Wharton or Harvard ?

<p>How does Wharton Undergrad compare with Harvard College ?</p>

<p>If we are looking at business only I am curious as to which school has the advantage. </p>

<p>Does one school have better placement to BB IB firms than the other ?</p>

<p>Does one school feed into private equity better ?</p>

<p>Does one school feed into hedge funds better ?</p>

<p>Does one school produce more management type folks while the other produces entrepreneurs ?</p>

<p>Are the students at both schools relatively academically equal ?</p>

<p>Discuss.</p>

<p>really, both places sound pretty unpleasant from where I sit. but really if you do well at either place you can get into a BB firm without too much issue. If i were to choose I’d go with harvard, less lame banker types.</p>

<p>Private equity is the same deal as banking, a few kids might go straight to PE but most will do IB then go to PE. </p>

<p>for hedge funds, it depends on the type. for typical equity long/short then banking again is the typical background so both schools would be fine. However, for quant hedge funds, definitely stick to harvard math (or better, something along those lines at MIT).</p>

<p>To be completely honest, the wharton undergrads i have met have been pretty thoroughly unimpressive. As far just pure ability, I’d have to believe that the harvard kids are stronger. The wharton kids are just so ultra focused on banking/finance. I had a fun chat with a recruiter at the BB i worked at my junior summer about how lol it is to recruit at wharton just because of how over the top intense everyone is. it was pretty amusing.</p>

<p>Honestly, whichever school you attend, if you are fortunate enough to have opportunities at each, you will not be disappointed with your networking opportunities as well as your career prospects. The very slight difference between the two is that a few of the ultra-elite PE shops and Consulting shops specifically recruit at H and S only, not directly at W. That said, those companies recruit a handful of students per year, and that is not reason enough to pick one school over the other. If I were you, between those two schools, I would not focus on career opps and focus instead of fit with the program and possibly grant money as it will be quite an investment either way. If you think you’d prefer a hardcore quant skill set and like phili, go with W. If you want more of the pure ivy league school and know or have met people from H, visited the campus, etc, go with H. You will not go wrong either way. </p>

<p>Regarding whether the negative stereotypes are true of one school or the other, whether W is thought of as this way or H as that way is irrelevant. Fact is, W is known to have students that are bitter about not getting into H or P and are great with quant, but terrible in terms of people skills, etc. H is known to be great with leadership skills and such, and are great at delegating tasks, but can’t do anything for themselves - ask them to run a model and they’ll be fine with breaking down the task for a team of 10 to handle in an hour, but ask them to do the work and they’ll find it damn near impossible. </p>

<p>The problem with those stereotypes - they are BS. W and H are both terrific schools with outstanding reputations. Those that promote those stereotypes are usually angry with one school or the other or happened to have a handful of bad experiences. Do not let silly stereotypes shape where you go - either school will get you phenomenal career opps - find whichever fits best.</p>

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<p>which ones?</p>

<p>I’ve heard of “elite boutiques” but what exactly is an ultra-elite consulting shop…sounds like an oxymoron</p>

<p>On that note, most of the PE opportunities out of undergrad involve a lot of cold-calling and pitching with very little modeling work, which is not what most people would like to get out of PE/like to have to be able to move around shops. </p>

<p>You can’t really go wrong with either school, if you can get an interview at either, it really doesn’t matter at that point whether you are at Harvard or Wharton. And both will give you ample opportunity to get interviews.</p>

<p>My uncle, who has done recruiting for his BB, said he found it quite refreshing to interview Wharton students because he could actually ask them real finance and accounting questions. At Harvard and Yale, he was stuck with bs fit questions because many of the students could not coherently explain how the three financial statements were related.</p>

<p>Bankonbanking are you sure about that ? I heard that Wharton places MORE people in ultra elite PE shops (like Blackstone - 9 or so a year at Blackstone alone out of 40 recruits or so worldwide) than Harvard and far more than Stanford. Some firms (like Rotshchilds) ONLY recruit at Wharton. My perception is that Wharton beats out Harvard and Princeton (and Stanford) in investment banking and private equity but Harvard beats out Wharton in consulting since consulting is for softies (soft skill based people). Could you please give me examples about what you were saying because i have never heard that before. The PE shops want people who actually know finance and they do not have resources (very small staff to begin with) to waste training you to bring you up to snuff, unlike BB IB firms. I think you are referring to the graduate level where that may be more true. But then at that level really only Harvard MBAs get the boost with Wharton MBAs coming in closely behind. For IB and Finance, however I’ve heard Wharton still is no. 1. Stanford, i am presuming because of location, smacks down in VC.</p>

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<p>hmm that’s news to me…which PE shops are you referring to?</p>

<p>Correction. The majority of my post was in regards to U Grad, but I lapsed into B school towards the end as I’ve been fielding a lot of B school questions. For B school, that holds true, but for U Grad, I don’t honestly see a substantial difference between the two in terms of career opps. For each firm that targets H slightly more than W, there is another firm that targets W more than H. For consulting, H has the slight edge, in my opinion, but for IB, you can’t go wrong either way. In short, you will never be told by an IB - well, you were sooo close, if only you went to W and not H (or vice versa). </p>

<p>Again, sorry for the confusion guys - my mind wandered to B school.</p>

<p>IBanker</p>

<p>An advantage for undergrad W is that you would have all the finance/accounting skills with just an undergrad degree and most often, there’s no need to get an MBA. At H as in other Ivies, after a couple years of IB, most find it necessary to attend B schools if they want to stay in finance since most didn’t take any basic finance classes.</p>

<p>I don’t agree with that. The biggest selling point for the MBA is the networking opportunities - by that I mean for IB analysts who are not interested in a radical career change. After 2-3 years in banking, former harvard students are just as ready to make the move to PE, if they want, as a student from W - the finance courses a W student might have taken does not provide an advantages. Any banker will tell you that you learn much more on the job than in a book - at least in terms of relevant and practical knowledge that will help you to both land jobs and succeed in said jobs. </p>

<p>While it’s true that career changers, something non-business to banking, for example, often attend B school for some finance/accounting knowledge as well as the network, the CFA or even a strong Master’s program would satisfy the thirst for financial knowledge and cost less than a top tier MBA program. </p>

<p>Again, I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but in general, the network (career services, etc - the package) is definitely the big selling point for the MBA as well as the strong brand name on the resume (for those that attend a top tier MBA program). </p>

<p>IBanker</p>

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<p>Any Wharton will ALREADY have these networking opportunities without B schools, namely through Wharton’s career office (lifetime use of job boards),his fellow Wharton students, his co-workers, and his clients and peers. Plus they have already taken most all the basic courses required by B schools.</p>

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<p>This has not been my experience. Most Ivy grads (Wharton excepted) feel utterly unprepared for the next step, after the 2 year stint as IB analysts if they have not already taken any business courses in undergrad. That’s why so many end up back in B school if they want to be in the associate level. For the first couple year in IB, one does not need in depth finance knowledge, but if one needs to move up, one should have basic analytical skills and principles of corporate finance,standard techniques of analysis, including capital budgeting, discounted cash flow valuation, and risk analysis, basic accounting principles and corporate finance. There is no way one can learn this on the job. It’s akin to working in the computer or engineering field without any computer and engineering classes.</p>

<p>In a non-recessionary economy, over 50% of Wharton grads work in IB, but only about 30% of ALL Wharton grads attend B schools.</p>

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<p>haha that number actually didn’t change last year, although probably fewer in BBs</p>

<p>In my experience, B school is predominantly for networking and career switching - not to build finance skills. While there are certainly bankers that don’t make the cut to receive the promotion to associate, it is not a lack of finance formulas, but rather their work, office politics, a need for associates, etc, that keep them from it - an MBA can certainly, in that case, allow them to make the leap and try again. All of the senior and junior bankers that I know would not recommend an MBA if your main goal is to learn the basics of finance and accounting - if you haven’t learned it in 2-3 years of IB, you probably won’t master it with an MBA. That said, I’m sure you are being sincere in your comments, and I’m sure that your experiences have told you something different. </p>

<p>While 50% of Wharton goes to IB compared to 30% of other Ivies, it might not be because of opportunity, but rather, because of desire - I know a few students who did a summer analyst opp with a few BBs while attending Princeton and Harvard, and after that summer they wanted nothing to do with IB, although they received return offers. Stats alone measure interest, not necessarily opportunities as I’m sure P/H/Y/S/etc graduates would not be hard-pressed to find IB opps. </p>

<p>Finally, regarding your last point, working in banking without finance courses is nothing like working in engineering without engineering courses, unless you can be a great engineer without ever taking an engineering course. Working in banking you absolutely do a ton of DCF, comparable analyses, building strong accounting and finance skills, run merger valuations, company valuations, build financials, forecast financials, run IRR models, LBO models, etc, etc, etc. </p>

<p>IBanker</p>