<p>which ones?</p>
<p>I had Comp Sci & Finance/Econ in mind</p>
<p>harvard doesn't have finance...</p>
<p>For ibanking, I think your school plays a bigger part. In an ivy, I think you can probably get by with majoring in anything. From a non/semi-target, I'd say finance. Econ, Math, and even humanities can make ibankers, since the job itself isn't hard (it's just really rigorous).</p>
<p>For hedge funds, you have a few more options, and it really depends what you want to do. If you want to be a quant, do engineering, math, physics, of comp sci. If you want to be a trader, do finance. Either way, it's tough to get a job from a big hedge fund (other than maybe citadel) out of undergrad if your not a math genius.</p>
<p>actually harvard as of next year is starting a new quantitative finance concentration,
its the first time they do this, its offered within the statistics department and its essentially statistics with a finance focus.</p>
<p>that said, unless you want to go into a quant heavy field like prop trading, you can major in anything in college, most i-banking and fundamental analysis requires only very minimal math, to the extent that they will teach you it on the job.</p>
<p>transferapp07, so spooky your post: just an hour ago I was surfing the websites of all the Ivies and could not find financial engr except at Columbia, Princeton (a concentration really) and Wharton. It didn't occur to me to look under stats.</p>
<p>Please help with some thoughts: my S is a freshman at Columbia SEAS, went in to study mech engr now is interested in financial engr. I am not so pleased. First of all, I look dimly at endeavours that are done for making money. But it is his life I guess. Second, I would deeply love for him to get a liberal education in the sense of an applied math or applied physics major. He is willing to do just that but wants to do minor in econ or finance. So, will applied math or applied physics work out for hedge funds etc? From your posts I gather the answer is yes. Will the financial engr kids have any advantage? My belief is math will be very versatile, can do PhD in game theory, econ, can go into artificial intelligence, cryptography, etc etc if one is burned out in finance. Your comments, please.</p>
<p>what majors for hedge fund jobs?</p>
<p>post 3 answered it. Be at target school, then do math, econ, CS, physics or finance. And get a gpa 3.5, hopefully you have a 2350 SAT score, they do ask for this. Also get a good GRE or GMAT score.</p>
<p>i dont usually do this and directly disparage other posters, but read ramaswami's posts with a bit of skepticism. she has a very definite and rigid view of things that are perhaps less well defined - its never good to impose hard rules on things that are much more flexible.</p>
<p>you absolutely do not need to major in math, econ, CS, physics or finance to go into I-banking.</p>
<p>you can major in whatever you want, I-banking is more about communication skills and basic qualitative analysis skills, you do not need extensive training in economics, math, cs etc... to work in finance after college - you can speak with any recruiter for any major firm and they will tell you this - I have heard this firsthand from recruiters at Goldman, Citi and Merrill and I am sure it is the same for other firms. </p>
<p>Of course, there are quantitative finance positions for which you do need extensive training in mathermatics, but these are only a few positions, the application and interview process for these positions is completely different from the general I-Banking interview. You will see that most banks have a "quantitative" department, and then a whole bunch of other departments, I-Banking, FICC, Investment Research, and nowadays Private Equity, among others, the only one for which you need substantial training in math, econ and/or CS is the quant dept.</p>
<p>hedge funds do tend to be more on the quantitative side but landing a job with a hedge fund right out of college, though possible, is much more difficult than working at an I-Bank, even coming from a top school. hedge funds nowadays prefer to recruit people who have finished graduate school or who already have a few years of experience working at an I-Bank.</p>
<p>what ramaswami said about top schools is indeed almost always true. it is possible to get positions at top firms coming from a lesser known college, but it is much harder - firms really do give preference to applications from the 50 or so top schools that they recruit, so you really have to stand out if you are applying from a non-recruited school.</p>
<p>naturally, there are no GPA cutoffs in any case, it all depends on what else you have done, the connections you have, how well your interview goes, but of course, the higher your GPA is, the more competitive your application, I would go further than Ramaswami and say that in this case you probably want to shoot for a GPA of 3.8+, 3.5 wouldn't cut in in most cases unless you had some other very exceptional qualities.</p>
<p>all in all, major in what you want, and do very well, even people with degrees in art history have gone on to I-banking.</p>
<p>the first 8 - 10 weeks on the job are all training, the company teaches you the skillset you need, which is basic accounting and fundamental analysis. they are not looking for people who already have the knowledge, rather, they are looking for people with good communication and analytical skills who can learn quickly and work well in groups - they'll teach you all the math you need to know when you get there.</p>
<p>Also, you DO NOT need a 2350 SAT to get a job in i-banking. They just want to see that you didn't bomb it (ie <1200 for M/CR). Generally, you should try and have at least the average SAT for an ivy (~1480ish), but having one lower won't hurt you a whole bunch. In fact, your major/school and all that are only important for getting you that first interview. The rest is totally up to you.</p>
<p>oops, totally skipped over posts #5 and #6 when reading this so I partially take back part of what I said above.</p>
<p>about hedge funds;</p>
<p>going to a hedge fund out of college is difficult if not nearly impossible.
hedge funds are mostly very quantitative and like people who have substantial background in math. actually, it helps if you have a graduate degree in math, stats etc... or if you have worked in finance for a few years.
so in general hedge funds are heavier on the quant side, although there are still positions that do not involve quant, just like everywhere else</p>
<p>going to a hedge fund out of college is almost impossible. if you look at the bigger hedge funds they only colleges they recruit from are Harvard, Yale, MIT, thats pretty much it (give or take a few schools). and even then they only take a few people every year.</p>
<p>if you compare this to I-banks, which recruit from around the top 50 schools, you can see that hedge funds are incredibly selective. </p>
<p>that said, there are plenty of smaller regional hedge funds, which still do offer very lucrative job opportunities, for which the requirements are relaxed.</p>
<p>unfortunately, I don't know as much about hedge funds as I do about I-banking and other finance related professions. I-banks are very big here, they come and do information sessions all the time, it is very easy to get to know the recruiters and ask them questions, hedge funds are much more exclusive, they only show up once in a while, and when they do they are pretty much only interested in seniors looking for full-time positions, since they do not offer summer internships, so they are not really interested in talking to a sophomore like me. if anyone has actually spoken to hedge fund recruiters in depth please do post here and provide your input</p>
<p>to ramaswami specifically,</p>
<p>applied math will definitely work out for your son, not too sure about applied physics.</p>
<p>basically there are two paths for him to take if he wants to work in a hedge fund
college --> grad school in math/cs/similar field -->hedge fund
college --> finance job for 2-3 years (not sure if it has to be quant related) --> hedge fund
business school is an optional step somewhere in here, the jury is still out on whether it is actually beneficial</p>
<p>finally there is the third less likely path of going to work in a hedge fund directly out of college, but this happens less and less nowadays</p>
<p>let him know that there are plenty of other very "sexy" opportunities besides hedge funds like I-banking, private equity, venture capital etc... which do not require an extensive quantitative background, though if he is a mathy person then perhaps grad school and then work involving lots of math is the right thing for him</p>
<p>transferapp07, ramaswami is a he. Yes, we should take everyone with a bit of skepticism but after saying I am rigid, you go on to be more rigid, ie GPA>3.8.</p>
<p>Of course, to be pithy, I summarized a somewhat extreme position. Is it possible to get in with a 3.3, yes, with SAT 2200 (for even quants) yes, is it possible out of non-target, yes. It all depends on what else you have. Heck, if you have never been to college but can show market savviness Warren Buffett has a job for you.</p>
<p>Yes, you can be in hedge funds straight out of college. In fact, a few weeks ago the Sunday New York Times did an entire article, in the business section, of why these undergrads who go to hedge funds straight out of college do not even bother to go to MBA programs.</p>
<p>In sum, for everyone out there, out of target schools you can major in art history and Sanskrit but if you have good interpersonal skills and maybe Calculus 2 you can get almost any job incl quant jobs. For all others, show superlative strengths.</p>