<p>Deciding where I'm applying and when - ED vs. RD.</p>
<p>Is Dartmouth more of a target for IB firms than non-Wharton UPenn? Or vice versa... </p>
<p>Any opinions or first-hand experience?</p>
<p>You are asking the wrong question. Investment banks hire people from both colleges, but they want to hire only the best of the best students at either. If you are among the best of the best students either place, you have acceptable social skills, and you want to work for a major investment bank, you will probably have the chance to do that. That will be true whether or not banks hire 10 or 20 people more or less at one college vs. the other.</p>
<p>What’s really hard is getting to be one of the best of the best either place, because practically everyone there was one of the best of the best in their high schools. The vast majority of people fail at that, at both colleges. So you should be asking yourself what about these two rather different colleges will help you or hurt you in your effort to achieve what you need to achieve academically and socially to be in a good position to follow your dreams.</p>
<p>Thanks, and that does help. I have seen some difference, though, in opportunities available at each…</p>
<p>You don’t want to be in the college at Penn if you’re looking at IB. When recruiters go there, they’re looking for Wharton kids so you’ll be at a disadvantage if you’re not in that school. I don’t know too many kids at Dartmouth but of the ones I do, they say the recruiting is pretty good and they’ve landed a number of BB offers.</p>
<p>I don’t think getting into Banking is quite as hard as JHS makes it out to be but you will definitely need to maintain a 3.5 GPA at least. I would choose Dartmouth since some of the companies who visit Penn may only recruit at Wharton or have a fixed number of spots for the CAS kids.</p>
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Sorry, but this is a load of utter nonsense with absolutely no basis in fact. Even the most superficial review of the last 6 years of Career Plans Survey Reports for Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences reveals that graduates of CAS do quite well in investment banking:</p>
<p>[Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports.html]Career”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports.html)</p>
<p>And it only makes sense given that, e.g., Penn’s Economics Department has consistently been ranked among the top 10 in the nation for many decades. Why would an investment bank favor an Econ major from Dartmouth over an Econ major from Penn’s CAS–with the indisputable eminence of Penn’s Econ Department–just because there also happen to be Finance concentrators available at Wharton?</p>
<p>It is well documented that Wharton’s presence is ADDITIVE to, and not detractive from, the on-campus IB recruiting opportuities for Penn CAS students. Anyone familiar with on-campus recruiting of undegrads at Penn knows that Wharton and CAS recruiting is all handled out of the same Career Services office. Accordingly, the extensive on-campus IB recruiting available to Wharton undergrads, is also generally available to CAS undergrads. And again, it’s highly doubtful that, as a general practice, an IB would forego Penn Econ majors in CAS in favor of Dartmouth Econ majors.</p>
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And they don’t have a fixed number of spots for the Dartmouth kids? Again, there’s no data to support this. And you never hear this type of statement from Penn CAS students or grads interested in IB. You just hear it from students and grads of some of CAS’ liberal arts competitors. ;)</p>
<p>Again, running into opposing viewpoints. I know that this can’t be eliminated but I wish I had someone who has experienced either UPenn CAS IB or Dartmouth IB that could shed some light.</p>
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Hold on to your horses there…one trick that Penn Career Services uses is to mix in the College’s placement figures with the Dual Degree programs at Wharton (Vagelos and Huntsman) to obfuscate the true recruitment prowess of Penn’s CAS.</p>
<p>I like Penn and all but we need to keep in perspective how this affects Penn’s liberal arts majors who are not dual enrolled in Wharton. 3-5 of BCG’s 11 hires from the College came out of Vagelos or Huntsman for example. Nearly half of the Bain and McKinsey hires are either in Vagelos or Hunstman too.</p>
<p>Penn’s CAS does fairly well and better than say Michigan LSA or Hopkins, but its no Dartmouth or Duke who don’t have an undergraduate business school stealing away opportunities. All the BBs recruit heavily at Dartmouth and it places about 2/3ds as well as Wharton+Penn combined so its the clear winner here.</p>
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There’s no trick or obfuscation at all–the CAS majors of Vagelos and Huntsman students are in the life sciences (Vagelos) or international/regional studies (Huntsman), and NOT in the traditional IB/consulting feeder majors, e.g., Econ. Additionally, very few, if any, non-coordinated dual-degree students are Econ majors in the College. Also, only 95 of the respondents in the 2012 CAS survey, for example, are dual-degree students with Wharton.</p>
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Do you have any idea of how many Penn CAS students even apply for IB jobs, or have a desire to? Because if you don’t (and I’m fairly confident that you don’t), you have no idea of how well Penn CAS students do with respect to IB placement compared to Duke or Dartmouth. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of Penn undergrads interested in IB are in Wharton, as opposed to at Dartmouth or Duke, where they’re typically Econ or related majors. Despite the nonsense you sometimes see here on CC, Penn’s CAS–and specifically its Econ Department–is not merely some kind of back-up or also-ran for Penn students who for some reason felt that they couldn’t get into Wharton. It’s specifically the place for highly competitive students who didn’t want to be in the Wharton program, but still wanted to be at Penn (just as you wanted to be at Duke, presumably, because you preferred the school overall). Again, Penn’s Econ Department is indisputably one of the top 10 in the nation, and has been such since they started ranking Economics departments. And its College of Arts and Sciences has as many top-10 and top-20 liberal arts departments as–if not more than–Duke or Dartmouth. Plus, a Penn Econ major (as well as any other CAS student) has access to Wharton Finance and other courses–which are simply unavailable at Duke and Dartmouth–to supplement his/her liberal arts curriculum. So there is NO reason to believe–and certainly no data indicating–that a CAS Econ major at Penn will have any greater difficulty obtaining an IB or consulting job than a comparable student at Duke or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I actually know of a girl who will be working at Goldman Sachs who majored in political science and another student who turned down an internship who is doing a dual degree with the college and seas among people in the college who will be doing investment banking. Just from what I hear anecdotally, it is definitely possible to go into investment banking not coming from Wharton, especially if you are in a quantitative major like computer science, math, or physics. However, I question the wisdom in entering college have already narrowed down one’s career options to investment banking. As someone who</p>
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<p>As someone who’s summered in banking and is going FT in July, I think I know what I’m talking about. I’ve interviewed with dozens of banks for summer and FT spots and spoken with bankers from basically every top school. Unless you have more insight into the recruiting process I really don’t care about your opinions.</p>
<p>Your theory about Penn CAS being better is nice but bankers aren’t rational. When they look at Penn resumes they expect that anyone that’s been interested in finance for a while would have chosen Wharton. Maybe it doesn’t lead to the best candidates but it happens. Plus bankers pull for kids with similar backgrounds and since there are more Wharton guys on the street than CAS, it’s a self-perpetuating cycle and the Wharton students get a bit of preferential treatment.</p>
<p>^ So based on your anecdotal conversations with IB recruiters as an undergrad at Georgetown, you can opine about the relative success of Penn CAS students in IB recruiting? Spend a lot of time talking to these folks about recruiting at Penn CAS, did you? OK–gotcha. ;)</p>
<p>Still more relevant than your theories of how things should work in an ideal world</p>
<p>^ Who’s talking about theories? I’m talking about facts and data. And so far, I haven’t see any in this thread–except for the six years of Penn CAS Career Plans Survey Reports offered by me.</p>
<p>And sorry, but your impressions as an undergrad at Georgetown of the relative IB recruiting success of Penn CAS students–expressed quite authoritatively, I might add–don’t really count. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>If you want to get into investment banking from CAS or engineering, you can definitely do it, I have seen plenty of examples of people working for places like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, UBS, etc. What I don’t understand, is why everyone is so fixated on planning their whole college career so they can go and work for an investment bank. This is actually one of the things that I have come to dislike about Penn (although I am not convinced it would be that much different coming from another top school, the presence of Wharton just makes it more out in the open). From what I have heard, working at an investment banking can be both mind numbingly boring and incredibly grueling, requiring you to put in well over 60 hours a week to basically manipulate an excel spreadsheet. People seem to do it because it is seen as both prestigious and exclusive, not because they like it. You should consider if that is really how you want to live your life before putting all of your effort into being recruited.</p>
<p>People do it because it is extremely well-paid (especially for an entry-level job), it is relatively easy for top students to get (they recruit on campus and hire a lot of people), they hire early, long before most other employers are even taking resumes, students often know other people working there (fraternity brothers, etc.), there’s a pretty well-trodden path through investment banking jobs to business school or law school, AND it is seen as prestigious and exclusive, the real-world version of having gotten into an Ivy. The banks are full of smart people who look good, have good social skills, dress sharply, are really well-educated, and make lots of money. So people who want that kind of working environment put up with the hours, the pressure, and the tedium.</p>
<p>Great responses guys. Keep them coming, I love to hear your opinions!</p>
<p>I am a Penn parent who works in the financial services industry. First, careful what you wish for when it comes to IB. It takes a certain personality to be emotionally satisfied in this area (it really isn’t just about the money), not just skills and education. Make sure you have a broad education that will allow you to learn quickly and be flexible. Absolutely essential for success in any field, even IB and also to escape a field, particularly IB, should you choose to do so.</p>
<p>So I know our firm hires both from CAS and Wharton. Frankly, I prefer the new hires from CAS for the work I do–very, very quantitative work but the liberal arts and broader education seem to give some nice thinking out of the box qualities. This is based on the small sample–2 from each school I have worked with extensively. No one from any school is trained to do the work my group does so there is no preferred major…just show you are smart, quantitatively adept, and good social skills (really!). This firm hires into the young professional program almost exclusively from the top 20 schools but whether they are poli sci or physics or business majors, they must have a quantitative knack. My D is plannng to enter CAS and I am relieved she did not apply to Wharton because she is still undecided and Wharton is too limiting for someone who has any doubts about what they will be doing 20 years from now…I know I changed major 5 times, various graduate degrees, radically different careers, and now, even in financial services in the past 12 years I have changed area of expertise twice. Your best training is learning to learn and learning to learn very very fast. Good universities will do that for all students in almost all majors. Oh yeah…and take at least 1 class in statistics and one in programming…do this if you are going to be premed, phd in physics, or a Wharton grad.</p>
<p>Best of luck…enjoy the journey and don’t be too rigid in your plans for your future…undergrad years are a very special time and with hindsight I can assure you that your undergrad choice of major is nowhere near as important as the way you approach the next four years in terms of taking advantage of all the learning opportunities you will have at a school like Penn.</p>
<p>idk too much about this topic but me and my friend’s dad work at goldman and she said her dad would always hire winter interns (winterns) from dartmouth because of their unique quarter system.</p>