals Stanford program. If you can get into either Haas or Stanford on the west coast, consider yourself lucky.
West Coasters have never heard of Tuck, Stern, Dyson, Fuqua, never mind Princeton BA in Economics, not worth the paper its written on.
NashSaddle, initially, we were simply referring to careers in finance, not specifically buy-side jobs, which are extremely rare. That being said, regardless of the finance track, Ross does well. I went through the profiles of all the employees at Carlyle, Blackstone, KKR, Bain Capital etc…a couple years ago, and Michigan was well represented among PE firms as well (10th among all universities). Management consulting firms (including MBB) also recruit heavily at Michigan. So it is not just the IBanks that recruit heavily at Michigan. PE and Management Consulting firms do as well. Tech firms, also recruit CS and Engineering students heavily. I agree that Wharton, Harvard and Princeton present an advantage in finance placements. For professional placement in general, I agree that MIT and Stanford also present an advantage. But I don’t see how several other universities “provide by far the best opportunities”. I have seen no evidence that Econ majors at Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth etc…have any advantage over Dyson, McIntire or Ross students. I have seen no evidence of that.
Are you sure about the Princeton comment?
Also, by west coasters, if you mean non-finance folk, sure. Finance folk, the people the OP should care about impressing, will be very familiar with all those names.
By the way, when I mean finance folk, I mean investment banking, S&T, VC, PE, HF, strats, quant and other similar positions (mostly front-office or high-paying mid/back office) - not wealth/investment management, insurance, or real estate.
You can throw management consulting on my “finance folk” list too since the field tends to attract the same kind of students as fields like investment banking.
Classof2017, McDonough is a beast when it comes to finance placements, certainly on par with Dyson, McIntire and Ross. I am not sure about Tepper and Carroll.
I agree with @Alexandre about McDonough.
As for Tepper and Carroll - they are on a significantly lower tier for finance recruiting.
@Alexandre <<i have="" seen="" no="" evidence="" that="" econ="" majors="" at="" brown,="" chicago,="" columbia,="" dartmouth="" etc…have="" any="" advantage="">> Agree
@yikes, yeah I’m sure. If you get an undergrad degree in applied Econ from any of the undergrad business schools, you’re better off than having a BA in Econ from Princeton<i have="" seen="" no="" evidence="" that="" econ="" majors="" at="" brown,="" chicago,="" columbia,="" dartmouth="" etc…have="" any="" advantage="">
I think the exercise I went through two years ago is relevant to our discussion here. The numbers below are based on two-year old data, so it is slightly dated, but I doubt the landscape has changed drastically in the past 24 months. Back in May 2014, I went through the entire profile list of all the employees at four of the largest PE firms that actually have a detailed list of employees (Bain Capital, Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR) and this is what I came up with. PE firms are sometimes regarded as the most desirable companies to work for in the finance industry. They typically recruit successful and seasoned consultants and investment bankers. Although they do not recruit much from college campuses, universities with many undergraduate alums joining the ranks of PE firms were well positioned to do so in part thanks to their college education. PE firms also tend to be relatively small. Combined, the 4 PE firms I researched have 4,000 employees combined. As such, having even a few alums is an accomplishment.
I must say that with the exception of a couple of schools, I was not surprised with the outcome. Schools on the East Coast will attract a far more finance-centric student body than students in the Midwest or West Coast, and therefore will have more graduates going into finance.
- University of Pennsylvania 100
- Harvard University 79
- Princeton University 49
- Cornell University 39
- Georgetown University 37
- University of Virginia 36
- Duke University 33
- Columbia University 29
- Dartmouth College 29
- New York University 29
- Yale University 28
- University of Michigan 25
- Stanford University 21
- University of California-Berkeley 18
- Brown University 15
- Northwestern University 12
- University of Notre Dame 12
- University of Texas-Austin 11
- Boston College 10
- Emory University 9
- University of California-Los Angeles 9
- Vanderbilt University 9
- Johns Hopkins University 8
- Rice University 7
- Tufts University 7
- University of Chicago 7
- Williams College 7
MIT only had 3, which I found very low for a university of such calibre.
Thank you all so much, this has been a very helpful thread.