Which is better: elite program at a so-so school or elite school with a so-so program?

College Search & Lists
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If you can get into Ivy League schools, you can most likely get into the BHP at UT Austin (even though I know countless people accepted to Ivy’s without BHP). Calling UT a so-so school is flat ignorant.

UT has great connections to investment banks, specifically BHP, which has a 100% employment rate after college. It is actively recruited by companies in the league of Goldman Sachs.

I’d go to the school that offers you the best financial package. There’s no point of paying 150k more to a private school for the sole reason of having more connections. The schools you’ve listed are elite in their fields and will give you close to equal opportunities in their fields.

For UT computer science, I was at an information session yesterday. The average starting salary is 80k in the Austin area and 100k+ in the Bay Area. Countless students get internships at google, Microsoft, apple, their FRESHMAN year. A lot of that has to do with them being a top 10 CS school. Just like UT McCombs is a top 10 business school, you’d be offered similar opportunities.

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^ I believe UT-Austin would be OOS for him.
Cal would be the economical choice.
The big hold-up there is that Haas isn’t guaranteed.

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@Alexandre , it depends on what you mean by “elite”. some industries, rightly or wrongly, are lazy and tend to focus schools that have done their screening for them. On Wall Street, “elite” doesn’t mean which school is churning out the most research or has the best telescopes. For that crowd, “elite” means you attended a school that is very hard to get into and has a big name.

That’s where the Texas and the Illinois of the world lose a little traction. Still, very good schools, but the student body at Dartmouth is going to be a cut above what you find at those places.

On the basis of academia and things that are not directly related to the undergraduate experience, I can’t think of a better school anywhere than Cal, and that’s coming from a Stanford guy. They practically invented chemistry and their graduate schools are top flight pretty much across the board. There may be no greater “university” in the world. Yet, Stanford is a hell of a lot harder to get into, and the students there survived a tougher cut than they did at Cal, particularly if they were in-state.

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FWIW, I don’t think there are simple “Cut and Dry” answers to your questions. If you’re smart and work hard you’re going to get where you want to go regardless of whether your undergraduate education is perfectly “lined up”.

Remember, too, that you think you know what you want to do now. That can, and likely will, change. That’s where I hedge my bets.

FWIW, I seem to recall that in the field of accounting, UIUC is consistently ranked at or near the top. But, then again, it doesn’t matter because the best place to start off after college in that career path is at one of the Big 4 (5 if you count Moss Adams), and, believe me when I tell you this, it really and truly doesn’t matter where you study accounting. Unlike the law, the accounting world really just doesn’t care … there are kids at Seattle’s E&Y office with accounting degrees from Western Washington University … a lot of them.

But, as I said elsewhere, if you want to be recruited by Goldman, JPM, or one of the consulting firms, then perceptions matter, and prestige and selectivity matter.

If I were in you shoes and thought I wanted to be an iBanker, but also aware of the reality of MiddelburyDad2’s advice, I’d go to the top school among my choices that I could afford, and by “top” I would not focus on this or that department too heavily. I would also not major in business as an undergraduate. I’d major in econ and/or math. That’s the path I’d take based on what is approaching a long career in corp. fin., law, M&A, and private equity.

PS: there are also schools that are great at getting kids placed on Wall Street outside the Ivy League, Stanford or Duke. Lehigh and BC send tons of kids there, and of the LACs, Middlebury, W&L, Davidson and Williams send quite a few also. Of course, Vassar, Bowdoin, Amherst, Wesleyan, Pomona, Claremont, Carlton and others will get you there too, but my very general observation is that those kids tend to want to go on to other things. My litmus is, “where does Goldman interview on campus?” I know that firm very well. They are not an easy group to access. If Goldman interviews on your campus, that will tell you quite a bit, because they don’t get more particular than Goldman Sachs.

One more thing. This comment, “because UT Austin is more known [than Dartmouth” in business," is not true. There are people at Tuck who would take issue with that comment. :slight_smile: No, not at all the case. Tuck was founded 117 years ago as the first graduate school of management. No, whatever Texas has to offer, it’s not “more known” or better than Dartmouth in business.

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It’ll be interesting to see if I get an answer here: are any of the people who are posting things like “you can get into investment banking from _______ or ________” actually experienced in the real world to say that?

have you, those posters, had a career that involved working with these firms?

I often wonder how much people on this forum actually know as opposed to what they hear. I try and qualify when something is just part of my general understanding or impression, rather than based on my experience.

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@MiddleburyDad2

I can speak for internship recruiting (which is very connected to full-time recruiting).

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@yikesyikesyikes , yes, indeed it is. I wish when kids posted these questions that people would be clear about their level of expertise. Maybe it’s the lawyer in me … I don’t give advice on areas outside my focus even when I’m confident I know the answer. :wink:

but I think it’s hard to sell the idea that you’re an expert in financial aid, large schools, small schools, engineering tracks, med. school admissions tracks, iBank tracks, management tracks, law school admissions tracks, etc.

even @Hanna and the handful of other TRULY expert opinions about admissions-related or other actual college information, there’s a limit to what they can know about how all this translates out there in the real world. I notice posters in that group, in general, tend to be more circumspect in their comments when the subject wanders too far from their area. seeing it, generally understanding it and passing on generalized information is one thing, as long as you’re clear about it. I think it’s dangerous and irresponsible to pass on advice as an expert unless you really have the experience to back it up.

iBanking is particularly tricky. as you know, it really depends on the bank, and all of them, as a group, operate differently than many other professional firms.

law, I can tell you definitively, is a prestige-focused profession. there are law firms that will not interview you if you hail from a school outside the top 10, absent some special circumstance. so for that kid, yeah, you tell him/her, go to the highest ranked law school you can get into unless you want to have limited choices. rightly or wrongly, it actually does matter. you’re not going to work for Cravath if you graduated from law school at the University of Montana. it’s just not going to happen.

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MiddleburyDad, I did not say that Texas and UIUC were world beaters in every single way. I said they are elite universities. To suggest that they are merely “so-so” is just not true.

“But, as I said elsewhere, if you want to be recruited by Goldman, JPM, or one of the consulting firms, then perceptions matter, and prestige and selectivity matter.”

It is not that straight forward. Schools like Brown, Chicago and Yale are e prestigious and extremely selective, yet not exactly known to be heavy weights in terms of Wall Street placement. When it comes to Wall Street placement, McCombs is solid. Not on par with Wharton, but still well recruited. UIUC is not well recruited by Wall Street firms, but that does not make it any less elite.

http://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/2015/02/04/the-top-feeder-schools-to-wall-street/2/

The link above is not necessarily 100% accurate, but it nevertheless relatively telling.

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@Alexandre: “Schools like Brown, Chicago and Yale are e prestigious and extremely selective, yet not exactly known to be heavy weights in terms of Wall Street placement.”

Actually, they are.

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Yale and Chicago are NOT a heavyweight with Wall Street placement ???
Au contraire!

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Jon Corzine, CEO of Goldman in the 1990’s, and Philip Purcell, CEO of Morgan Stanley from 1997 to 2005, are both U of Chicago MBA. So is Brady Dougan, CEO of Credit Sussie First Boston. Peter Peterson is founder of Blackstone Group. Jon Ruberstein is founder of the Carlye Group. Both have U of Chicago degree. Indeed back when I was in U of C GSB in the 1980’s, there was certainly heavy recruiting from Wall Street firms. Barry Zubrow led the Goldman recruitment effort at U of C and he later became the Head of Operation and Administration at Goldman.

Yes, these are just a few more prominent examples and I have no detailed figures about all Wall Street firms and hedge funds employees educational background. Still I would hate to think that U of Chicago is a lightweight on Wall Street.

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^ Corzine also happens to be a UIUC grad. Calling Texas and Illinois “So-So” is very elitist. Few schools, even many of the ivy league schools, can match UIUC and UT-Austin when it comes to research and innovation. Also, as someone pointed out, those in the know (i.e. academia) rank these schools as elite when it comes to peer reputation.

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PurpleTitan and menloparkmom, please feel free to share actual data that proves that Brown, Chicago and Yale are heavyweights a la Wharton, Harvard, Stern, Ross, McDonough etc…at undergraduate placement into Wall Street firms. And please keep in mind that I am not saying that Wall Street firms do not respect or recruit effectively on those campuses, I am merely saying that they are not heavyweights…that recruitment by Wall Street firms on those three campuses does not match their prestige or selectivity levels.

85bears46, we are talking undergraduate education. There is no doubt that Chicago’s MBA program, now known as Boothe, is a heavyweight in the world of finance. I have seldom seen a Finance ranking that does not have Boothe ranked among the top 2 or graduate programs in the nation. But undergraduate placement is not on the same level. Corzine is a UIUC alumnus, Purcell is a Notre Dame almnus, Peterson is a Northwestern alumnus, David (not Jon) Ruberstein is a Duke alumnus, and Zubrow is a Haverford alumnus. Only Dougan of CS First Boston has an undergraduate degree from Chicago.

I do not believe that at the undergraduate level, Chicago is a heavy weight in terms of Wall Street placement. That does not diminish its standing as one of the top 10 universities on the planet. I am a big admirer of the University of Chicago.

But let us not change topics here. Brown, Chicago and Yale receive more than their fair share of admiration CC, and rightly so. They are remarkable universities. We are here to confirm that Texas and UIUC are also elite, and not merely “so-so schools”.

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I’ll give my take on the Comp Sci example. If a school is known for having a strong engineering program overall, all the major tech companies will recruit there even if the CS department isn’t ranked as highly as its other programs. So if you want a job straight out of undergrad, the school might be more important. If you want to go to grad school, having a strong CS program might be more important. If you want to pursue a Phd, you really want somewhere that allows you to perform undergraduate research under a professor well known in their field.

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@Alexandre maybe we are struggling with semantics. I think there’ room between “so so” and “elite”.

I reserve elite for schools like Chicago. I would not describe Texas as “elite”. Not that this matters at all.

I also think you misunderstood or misinterpreted my comment about prestige and selectivity.

Obviously Texas and UiUc are terrific schools.

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“maybe we are struggling with semantics. I think there’ room between “so so” and “elite”.”

True enough. With over 2,000 institutions of higher learning, and no prescribed setup or standards, it is clear that there is much room for interpretation. Either way, referring to Texas and UIUC as merely so-so is misleading.

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@MiddleburyDad2

Lets see about that:

Dartmouth College - 4,300 undergrads:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=403
ACT Score: 30-34
SAT Score (no writing): 1330-1560

UIUC College of Business - 3,000 undergrads:
https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/profile
ACT Score: 28-32
SAT Score (no writing): 1320-1460

UT McCombs - 4,700 undergrads:
https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/Career-Services/Statistics/Student-Demographics
No ACT reported
Average SAT: 1315

You are right!!!

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^^ UIUC is better known for its COE (stats easily comparable to Dartmouth’s) than its B-school

ACT score : 31-34
SAT score : SAT Score (no writing): 1400-1530

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@ANormalSeniorGuy

Neither of the rankings I cited consider sports or location in their methodology. The QS methodology can be found [url=https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings/methodology]here[/url], and the THE ranking methodology can be found [url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/methodology-world-university-rankings-2016-2017#survey-answer]here[/url].

I’d like to point out, as I have before, that U.S. News started ranking universities to sell magazines. Their sales were flagging when they started ranking universities and they were hoping the ranking would help them move units. That alone doesn’t mean that their rankings are invalid - and I’m certainly not arguing that they are more or less valid than THE or QS. What I am saying, though, is that U.S. News has a vested interest in their rankings reflecting what people already believe about colleges and universities in the U.S. Their methodology is filled with proxy variables that favor private universities that select wealthy, high-scoring students. For example, such as the percentage of students who return for their sophomore year and the percentage of alumni who give to the university. They offer that these are good proxies for student satisfaction, but the truth is (especially at public universities) there are so many more reasons why a student might not return for their second year or give money.

When I make those statements on these forums, it’s usually based on published data or knowing personally of people who have made it to the desired job from a named school or a peer school. In this case, it’s demostrably factual that “[one] can get to investment banking from UT-Austin,” as they have [url=https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/BBA/Career-Services/BBA-Statistics#profile-BBA-Full-Time-Profile]data[/url] on their website that reflects that. 12% of UT-Austin’s BBA graduates go into investment banking (and a further 27% go into consulting). UIUC says that 30% of their undergraduate business graduates go into “financial services,” which I assume includes both investment banking and commercial banking as well as other assorted finance-related careers.

The question of whether going somewhere like Emory or WUSTL makes you more likely to go into investment banking is a different one, but one that doesn’t seem to be true. Emory says 27% of Goizueta BBA graduates go into financial services. Similarly, WUSTL says that about 24% of their students go into “financial services”, with only 9% of that being investment banking. If you add UT’s financial services + ibanking + commercial banking, you get about 24%, which isn’t significantly different from Goizueta’s, WUSTL’s or UIUC’s totals, and 12% isn’t necessarily significantly different from 9% (by which I mean the difference could be due to yearly fluctuation and not an actual difference).

There’s a third question, of whether going somewhere like Emory or WUSTL makes you more likely to go into banking on Wall Street than UIUC or UT-Austin. That may very well be true. Only about 16% of UIUC’s grads in finance work outside of Illinois (specific region isn’t given); the figure is about 22% for UT, with only 6% going to the Northeast. About 19% of WUSTL graduates and a whopping 45% of Emory graduates end up in the Northeast. I think it’s safe to say that the difference between the single-digit amounts and WUSTL’s and Emory’s much bigger amounts are about something more than chance (although whether that chance is ability to get in or desire to stay closer to home is debatable.)

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FWIW, “Financial Services” can mean branch management or a host of other bank functions that are not high paying or particularly interesting.