<p>well chicago does have Chicago Careers in Business :networking program that helps you find Buisness jobs.</p>
<p>Also going to Chicago would probably help your chances in getting into Boothe School of Business if you wish to pursue a MBA. Dunno I guess its more of what you prefer = /</p>
<p>From what I can figure, there are are two general career paths into investment banking.
One is populated by the “Quant nerds”. Just folks who understand higher math better than almost anybody interested in real world financial markets. Of the schools mentioned, the U of C would “brand” you better than the others.
The other path is populated by folks with “people skills”, for whom selling strategies at a high cognitive level is critical. Dartmouth, Princeton and Harvard come to mind.
ORFE at Princeton- “Operations Research and Financial Engineering”- seems to be a path to a small gold mine, even today.
But be prepared to be described as a “tool” at any of these schools.
For a 17 or 18 year old, if you were my kid, I would argue for figuring out more about the world before even contemplating either of these paths.
IMO, Stern graduates on Wall Street are a dime a dozen and will not be respected.</p>
<p>“IMO, Stern graduates on Wall Street are a dime a dozen and will not be respected.”
Doesn’t it also mean Stern graduates are common on Wall Street?</p>
<p>Anyway, great points by all of you but now I’m just confused. For a better career (more recruitment opportunities, etc), great prestige or great program?</p>
<p>Prestige, if deserved. Can you imagine turning down a well-rounded graduate of Princeton for someone with a Stern degree, simply because the latter had a degree from Stern?</p>
<p>^ maybe if his last name were Stern…</p>
<p>nobody here has a clue what they’re talking about - kids should know better than to claim things they know absolutely nothing about. forgive me if i’m a bit old school but i know things have not changed that much with regards to banking recruiting at the top universities. as somebody who worked in bulge bracket banking and now works at a top VC, there are a few staple schools that most banks and financial firms recruit at and chicago is most certainly one of them. i would know, because i interviewed these candidates at my ex-bb. these schools are the ivies minus brown, chicago, duke, stanford and nyu (stern). other institutions such as northwestern, brown, berkeley, georgetown, and uva are also represented but to a much lesser extent. i know for a fact that most bulges do not recruit actively (focus on actively) at notre dame, washington, and other fine institutions because recruiting is a major expenditure of time and money they’re only going to allocate these resources to the best schools. basically you can count on two hands that most banks actively recruit.</p>
<p>chicago guys, in particular, are top notch candidates for fixed income sales and trading and are the most sought after along with wharton and mit because of the strength of their math and economics training. </p>
<p>you’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth so most of the things said on this thread are nonsense.</p>
<p>nobody here has a clue what they’re talking about - kids should know better than to claim things they know absolutely nothing about. forgive me if i’m a bit old school but i know things have not changed that much with regards to banking recruiting at the top universities. as somebody who worked in bulge bracket banking and now works at a top VC, there are a few staple schools that most banks and financial firms recruit at and chicago is most certainly one of them. i would know, because i interviewed these candidates at my ex-bb. these schools are the ivies minus brown, chicago, duke, stanford and nyu (stern). other institutions such as northwestern, brown, berkeley, georgetown, and uva are also represented but to a much lesser extent. i know for a fact that most bulges do not recruit actively (focus on actively) at notre dame, washington, and other fine institutions because recruiting is a major expenditure of time and money they’re only going to allocate these resources to the best schools. basically you can count on two hands that most banks actively recruit.</p>
<p>chicago guys, in particular, are top notch candidates for fixed income sales and trading and are the most sought after along with wharton and mit because of the strength of their math and economics training.</p>
<p>you’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth so most of the things said on this thread are nonsense.</p>
<p>bayvcroberts,</p>
<p>I agree with you that the highest regarded universities and colleges generally deserve their reputations and are duly recognized by recruiters and admissions officers in the most sought after career fields and graduate schools. Turning down an opportunity to attend one of the world’s best undergraduate academies to attend something of a trade school is a mistake for most (though not for all) on any number of levels. Also, these boards have more than their share of pure opinion generated by relatively unseasoned pundits. Your well informed insights are welcomed and appreciated to help cut through the noise that sometimes develops.</p>
<p>That said, please do not refer to all of us as clueless kids or you risk coming off as another part of the horse.</p>
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<p>Talk about someone who has ‘no clue what they’re talking about’.’ We are talking about UNDERGRADUATE recruiting here, not MBA.</p>
<p>^I believe he IS talking about undergrad, since he mentions Brown (which doesn’t have a b-school.) And he’s right on point about why Chicago undergrads are sought after. Chicago’s undergrad math program is very strong, and the econ program is known to involve much more mathematics than the econ programs at its peer schools. There IS active recruiting on campus for that reason, and Chicago does very well in terms of B-school placements too (while its law school and med school placements are abysmal given the strength of the overall ug program.)</p>
<p>I think if you want the most solid educational grounding, you would have to choose Chicago.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Chicago Econ/Mathematics definitely beat Emory, Notre Dame, and NYU.</p>
<p>Chicago used to be grossly underrated, but it climbed in the rankings. Now it’s number 8 in the national and international rankings. And it’s economics program is number 1. </p>
<p>The school has been trying to get rid of its “where fun comes to die” image for some time now. The school has definitely taken a drastic, but positive turn from the 90s in terms of student social life and campus activities. It’s a bustling campus with over 350 RSO (Student Organizations), a medium size Frat Row, brand new state of the art dorms, new center for the creative and performing arts, the largest library after the library of congress, and such easy access to an amazing city with restaurants and nightlife. </p>
<p>Chicago is becoming a work hard/play hard school in my opinion.</p>
<p>[Hyde</a> Park](<a href=“http://hydepark.uchicago.edu%5DHyde”>http://hydepark.uchicago.edu)</p>
<p>pnb2002 - Chicago’s law and med school admissions are improving of late. When I was at Chicago in very late 90s, you had a small group of savvy, pre-professional kids (generally the econ/pre-business crowd), and a VERY large group of wannabe academics, and kids who, even as seniors, had no idea what they wanted to do after graduation. </p>
<p>So, while a lot of these kids were very smart, they weren’t savvy about law/med admissions, and for med school, they had to deal with the GPA deflation at Chicago.</p>
<p>Now, gpa inflation occurs at Chicago, the student body is much savvier when it comes to prof school admissions (i.e. no one takes the LSAT cold any more at Chicago. My year, I knew at least a dozen kids who did this and went on to mediocre law schools, just bc they couldn’t think of anything else to do), and the student body is more accomplished - top to bottom - as well. I’d imagine law and med admissions is getting in line with Penn, Cornell, etc. </p>
<p>ilovepeople - I would absolutely not go as far as to say Chicago is a work hard/party hard school. When I think of a work hard/party hard school, maybe a place like Dartmouth or Williams or Princeton at times, I think of a very established and rooted frat (or eating club) atmosphere where kids often go out 3-4 nights a week when finals aren’t near. I’d be very surprised to see that happening at Chicago. For some kids at Dartmouth or Princeton, the weekend begins as early as Wednesday, and goes straight through to Sunday. This really is not the case overall at Chicago, unless life has changed completely drastically in Hyde Park.</p>
<p>ilovepeople, what I will say is, as Chicago does indeed look to lose it’s quirky, negative connotations of “where fun comes to die” atmosphere, I think it’s looking to groom graduates who received a rigorous, high-quality intellectually-oriented education, but also have more of a level of polish and social acumen. I see that as the goal rather than creating a full out work hard/party hard atmosphere.</p>
<p>A Chicago grad with that level of polish and savvy (as we’re starting to see) will do great at the law/med admissions game, finance recruiting, etc. The days where most Chicago students only realistically had a shot at Academia given their lack of savvy or awareness of other areas/industries are receding.</p>
<p>Cue7 is right on according to my frame of reference. I say this as a U of C employee and degree holder whose kids chose Dartmouth and Princeton.
The U of C undergraduate population has become much more mainstream and career oriented as it has become populated by the echo-boom overflow from the Ivy League. Fewer people in love with learning for learning’s sake, but a much smarter undergraduate student body than ten years ago. At the same time, the social situation has improved only marginally. This will never be a Dartmouth or Princeton outside the classroom.
The student body is much more pre-professional in its thinking, although I still run into kids who didn’t get into medical school and have been told “we don’t interview well”.</p>
<p>NYU’s math and economics departments (College of Arts and Science) at the undergraduate level are pretty darned good, I’ve read. And, of course, it’s already in New York City. Stern is the best of all your choices if only because of its reputation and location, but you have less flexibility exploring other academic interests.</p>
<p>Notre Dame has a superior alumni network and you’re likely to have the best well-rounded experience there.</p>
<p>Chicago is just a great school, and top firms recruit there generously. It has a first tier econ graduate program, and its strength likely extends to its undergrad program.</p>
<p>“…Stern graduates on Wall Street are a dime a dozen and will not be respected.”</p>
<p>In the same vein, Harvard graduates on Wall Street are a dime a dozen and will not be respected, mirite guize lols.</p>
<p>“Harvard graduates on Wall Street are a dime a dozen and will not be respected”</p>
<p>lol when are harvard graduates ever “dime a dozen”?</p>
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<p>Probably around 1636. Granted, a dime was worth a lot more back then… ;)</p>
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<p>No one ever slighted uchicago students, or said they weren’t recruited AT ALL. Only said the recruiting efforts on campus are not as involved as many of their peer institutions.</p>
<p>He is coming from a position where he is admittedly several years removed from the process, while telling students who just went through recruiting, hearing directly from recruiters that uchicago ‘doesn’t typically fit the profile we are looking for, so we don’t usually focus very heavily on hiring there,’ work at a major bank that doesn’t even visit uchicago, and have classmates currently working as analysts at almost every capital market-related firm in the region who confirm that uchicago is conspicuously unrepresented, that they ‘have no clue what they’re talking about.’ </p>
<p>I was implying that at the current moment his bias and expertise would be much more tilted towards MBA-level recruiting, where I’m sure Booth has a very strong showing (I’d better hope so, it is one of my top-choice business schools).</p>
<p>I would take a look at this thread:
[School</a> Prestige Rankings on Street | WallStreetOasis.com](<a href=“http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/school-prestige-rankings-on-street]School”>http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/school-prestige-rankings-on-street)
It has a lot of speculation and debate, but a majority of the people believe chicago is highly respected and it’s clearly talking about undergrad, since many of the schools mentioned don’t have business schools.</p>
<p>The people on that forum are probably more informed than people here. Regardless of what people have said here, chicago is a clear target for big banks (this is also heard from upperclassmen and recent grads). There is definitely less people wanting to go into finance here compared to ND and NYU, but if you want to, you don’t have any disadvantage. But in the end, there really isn’t that big of a difference as along as you go to a target. It’s all about whether you can thrive in the environment.</p>
<p>uchicago2012 - WallStreetOasis is known for not separating undergrad and grad. Including Booth MBA, Chicago would definitely be on the same plane with Dartmouth, Columbia, and Duke in the second tier. However, it’s not the case at the undergrad level, where Chicago is typically placed into the third tier with Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, etc. This is not saying people who go to Chicago have less opportunities in finance. A econ+math undergrad at Chicago with a 3.9 GPA is as competitive as one from Harvard, Wharton, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Duke, etc. However, being an econ+math undergrad at Chicago while keeping a 3.9 GPA is a lot harder than doing the same at those other undergrad schools.</p>
<p>IPBear - as Chicago grade inflates more and has a more polished student body, wouldn’t this begin to change more and more?</p>
<p>From what I know, very young analysts do the recruiting for the major firms. Success begets success, and as more Chicago econ grads who interview well and achieve 3.7+ gpas are walking around, wouldn’t that, in the future, create a better recruiting situation at Chicago?</p>