terenc

This is what I've heard:
Yes- some of the schools are semi-targets, but the distinction is not very important: the key is that what makes a school a target is the fact that the companies come to visit and pickup resumes. UVA is probably a semi-target, Berkeley non Haas and non-engineering are semi-targets (but engineering+haas I would still consider targets).

I think Northwestern is a target.

Williams/Amherst are targets, Duke is a target, U Chicago is probably a target.
I'm not sure about NYU Stern. It goes without saying that NYU Stern sends MANY people to Wall Street and finance, and its reputation is primarily in finance (due to proximity), so I suppose it could be considered a target.
Also, if you're not sure what you want to do, NYU Stern kind of pigeonholes you.

Let me add some more schools that are mostly semi-targets: Michigan, Emory, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt.

Now, going to a semi-target just means you'll have to be a little more persistent to get interview offers, and maybe have a slightly higher GPA.

waitingforivy

I know that I want to know something within business/finance, just not that I specifically want to do consulting. I think working in a hedge fund would be really exciting (for ME, I know not everyone agrees), but I'm not sure how sustainable that would be. I'm also interested in venture capitalism.

terenc

For hedge fund work and venture capital (rofl at venture "capitalism"), you would want to go into investment banking (finance). For this, NYU Stern will adequately prepare you, and you will have an advantage when it comes to getting an internship because you could do internships DURING the school year, if you were so inclined.

It is possible to enter VC through consulting, but it is hard to enter hedge funds through consulting.

I would like to add that it is difficult to get into a reputable hedge fund or venture capital firm, EVEN IF you were to work at Goldman Sachs or something like that.
For venture capital, for example, you would need experience/knowledge of the tech industry.

smorgasbord

Terenc, two questions:

1) What are the top 5 truly target schools (not semi target, but targets at their fintest), outside of the Ivies?
2) Would SMU's Cox school be a target, or W&M's business school? What about Boston College or Middlebury or UT Austin's McCombs?

lobgent

I'll be joining one of MBB this fall after having served as an intern the previous summer at the same firm. A few notes:

1) Not all the Ivies are targets for all the MBB. For instance, there have been a few years where McKinsey and Bain have not done on-campus recruiting at Dartmouth. And obviously, some of the Ivies are better for recruiting than others. One Ivy's students represented 1/5 of the undergrad interns at the MBB I was at this past summer.

2) Beyond the Ivies, there are still quite a few targets, some of which may surprise you. Stanford and MIT are both well represented at all the MBB. You'll regularly find students from Duke and NU in the MBB intern classes. Several of the flagship state universities also do well in recruiting, perhaps even better than some of the private universities with better USNWR reputations. UM-Ann Arbor, UT-Austin, UNC-Chapel Hill, and UVA regularly send students to all MBB, particularly to some of the regional, non-NYC offices they are geographically close to (think, respectively, Detroit/Chicago, Dallas/Houston, Charlotte/Atlanta, etc.).

3) I would disagree with Terenc's claim that there are no important distinctions between targets and semi-targets. The biggest distinction is that targets send 5-10 students for intern classes and 10-30 (one of MBB gave offers to 35 seniors from one target for full-time positions this past fall) for full-time positions each year, while semi-targets might send only 0-4 for intern classes and 5-8 for full-time. The key consequence of this disparity is that, as a semi-target, you have to truly be a "top student" to get into MBB. For non-targets, the bar is even higher. My colleagues this summer from non-targets were truly standouts at their respective institutions.

You still have to have decent grades and work experience coming from a target to get into MBB, but the recruiting process is much easier for targets. MBB interview 30-80 students at each target, so as long as you get the interview, your performance on the case primarily dictates whether or not you get the offer. At a non-target or semi-target, there are many fewer interview slots, so getting the interview in the first place is the biggest hurdle to getting an offer. In that sense, what you do before you apply to MBB - including networking - matters more for semi-targets and non-targets than for targets, although the case interview is still important for both groups (but I would argue, carries lesser importance for semi-targets/non-targets).

terenc

All Ivies are definitely targets. Dartmouth is especially strong in business (at least in finance, Dartmouth is right below HYP Wharton in terms of the proportion of people sent to Wall St).

angryelf

You're disagreeing with the person that's actually worked there on what basis?

I'm not really sure where you get the idea that HYP send the highest proportion of people to wall street either, but regardless, it really doesn't relate at all to management consulting.

terenc

^Generally schools that are Wall Street targets are management consulting targets as well. Both industries are prestige driven and associated with the Ivy League, with summer analyst programs and established undergrad hiring programs.

My source is http://www.dartmouth.edu/~csrc/pdfs/07stats.pdf

smorgasbord

Lobgent, that was incredibly informative. Is there a certain prestige level that comes with the territory? For example, would it be considered more prestigious to get an offer for the NYC office vs. the Houston office?

I was under the impression that the applicant pool was pretty self-selecting. I was looking at a Big 4 website not too long ago (either KPMG or Ernst & Young), and it didn't list any internships/OCR positions on its site, and instead asked you to contact your campus recruiter. Wouldn't the kid who really wants to work at KPMG be more likely to go on their site and apply versus the kid who only sent in his resume because the university career site had a direct, upload your resume and you're good to go link to the job? Or do schools, B-schools or otherwise, select their top students and send them to the recruiters?

lobgent

Not going to belabor the point, but I'll just reiterate that not all the Ivies are targets and that some state flagships are arguably better than privates for recruiting at some of MBB's regional offices. For some evidence, you can look to Bain's website, which points out that there is currently no "specific recruiting process" for Columbia or Cornell (I'm linking the page which talks about Columbia): Join Bain & Company: School welcome > Bain on your campus > Apply to Bain.

[Also, the link terenc posted is for the Class of 2007, which graduated into the best economy in the last six years - a time when firms could afford to hire huge analyst classes. When the financial crisis hit, MBB downsized their on-campus recruiting programs, abandoning formal processes at several semi-targets. If you look at the report for Dartmouth's Class of 2010, for instance, you'll notice neither BCG nor McKinsey is represented on the top employers list, although Bain and Oliver Wyman are: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~csrc/pdfs/10stats.pdf.]

Smorgasbord: Depends on how you define prestige. A plurality of students are gunning for spots in the major cities, so if by "prestigious" you mean "competitive," then I think it would be fair to say that some of the big offices have an edge in that arena (though I would mention that the bigger offices also tend to hire more people, so in the end, getting the one spot in the small, regional office might actually be harder). Also, if you're looking to exit MBB into a financial services gig, then yes, it might have been better to spend two years as an analyst in New York than in Houston. But that's not so much related to prestige as to the fact that you're much more likely to be interacting with banks as clients in New York than in Houston, where energy is king. Furthermore, clients (and the general public) will simply look at you as an MBB employee, not an MBB-(insert city) employee. The prestige of the firm will follow you whichever office you're affiliated with. This is particularly true in consulting, where you'll be away from your office 4 days out of 5 anyway.

Not sure what you mean by the point about self-selection?

smorgasbord

Don't the kids who want to work at MBB apply by actually going to their website and filling out separate forms versus the kids who use a Common App-like school career site to apply to several jobs at once? It's like someone applying to Georgetown and taking extra time to work on a separate application instead of just hitting 'submit' on the Common App.

lobgent

Many of the top consulting firms (and investment banks, for that matter) require applicants at target schools to submit a separate application through the company's website. One of the reason firms do this is to discourage exactly the kind of haphazard resume-dropping you're alluding to, although I'm sure it still happens a lot, since the online application process is not exactly a high "barrier to entry," if you will.

terenc

@lobgent: Fair enough, but also consider that companies are ramping up hiring such that the class of 2015 and 2016 will more likely than not be graduating into a stable, growing economy.

Even considering that Bain, for example, does not have a dedicated process for Columbia (assuming this means no on-campus interviews?), I think it is misleading to call these schools "non-target," because it has a connotation of "difficult to break into MBB." If you have a good GPA from Columbia and you submit an application online, you almost certainly WILL get an interview. Whereas at a "true" non-target university like... UC Riverside or something, you probably won't even get an interview even if you had a 4.0

angryelf

Terenc
You haven't even started college yet.
You have absolutely no work experience.

It's bad enough that you are giving people "advice". The fact that you are arguing with people who have actually worked in the field you are discussing is even worse.
It's great that you're trying to help out, but repeating things you read on WSO as fact is probably not your best move.

smorgasbord

I doubt this entirely true; there are impressive people everywhere.