wavylays94

I plan on majoring either in Economics or in International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College, and I was wondering whether the school's grads can get jobs on Wall Street, assuming that they perform well.

Any insight?

iChris

Middlebury College does not put you on Wall Street - you put yourself on Wall Street.

-Confucius

wavylays94

I suppose I should reshape the question..

Is Middlebury College well-connected and prestigious enough to get kids in the top b-schools, internships and jobs to work on Wall Street?

wavylays94

I suppose the best way to ask is: is Middlebury a "target" school for some of the financial institutions?

elbeedubalum

It's not a target, but you can do it.

urbanslaughter

Elbeedubalum, I'm not sure what you mean when you say it's not a target for some financial institutions. Wall street firms are big recruiters at Midd and the school practically shovels kids into the Tuck School at Dartmouth.

urbanslaughter

Also important to note that the former CEO of Lehman Brothers was on the Midd board of trustees and that the list of Goldman higher ups is well-populated with Midd alums. There's a lot more to add to this, but my point is still that I don't know what you mean when you say it's not a target.

kissmeimnotirish

Yes. +1 for iChris

muckdogs07

Urbanslaughter,

Lol, the person you are talking about is Dick Fuld (former Lehman CEO and Midd), one of the most reviled and disgraced leaders on Wall Street in a generation. This is a bit like Duke law bragging about Richard Nixon. I would suggest touting other Midd role models on Wall Street.

kissmeimnotirish

Nixon was a brilliant guy, give him credit. Of course there were some issues with him... paranoia and insanity, but c'mon...

emprex

I've heard mixed opinions about middlebury. It seems that a few banks do recruit there but generally most of the students are not interested in ibanking which is why there are few to no banks. I do know that middlebury is a feeder for top MBA programs(or so I've read). Take this all with a grain of salt. You should contact your OCR services or see if any alumni are working on WS.

urbanslaughter

Muckdogs, Fuld's actions do nothing to detract from my point that Midd is, in fact, a target school. To ignore Fuld and his role on Wall Street would be like USC ignoring OJ and his role in football. His actions may qualify him as a despicable individual, but he was still a Hall of Fame football player.

sanguinity

There are a few distinct advantages of going to Midd over some other schools if you want to get into Wall Street.

-Low competition. Simply put, not that many kids want to do it. And most of the kids that are interested in finance are woefully unprepared because there isn't a finance major and there isn't a significant culture. Although Harvard/Wharton get a lot more recruiting from a lot more banks, there's intense competition for those slots. If you're willing to self study through interview guides and finance textbooks, the lower competition at Middlebury can make it easier.
-Strong presence on street, loyal alumni. Midd is still well represented; Goldman and Morgan Stanley both target Midd kids and take a few each year (Goldman has something like 3-5 partners, 10-15 Managing Directors; quite some presence for such a small school!), and there are plenty of alums at various firms you can network and develop relationships with.
-Solid reputation.

If you're at Midd (well this can apply for any school) and want to get an investment banking gig, you should
1. major in something quantitative. econ works but that's an incredibly popular major; if you can do math+econ you can stand out more
2. get reallly good grades. 3.4, 3.5 is usually the cutoff, but 3.7+ is what you want
3. play a sport. preferably varsity, but banks and midd alums like athletes
4. get leadership positions. this kind of speaks for itself
5. join finance club
6. freshman year, try to cold email/cold call your way into some kind of finance summer internship or job. wealth management is the usual thing. This is optional; it'll set you up well but it's not totally necessary to do something summer after freshman year. Maybe just get a part time job or something more casual and go traveling and enjoy yourself more.
7. it's possible to get banking experience sophomore summer year but usually you'll have to cold email/cold call your way to it, as most formal programs are for diversity. again, try to get something finance related. Definitely need to get something here. Also time to work on your resume.
8. junior year is crunch time. during your rising junior summer, you need to start networking hard, contacting alumni and developing relationships. hopefully you can leverage some of those relationships into having them send your resume to HR or whatever, and get you an interview. This process depends on whether your school is targeted by your alum's firm or not. For example, Goldman recruits from Midd. So there's a special resume drop for midd kids, the resumes from midd get put together, and are distributed to people at goldman. They'll filter through and select who gets a first round interview. Networking is important here because it's usually alums looking at these resumes and having a face with the name and a prior relationship obviously gives you an advantage. On the flip side, take Citi. It does not recruit at Midd. Your options for getting a job there are either dropping your resume through an online drop where, unless you are truly rockstar, it will probably not be looked at. If however, you developed a good relationship with an alum at Citi, he might offer to back you and get your resume through.
9. study your ass off for interviews. this is more important than your classes.
10. get a summer analyst gig at a bank, do a good job, get return offer. if you don't get a summer analyst internship at a big bulge bracket, you should still be able to get some boutique experience or join some corporate finance/development program.
11. if you don't get return offer or want to switch firms, time to start networking and apply again for full time positions.

urbanslaughter

Sanguinity, since you're current student you'd probably have a better idea than I would. But based on how many of my friends went on to Wall Street, I find it hard to believe that not many kids are interested in finance. If that's the case now, then things have really changed and I couldn't be happier. So many other/better things to do with your life.

sanguinity

There's definitely still strong interest, and it actually feels like it's gone up in the past year. However, it obviously doesn't compare to a place like Wharton/Harvard/Stern. Preparation is also an issue for a lot of students as well.