Banking/Consulting from Yale?

Duecey
Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:53:52 +0000

Your concerns are overblown. Most people don’t understand the nature of Wall St campus recruiting. It’s about playing the odds and quality control.

What can employers reasonably assume about Yale grads? At the very least they’re fairly smart. That’s the quality control. But much more importantly in i-banks eyes…kids from certain schools (including Yale) are statistically likely to end up in executive positions at companies that i-banks wish to court. Or maybe Yale kids will have family/friends who will do so. That’s why Wall St recruits there.

HF’s and PE are more concerned about innate intelligence and competence, which is why they skim the cream at top schools and like non-traditional candidates. Strong networks aren’t as important to them.

Investment banks, otoh, are more concerned with your ability to network among institutional clients. That is the lifeblood of i-banks. As long as having a Yale degree helps open boardroom doors, i-banks will recruit there. You just need to have a pulse, semi-normal personality, and a reasonable gpa.

To think there is difference in intelligence between avg Yale student vs. avg Harvard/wherever student is fairly absurd and overstates the real-world importance of anything you learn in a non-tech undergrad major.