Undergrad business programs?

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Thanks. I will ask S to research and keep in mind those “reserved spots” in advancing his list.

He has friends at SMU and the social environment is not attractive to him (excess wealth showiness + absolute necessity of frats, according to S and his friends there). Also their undergrad business program is 4 years and tough to transfer into; many of the others have 2 or 3 year business programs or combine within liberal arts education, which would be less disadvantageous in transferring credits from existing school.

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Thanks Publisher.

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Keep an open mind. Frats are not a necessity - only about a third of kids are in a fraternity.

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@Publisher Thanks again for all of the help so far.

In terms of career preparation and prospects, how would the following compare with my S’s list? Any meaningful differences?
-TCU (but is it socially too much like SMU? Ie 50% frats)
-FSU
-S Carolina
-NC State
-Texas A&M
-Maryland College Park
-Bama
-Tennessee

Our sense is these are more “regional” schools leading mostly to regional non-finance opportunities (other than with say Big 4 accounting and implementation consulting) unless you are in top 10-15 students in class of 800+, while the ones on his list have broader national opportunities for those in the top 20% of their graduating class. All educated guesses though.

Also, do you know if it is possible to combine business programs with Honors College smaller classes and do those have better outcomes?

I know they are overbroad and unfair questions, so only looking for directional/ball park indications from you and others with some actual knowledge here.

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If it were me, I’d do personal interviews / research.

Looking at one school on your list as an example (you can do for each on your list), Alabama, they started the Investment banking Academy ten years ago. But it’s only for first and 2nd years. Will that be an issue elsewhere - too late to partake in activities?

They also have the Culverhouse Investmebt Research group. Not sure if the requirements but you can look up.

On LinkedIn, I easily found 3 recent grads in NY - Lazard, Morgan Stanley, Solomon Partners.

Yes, some here will say the titles are or may be false but no one truly knows that but the kids themselves. And perhaps my search is off as your student may desire different duties but you can certainly change the search criteria and do as I did.

Why not have your student reach out to these students and see if they can get an informational interview? And also contact students currently on the program to get their perspective on opportunities through the school - even if you can’t take part in a certain group. I put a link below.

Then rinse and repeat for each school you mentioned.

This way your student is hearing from the kids today.

There are too many opportunities/roles/jobs for any individuals to know in absolutes - so if it were me, I’d do a deep dive with alums and school clubs/opportunities each school offers.

As for Honors, in my experience (not financial jobs) it has minimum impact. There’s not even a place to write it on job apps. You should do it for either the experience you get day to day or because certain clubs/trips require it (like for my daughter to have done a DC Semester).

I suspect your student will learn more from recent grads and current students who see the future at their schools than others.

Good luck.

https://www.uaiba.org/current

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@gablesdad I will defer to the opinions of others although what I am experiencing as the CEO of a top 20 CIB is not consistent. Perhaps I am mistaken in what I am observing and it is better to rely on LinkedIn, recent analyst hires, and university marketing material.

DM me if I can answer specific questions.

Just to be clear this is what I posted up thread.

Good luck.

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I will add it is odd to me when some people assert the importance of personal experience and diminish “one off” results on some threads yet diminish the importance of personal experience and highlight one offs on another.

Personally I trust those with first hand experience and broad data sets but we are all entitled to opinions.

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Catcher is being polite.

A compensation analyst at Goldman Sachs will have title “analyst” and show Goldman as the employer on LinkedIn. Entirely accurate.

But this early career professional is NOT on track for a career in M&A, and is not an I-banker despite working at an investment bank.

It is orders of magnitude easier to get hired as a comp analyst at Goldman vs. an analyst role on the I-banking track. Competitive? Absolutely. But much easier. Do they care where you went to college? Yes. Is the target list of schools as narrow as it is for other roles? No.

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Agreed.

I am irritated by this situation, and cannot find a nonsnarky helpful thing to say. So I haven’t said anything.

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@blossom - every example I’ve ever given says Investment Banking Analyst or Incoming Investment Banking Analyst. Not Analyst (generic). These are from many firms - not just the big name firms.

Nobody - not a single person - knows with absolutes what these people are doing. Are they all lying on their linkedin?

I suggested that OP’s student finds some at each school (via linkedin) as most these schools have recent hires and reach out for an informational interview. Seems perfectly reasonable. They can find out what exactly they are doing and the path it took to get there.

And many, if not most schools, have these academies or other relevant types of groups and I suggested OP reach out to kids in those too -to get their thoughts on possible future opportunities.

There’s not a single person that knows all - but that’s what these discussions always come down to - a few people - say this is the only way and everyone on linked in who’s not from a “target” school is lying.

OP’s son doesn’t even want the traditional IB jobs - as he’s noted up thread.

Doing one’s homework, talking to current and recent students who have launched, seems a perfectly reasonable step to take - IMHO of course.

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@tsbna44 you know I like your posts, and you often have useful and helpful advice. In this instance, though, we have to stipulate that you have no experience in this field.

Usually, for the many threads where I have no direct experience, I refrain from offering advice. So you will never see a post of mine on an engineering thread! Or computer science, or many others.

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I’m assuming that all future posts on this thread will be directed to the OP, rather than trying to get the last word in an OT debate.

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Hear, hear!

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@gablesdad

hoping you keep this thread going with what you learn. I think there are a lot of people who’d be interested.

like the suggestion of SMU in terms of relative admissions competitiveness and sneaky good pipeline to Wall Street. if junior is pretty serious about this, I’d encourage him to look past things like frats, rich kid culture, etc. it’s temporary and doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. nice campus and you can do worse than Dallas in Texas. not my favorite place, but it’s amazing what you can put up with when you’re young.

you have some plugged in people in this thread with very relevant authority on the subject.

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@cquin85 @Catcherinthetoast @blossom @Publisher Thoughts on TCU Neely for two-year undergrad business program?

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@gablesdad sorry I missed this. Not exactly an expert on this one and would really defer to @Catcherinthetoast , particularly if your son has designs on finance / banking career in one of the main money centers in the US, particularly in the east.

TCU is a school I don’t know too much about, except for a few things. For one, it has a following. There are people, especially in Texas and in that region of the country, who view it as a pretty elite place. Of course, that rep isn’t going to extend into New England or California, but where it has a rep it has always come across to me as pretty strong. For another, my impression is that it’s also a connection school in the way that USC and SMU are connection schools. Speaking generally, what I mean by that term is schools that are unapologetic about their alumni connections being front and center as a reason to attend. That was really true of USC’s rep in the days before its academic rep really started to climb. Even though everyone on the West coast knew UCLA was harder to get into and had a better academic rep, proud USC was still proud USC. TCU in my limited travels in that part of the country has that. I don’t mean it as a knock. Quite the opposite.

It also shows up on a few IB feeder school lists as a semi-semi-target. I don’t think quite as well worn a path to Wall Street as SMU, which I would think is otherwise comparable academically, but it does show up which means there are alumni on the Street. That matters, especially for schools in that tier that aren’t going to make hiring managers automatically think “brilliant” in the way MIT does.

So, yeah, if he’s looking for undergraduate business and TCU otherwise makes sense, I’m sure there are all kinds of opportunities for those grads, including perhaps a Wall Street opportunity. Obviously you know there are stronger feeder schools for IB, but they do show up, albeit on the lower end.

If he wants Big 4, I’ll just say what I always say and that is that they pretty much don’t care where you went to school. They like some schools over others - so, in Seattle, UW is the clear preference - but they need accountants so desperately that they pull them from everywhere. And I continue to believe that accounting is a very fine way to break into finance and industry for those coming from non-elite backgrounds.

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How about SMU Econ with Finance Major in College vs Cox? Any difference in terms of outcomes, cohort or otherwise?

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Undergraduate - Employment Outcomes - SMU Cox School of Business

Why Major in Economics? - Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences SMU

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