<p>cleverthinkin,</p>
<p>To answer your question, what I liked about the Northwestern students over those at Wharton (this is, of course, simply a generality) was their well-roundedness. Yes, we like mathematically talented students because they demonstrate logical and analytical thinking. However, the math itself is generally useless, or close to it, in most subsets of finance.</p>
<p>It seemed to me that Northwestern students engage in a lot of extracurricular activities around Chicago, including community service and interesting groups on campus, politics, what have you. Wharton students seem generally focused narrowly on business and their activities follow suit. At Blackstone we do value a commitment to finance; however, beyond showing this commitment we like to hire people with whom we would enjoy working and who have done interesting things. So to answer your question, I thought that students in the MMSS and Kellogg programs (where it seemed many of the qualified candidates lay) had a lot of interesting experiences in addition to their demanding coursework: academic and otherwise.</p>