Assuming I go to Ross or Wharton, and major in finance, what will be the ball park for my starting salary?
First off, both those business schools are very difficult to get into, so “assuming you get in” won’t really matter unless you were already accepted. Secondly, there are tons of different jobs available following a degree in finance, and companies are obviously interested in students graduating from a school like Wharton, so you will be able to find a job, but there are too many different ones available for anyone to accurately tell you anything, especially since you may not get into either of these schools.
Not only are u counting your chickens before they are hatched, u don’t even have the eggs yet.
If you think you’re smart enough to get into Ross or Wharton, you should be resourceful enough to find this information on your own.
Ditto on what @TheSpartan said. It’s totally understandable to want to know the exit opportunities coming out of college before even starting since you often have to declare majors both before attending and officially before your junior year.
As @jvapor12 mentioned, there are a lot of different fields you can end up in after finance. Generally you will be looking at a starting salary of anywhere from $60K-$80k for most career paths, although I have seen people negotiate higher. Where it really starts to differentiate between career paths is in your progression.
A school like Wharton will have you starting off in the low six figure range ($100-130k) minimum due to all of the connections and top-tier firms that only go to such schools to recruit because they’re both elite and relatively local. It is not uncommon to get jobs on Wall Street or something similar coming from Wharton, and those jobs will make you rich before long if you don’t screw up.
The hard part, of course, is getting into those schools, which is extremely difficult given their elite nature. You have to have premium academic credentials, some leadership/organizational experience, and at least a couple years of good industry experience (sorry, low-level retail work doesn’t count).
Is that for MBAs with several years of work experience before they entered business school? Or is that for an undergrad Finance degree?
@GMTplus7 I was referring to Wharton et al. MBA programs. Most of the top tiers won’t admit people unless they have at least 2 years of relevant industry experience and near perfect academic accolades. As far as undergrad goes, companies don’t really care much about where you go to undergrad as long as your program is functional enough to be effective at the job. With a finance degree in the US, depending on where you work, you should be able to score $45k (Utah)-70k(NYC/Cali) on average. The main purpose of undergrad at Wharton is you’re given priority to go to Wharton MBA if you’re meet a certain GPA I believe (plus the 2+ years experience).
A few things would be.
-As others mentioned you need to get in first which is no easy task
-There will be a difference between Wharton and Ross
-If you are smart enough to get into the schools you should be able to find the answer.-- if you google undergraduate Wharton starting salary you will get $63,273 (more realistic than the over 100,000 quoted above – some may get that but not everyone) and the same Forbes list has Ross at $54,892. This was with about 30 seconds of research – you should do more than that…
Your salary will depend on many factors including (but not limited to): 1) your major 2) your grades 3) how you interview. 4) involvement in the school 5) if you had strong summer internships etc.
@unthurricane2013 – I did my undergrad at Wharton and Wharton undergrads are not given priority for Wharton grad school. In fact, Wharton grad does not like to take its own undergrads for MBAs as a portion of the coursework would be repetitive (some of the same classes are offered at both the grad and undergrad level and there is no real difference between the material covered). If a Wharton undergrad wants a MBA he/she would be more likely to attend another top program. However, there are many other reasons to get a bachelors from Wharton including (other than as you said to get an “in” to grad school) which includes (but is not limited to): strong peer students, excellent professors, a challenging business and liberal arts curriculum, the overall wonderful undergrad experience at UPenn, outstanding career placement, and that the school is well-respected by grad programs for those planning to further their education.
And based on my husband’s experience job hunting from a top MBA program (also Wharton) , your undergrad school as well as where you worked before grad school will come into play – especially for the more selective employers…
And apologies to the OP for getting so off topic.