Getting into Wall St. firms from Georgia Tech?

InPursuit
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 15:47:14 +0000

@lmao2018 Bulge bracket firms recruit at Tech and the type of person who would get recruited from Dartmouth likely won’t have much trouble getting recruited from Tech. It will take more leg work since Tech is further from NYC and there are fewer interview slots, but there is also far less interest among Tech students in finance and Tech alumni are very helpful, so it’s not like it’s some fierce competition to land interviews. If the OP comes to Tech, gets involved, does well academically, and puts a respectable effort into networking and pursuing internship opportunities, the OP is not going to having trouble finding a job in finance, including at bulge bracket firms. It’s not like Tech is some non-target school where people have to go find an interview solely through networking. There are recruiting processes established and current students and Alumni who are happy to help fellow Yellow Jackets get to where they want to go.

The regional and MM places like SunTrust and Duff & Phelps allow people to practice IB in the south. There is no BB presence here, so these are the top places in the region. Sure, they’re comparatively smaller and far less prestigious places to go, but there is a lot of money to be made outside of NYC, and the money goes much further down here.

I have no clue if the “top quant firms” recruit at Tech and you have implied that you don’t know either, but I do know that the average starting salaries and placement stats for grads from Tech’s program are comparable with just about anywhere: https://quantnet.com/mfe-programs-rankings/ Regardless, these are grad programs, and the OP could get into these programs or a top MBA programs after pursuing an undergraduate degree either school being considered.

Regarding “long term earnings,” high finance certainly offers the opportunity to earn millions a year, but the vast majority of IB analysts will never make it to that level. As you noted, analyst positions are 2-year stints. Some people will stay with their bank as associates and some will leave to pursue an MBA or go onto PE and HF positions. Of those, they would still need to continue to moving up several levels before they started to earn in the millions, and that just doesn’t work out for most of them because there are a limited number of positions at the top of all of these places. And of course a good chunk will leave high finance altogether after their first few years. Working as an IB analyst is a great place to start a career and most of the kids getting these positions won’t have much trouble landing somewhere where they will make several hundred grand a year if that’s what they want. That’s a lot of course, but there are many other ways to earn similar levels of compensation, including management consulting, public accounting, software development at the top tech firms, certain specialties within medicine, mid to upper level executive positions at Fortune 500 companies, etc…

Not related to helping the OP, and this is unfortunately going to come off as a bit preachy from someone you don’t know, but comments like “I don’t think anyone here can provide you much clarity” make you come off as either immature or aloof, or both. It’s not a good look. The OP got into both Tech and Dartmouth and with some hard work and self-awareness will likely be very successful. The difference is not going to be Tech vs. Dartmouth. Both schools leave the door into finance open.