<p>Give this a read: </p>
<p>Myth #9:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1a1
I was just thinking: since around 45% of Wharton kids go into investment banking, wouldn’t it be better for me to attend Yale, a school with fewer kids interested in ibanking and such (more focused on English, humanities). I think firms still recruit at Yale and the number of students competing for the same jobs would be smaller. Does this make any sense?</p>
<p>The fact that you are competing against more kids is balanced out by the fact that companies reserve more jobs for Wharton kids, because they know that more smart kids that are interested in them are there. They know that if they offer you a job coming out of Wharton, that kid is far more likely to take it than the kid at Yale. That’s part of the reason Wharton places so much better. Ceterius Paribus, firms will take the Whartonite over the Yalie. That’s way some firms recruit solely out of Wharton. That’s why, at essentially every bulge bracket IB firm, Wharton (at the undergraduate level) is the most represented school. That’s why international firms come to Wharton first to get their pick of prime talent. The smaller, more technical, and more elite the firm is, the higher the concentration of Whartonites will be at those jobs, and, chances are, the more likely the Whartonite is going to get the job over the HYP kid.</p>
<p>Companies are not stupid, why would they allow such a loop-hole to exist? Everyone would just take the easy route out then and the company would be overlooking arguably better talent at the larger school. No company would do that. Companies look to higher kids where they can find smart, motivated kids, who will accept their offers.</p>
<p>Think about it logically. You have two equally intelligent groups of kids, one that studied business and liberal arts courses and one that only studied the liberal arts. More kids from the first group are interested in working for you than the kids in the second group. Who would you give more job offers to? Obviously to the kids in the first group and that is precisely what happens.</p>
<p>Also remember, it is cheaper for companies to hire Whartonites because they already have their technical skills in place, which means they waste less of the higher-ups time in training. Also, Whartonites tend to be driven (which is why they choose to attend Wharton in the first place), and that is a huge draw for companies. So no, it would not be better, it would arguably be worse. </p>
<p>Here is an analogy to help elucidate the points I made above. Say you want to be an engineer and you want to choose between two equally good schools, Yale and Princeton. Now, Princeton is superior to Yale in engineering and sends way more kids to top engineering firms than Yale. But, according to the logic you used above, even though Princeton is better at engineering (and is regarded as such by top firms, some of which probably do not recruit at Yale) you should go to Yale because more people at Princeton are pursuing engineering so there is greater competition. Obviously, the firms that are recruiting take into account the amount of students interested in the firm from the school and adjust the number of offers that they hand out accordingly. This offsets the competition between students for the same jobs at Princeton. Actually, you probably have a higher chance of landing the job out of Princeton since companies know that the yield for such jobs would be greater at Princeton than at Yale (since Princetonian are more interested), so they will overcompensate for that by giving out more offers at Princeton. Plus, if you do get a job, you will have a far larger alumni network in the field to help guide you. The same is true of Wharton and Yale in banking / PE / HF / VC.</p>