mattistotle

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools...les/stern3.htm

I hear a lot of people asking about average SAT rates, recruitment rates, what Stern students think of their school,what class rank they need to be, etc.

I recommend checking out the above link it has the most accurate information to those questions (such as being just about the only one with the correct SAT score)

Some things to consider:

SAT
Average 1441
Median 1450
Range (Middle 80%) From 1400
to 1500

High School performance of entering business students
Top 10% of high school class 92%
Top 25% of high school class 8%
GPA of 3.75 or higher 66%

34946 people applied to all undergraduate programs for the 2006-2007 academic year. The school accepted 28% (selectivity) of those applicants, and 36% of admitted applicants (yield) enrolled.

Of 2006 Job-seeking Graduates...
92% received their first job offer by graduation
7% received their first job offer within three months of graduation

Top 10 recruiting firms that hired the most graduates in the past academic year No. hired
Goldman Sachs Group (hell ya!, wish they had number hired though)
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Citigroup
Ernst & Young
Bank of America Corp.
Credit Suisse Group
Morgan Stanley
Merrill Lynch
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Lehman Bros.

Historic Salary Prospects for 2005 Grads (school reported)
Average base salary $ 55,000.00
Median base salary $ 54,000.00
Average signing bonus $ 8,050.00
Median signing bonus $ 7,350.00
Average other guaranteed compensation $ 23,000.00

CAREER DIRECTIONS
What percentage of 2006 graduates who accepted jobs did so in the following functional areas? Are these figures estimates based on the number of students majoring in these functional areas? No
Finance 70%
(includes corporate finance, investments, treasury and financial analysis, public finance, etc.)

303 companies recruited internship-seeking undergraduate business students on campus from June 30, 2005 to June 30, 2006
96% of internships were paid.
Average compensation per week $ 1,325.00
2810 companies posted internships for undergraduate business students on school job boards from June 30, 2005 to June 30, 2006

Maybe I can get this stickied by a moderator? I've heard these questions, or questions derived from this information, countless times in this thread, among grossly incorrect information floating around.

I'm a rising Stern junior with an internship at BlackRock (start tomorrow actually), so feel free to ask me any questions also.

6rings

so what hours are you looking at as a intern and as an associate (afterwards)?

mattistotle

Well Blackrock is an investment management firm, I work 40 hours a week, and get paid pretty well(per hour rate probably comes out better than junior level ibankers).

You become an analyst when you first graduate from college, you become an associate after 2-3 years, or after grad school (I'm not sure in investment management if your 2nd level is called associate, but it is for ibanking).

Next year I'll probably go for an ibanking internship, which is about 80 hours a week? When you become a full fledged ibanker look for 80-100 hours a week, usually towards the higher end. If I stick with investment management, and do something portfolio management wise, I'm looking for 55-60 hours a week upon graduation.

Last2AcntsBanned

Exactly what are upper level finance classes like? Are they statistics based? Calculus? both?

youkosiren

Neither? Algebra, maybe.

mattistotle

You also have to take the derivative once in a blue moon.

tima89

wow, blackrock, cograts!
How are asset management firms perceived and represented at Stern? Are they in the shade of ibanks?
Also, what kind of internships do finance students do in freshman and sophmore years? If some do work experience during the year, what is it like?

Lots of questions, but thanks in advance

mattistotle

I-banks are definitely big in Stern, and the on-campus recruiting reaffirms this. Consulting is much smaller at this school than other comparable schools. During Sophomore year every finance major wants to be an ibanker, at best a handful plan on doing anything else. As people start to get more internships, and learn more about the works, and realize what 90-100 hours a week really is like, people tend to drift away. There's almost a pathology about ibanking, and its definitely overly glamorized (everyone thinks they're going to get laid every nite, and be a millionaire by 26, when in fact many ibankers are out of a job after their 2 year stint is up).

asset management firms aren't looked down upon per se, but its more along the lines that the population doesn't dream of doing asset management in the same vain as they do with ibanking (the one exception is hedge funds, that is HUGE too here, though its hard to get into straight out of ugrad)

I was even hit by the bias, I knew blackrock was good, but I didn't realize that the exit opportunities if I worked there a few years were comparable to top ibanks, and that the compensation wasn't much less (if you turn your comp + bonus into an hour rate, it'll beat ibanking)

Freshmen year almost everyone gets crappy internships, or nothing at all ( I worked at polo ralph lauren), a handful will get something but its almost always because of connections or they are absurdly brilliant.

Sophomore year it is actually fairly hard to obtain an internship, many of my friends didn't (my friend with a 3.8 from Harvard got rejected everywhere). If you have great grades and great interview skills you can actually get an ibanking one. Blackrock recruits HEAVILY at NYU also during sophomore year also.

I definitely recommend networking. I got my job primarily because I was good friends with an upperclassmen who had the job previously and because I was going to stay on during the school year. I only had a 3.43 at the time of applying and I am pretty bad at interviewing. Definitely make friends with upperclassmen and exploit any family connections if you have them, they will open up MANY DOORS.

But overall, its really hard to get an internship before junior year, and careernet sucks (my friend worked at a ****ty real estate place and was handling hiring, she said there was 160 applications for one position that pays $10).

I hope I answered your question, but I'm pretty delirious due to lack of sleep ( going from 2pm wake up to 7am this week hasn't been that smooth, and I'm crashing from the 5 cups of coffee I had earlier) So if you want anything clarified/ any other questions just let me know.

youkosiren

Yeah, getting a formal-ish internship before summer after junior year is going to be difficult; however, I don't think that translates into Careernet sucking. The fact of the matter is that most financial services firms are not looking for sophomore interns, so anything you can find tends to be more of an office assistant type deal.

I do think having any job experience is helpful, and I did know plenty of kids freshman & sophomore year with some kind of job that paid decently. Even if it's not really related to finance, at least you can show that you can work in an office, do basic things, etc. Having money doesn't hurt either...

mattistotle

just to reiterate, youkosiren will probably agree with me....network network network.

it helps IMMENSELY getting one freshmen, sophomore years. Even though the BB's and such aren't really nepotists in regards to junior level internships, the do care about work experience (not so much because you will be knowledgeable, but more so they know you can handle heavy work load/long hours/act professional....so as youko said, feel free to do something thats not directly related to what you want)

alot of MM/boutique banks have unpaid internships you can get....you'll learn alot, and itll look great on your resume, its worth doing.

JOIN CLUBS/ACTIVITES. Leadership activities matter. During most of my interviews, we focused on EEG(I'm eboard) and roller hockey. It makes you look well rounded, and the more personality questions they give, the less technical BS you have to deal with. Plus its a good way to meet upperclassmen (remember the networking!).

mattistotle

bump it up

Master

thanks

according to wikipdia:
Admission to Stern is competitive. It is generally known that the admission rate at Stern is lower than almost every other NYU undergraduate school, with the notable exception of the Tisch School of the Arts. According to BusinessWeek, 5,587 people applied for admission at the Undergraduate College for the 2005-2006 academic year and 22.6% were admitted. Of this 22.6%, 38% matriculated. The overall NYU admission and yield rate for '05-'06 was 29.6% and 36.3%, respectively. In 2006-2007 the average SAT Score of incoming freshmen at the Undergraduate College was 1441 and the average GPA was 3.76 [11].

I guess Stern is becoming less competitive because the acceptance rate moved up from 22.6% to 28%?

mattistotle

i think the 28% refers to NYU as a whole, could be wrong though

"34946 people applied to all undergraduate programs for the 2006-2007 academic year. The school accepted 28% (selectivity) of those applicants, and 36% of admitted applicants (yield) enrolled."

guguru

Do you know of any kids majoring in Statistics, and if the classes are curved or not, since its a harder than the other stern majors (cept actuarial sci)? in addition, do most of them get more quant oriented jobs (trader) than ibanking?

mattistotle

There's no "harder" major, everything is done on a curve. The stats curve is actually easier than a lot of the other majors. Even for the math related majors, they end up studying less than the finance majors due to the curve + caliber of students. Not many people at all are stats majors.