<p>I'm considering applying ED to Rice in the fall and after browsing some other threads I became concerned that I might not be in the greatest position to make it in the business/finance world coming from Rice. I'm interested in becoming an investment banker and eventually a hedge fund manager and I come from a family with a lot of finance background so I have been intrigued by these jobs for a while. </p>
<p>Is Rice's economic department respectable compared to some other top schools department's? Also, do banks recruit heavily at Rice, or will I be better off trying RD at some top schools so that when I am looking for internships and eventually to join the work force I will be in a better position? </p>
<p>Thanks for any advice I get. I am trying to plan ahead, and the college I choose to go to should be one that will prepare me for a career.</p>
<p>The strength of Rice is the quality of your fellow students, the unique learning environment that you will find there and the comprehensive undergrad experience of great academics + great social life + great athletic life. Academically, Rice is a peer to any school in the country and I mean ANY school. IMO, if Rice were located in the Northeast, it would easily rank in the nation’s Top 10.</p>
<p>Having said that, if your interest is NYC employment in the years immediately following graduation, the path can be a little bumpier than if you came from a school that sends dozens of students annually to the Street (think HYP, Dartmouth, U Penn, Columbia, Duke, Williams, Amherst). The reality is that there just aren’t that many Rice alumni generally and around Wall Street-NYC in particular. The Rice name is somewhat known and highly respected but there is not the alumni infrastructure there to grease the wheels for you. You can definitely still get there from Houston, but you may need to do a bit more on your own to get in the recruiting flow. The good news is that Wall Street is always looking for good people and coming from a less common area extends Wall Street’s reach into areas where they don’t have a lot of experience or local knowledge. As a result, coming from a Rice can often mean that it is easier to get a job on Wall Street than one of the Northeastern schools because the universe of students coming from your school that want to go to NYC is smaller and less competitive. </p>
<p>From a career planning standpoint, you may want to think more broadly than just NYC. There are plenty of good stories about people who went elsewhere and have done some pretty amazing things. Google John Doerr and John Arnold and you’ll see two good examples.</p>
<p>Thanks to both of the above posters for great advice! Apropos to that, what are some of the job opportunities you speak of in Texas? Do a lot of banks and finance corps have branches in Houston or Dallas? I am recalling Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker, and how none of the recruits wanted to wind up at "Equities in Dallas." Anyways, what are some other high profile jobs in Texas? I'm assuming that there are a lot within the oil industry, but I imagine those are tough to break into. Thanks.</p>
<p>Hawkette: I googled Doerr and Arnold and I was really impressed. I had no idea that Doerr was that big big a figure in the financial world. When I was on campus a few weeks ago I heard that he had spoken at commencement. Also, Arnold's career path is really unique. It sounds like there are some great opportunities in Texas.</p>
<p>John Doerr is an acquaintance of mine and he did not make his mark in Texas, but in Silicon Valley. He began his career working for Intel before he joined Tom Perkins and backed Sun Microsystems. Some of my classmates from Rice who majored in econ/managerial studies went into the accounting field. Jim Turley is CEO of Ernst & Young, and I know other managing partners in the Big 3 accounting firms. Rice graduates often don't have as much visibility because there are fewer of them. It's a pretty small school. To be honest, though, when I was there, NYC was not a popular destination. I know a few Rice grads living in NYC (mostly working for magazines like Forbes), but NYC wasn't seen as having particular good quality of life. Of course, it may be different now.</p>
<p>First off, thanks to all the above posters for responding with good info. Are there any current or recent students who could shed some light on how heavily companies recruit students at Rice, and if so, what companies? Within Texas, since Rice appears to have a lot of prestige, what are the major players in terms of companies hiring Rice students?
Thanks.</p>
<p>While John Doerr may not have made his mark in Texas, he came from Rice and from their engineering program which put him in position for the Intel post which he then skillfully leveraged into the Silicon Valley VC world. I don't want to make too big a deal about this because I am not one of those who ascribe business success to the one's undergraduate school, but I think it would be fair to say that Rice probably prepared him well and certainly was not harmful to his career prospects.</p>
<p>And John Arnold, while not a Rice grad (he went to Vanderbilt), shows that Texans don't need to go to NYC to make a ton of money. And I mean A TON.</p>
<p>Click on Post Graduate Survey 2006 at the bottom of the screen. Page 8 lists all the employers. Following pages break it down by job title. I see there were 46 consultants in the financial field of whom 9 went into I banking.</p>
<p>Thanks for the above. Do you know how well one has to do at Rice to get an interview with an investment banking firm? I've seen on other schools posts, such as Duke's, that 3.6-3.8 and above should get you an interview there. I was wondering what it would be at Rice considering they recruit less.</p>