<p>Any of these have a clear advantage over the other in terms of area, recruiting, etc., or are any differences in those regards minimal?</p>
<p>just go where you can get the highest GPA. that’s pretty much it, provided you aren’t a complete social idiot.</p>
<p>I appreciate the input moss; although it’s hard for me to judge actually which school would allow me the highest GPA. So is there really no difference between the three? In that case I guess I would opt for the one with the shortest commute.</p>
<p>Pretty much. I’d evaluate the campus, student body, professors, etc. Go to a school where you think you will get the best education and highest GPA. Since the schools you are attending aren’t as “recognized,” you will need to make up for it in GPA and extracurricular activities. Aim to get a 3.7+ and be in a leadership position at some society and you should be good.</p>
<p>Since there are so many candidates now looking for jobs in public accounting, the only real criteria that we use to measure success at the firm is GPA/aptitude and social skills/likability.</p>
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<p>I hear where you go to school doesn’t matter for accounting job placement. Only your GPA matters in getting interviews. Also, isn’t there a large demand in accounting field and it’s relatively easy to get a job as an accountant? For example, I would be willing to bet that it is much easier to get a job at Big4 than in I-banking or management consulting</p>
<p>Ibanking and consulting battle for the best and the brightest. So do accounting firms. </p>
<p>In my experience, you enter undergrad aiming for a certain field and you strive to be the best student in that field. I haven’t met many people who were ambiguous as to what their post-college goals were that ended up meeting those goals. You can’t want to be an ibanker, and if that doesn’t work out, be an consultant, and if that doesn’t work out, an accountant. It just doesn’t work that way in undergrad. You aim for a position/field and you do everything that you can to make it happen. </p>
<p>As such, I don’t think there is much overlap in competing for the same talent pool among ibanking/consulting/accounting firms since most students have a good idea of where they want to go and therefore, focus their efforts among those firms - at least that’s what they should be doing if they want to be successful at recruiting. The students who aim to be all of the above eventually fall out of the pool because they essentially just suck and none of the firms want them.</p>
<p>In addition, accounting firms are not going to just hand out offers to Joe Idiot just because they need someone to fill positions. There has to be consensus among the team that this person can perform at a high level and the only realistic indicator of that is GPA and outside activities + social skills.</p>
<p>Accounting firms are also large turnover factories. You need to keep the pipeline running to fill people’s shoes as there has been especially high turnover in the senior to early manager level as the economy is rebounding. So to keep up with the higher demand to fill positions, large firms will recruit and interview at many more schools and select the best candidates at each school. </p>
<p>Ibanking/consulting on the other hand hire for less positions and therefore have the ability to be very selective about what schools they recruit at and who they recruit, which makes it more competitive.</p>
<p>Yeah, slots for I-banking analyst jobs are very scarce, and many kids fail to realize that. For Lazard IBD, I know they hired less than 10 people last year for analyst positions in NYC, and 2 people in Chicago, and like 3 people in LA. Since the slots are so scarce, it is very tough to break in.</p>
<p>I disagree about your point about how undergrads only focus on one specific career track. At my school, I knew many people who were bouncing around heading to law vs medical school, casting a ‘wide’ net and applying to both banking and consulting shops, and changing major from Econ to Computer Science to get more job opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>For most kids nowadays, they can’t 100% bank on one career track and wish it will happen. You gotta have back-up plans and be flexible about career possibilities. If you are only set on breaking into BB IBD or S&T in this economic climate, all I will say is good luck.</p>