you’re talking about HF mgrs like jack meyer… right? who left harvard to start his own HF, which i imagine harvard is invested in (i imagine it wasnt hard for jack to find people to invest in his fund if harvard didnt give him anything though). its interesting actually… harvard essentially enforced salary caps for their own managers (apparently the donators didnt appreciate those high salaries), and seem to be boasting about it in that article… but their endowment invests in HFs which charge outrageous fees which pay the managers that left harvard in order to make what they were worth on the free market? i wonder how much of the endowment harvard manages internally vs what they invest w/ HF… they were in sowood which was an ex-HMCer… right?
Just to follow up with a few thoughts/facts: - I flipped through our analyst facebook and I’d say that fewer than 50% of analysts came from an ivy league school, although there are 2-3 from princeton and 3-4 from top liberal arts schools that are probably on par with the ivies -The greatest number of analysts this year came from Michigan, not an ivy This is at a top BB firm…so maybe the perception that all i-bankers are a bunch of ivy leaguers is flawed? Or maybe I just work at a progressive bank…
luke, look at it as a proportion though, not as an absolute. And not all of the Ivies are top 10 schools (e.g. Brown).
I’d like to frame this “argument” in this way: If YOU were the hiring manager who would you choose to hire? If my job is on the line I’m taking the young IVY-league grad 95% of the time for the simple reason that it offers less risk and just as much potential reward. Think of it as if you were the PM and your investments were people…give me 3 good reasons why you’d hire a state school grad over a grade from a top 10 school. 95% of the time (2 STDev’s) you are going to take the elite grad, and the others are outliers.
“young IVY-league grad 95% of the time for the simple reason that it offers less risk and just as much potential reward.” Totally Wrong. You hire the best man for the job who has the best prior training and experiences, not someone with unrelated experience and training. How about students from top 10 undergrad BUSINESS schools? Who have completed banking internships, finance/acc. knowledge, excel skills, etc…to lose out to a bunch of ivy leaguers with philosophy and art majors with 3.8s? To get a fraction of placement spots just because their school doesn’t have so much old money and connections with the big firms… unfair, yes. But that’s life, isn’t it? Just because some ivy league kid is smart at art history and english literature doesn’t mean that they would be good in the finance world. The fact that ivy liberal arts majors are interviewed for “fit” rather than “technical” competency by recruiters show the unfairness that is inherent upon the process. That the fact that these guys are being hired and are given opportunities because of their college, rather than their related abilities. I mean, technically speaking,you are giving jobs to young people who have no idea what they want to do with their life and probably by the last year, are going for banking for the $ payoff. These ivy league kids then memorize the vault guide to investment banking (something that can be done in a weekend), and get interviewed for “fit” with canned responses.
sternwolf - You may have misinterpreted my point which is: The elite grad has just as much upside and if they f*ck up, then you (as the hiring manager) can say, “Geez, well they had a 3.8 from Harvard, great recs, and 3 internships at top tier firms”…and you relieve yourself of responsibility. Same person who went to UMASS and you took a flier on…well, if they f*ck up, you are out of a job when the boss says, “You gave me a f*cking UMASS grad and they are a complete imbecile and f*cked up our deal…why doesn’t our f*cking firm hire Harvard grads! BTW…You’re fired for hiring that idiot!” Hence, Mr. Hiring Manager knows better than to risk his career by taking fliers on those that don’t have the requisite paper trail. As an addendum: I’m not knocking UMASS. Love the school and used to hoop it up with Monty Mack back in the day. Lou Roe was my hero growing up…“Refuse to Lose” baby.
stern, the world is unfair. However, the fact that ibanks will hire the type of people you describe says a lot about the ibanking job itself. you shouldn’t be mad at the players, hate the game instead.
DirtyZ is spot on in my opinion, and some of you are extremely misguided if you think that I-banks are full of ivy-league art history majors with no experience. Even if you come from an ivy, you can’t get a banking job if you don’t have experience and a decent background in math/science/engineering. Most of the ivy grads I work with majored in econ, and all are extremely competent in math, know a good deal about the markets, etc. And yeah, it’s great if you went to a top-10 undergrad biz school, but the reason schools like umass have top-10 biz schools is because very few of the “top schools” have business programs. If Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc. etc. had business programs, the schools occupying the top 10 now would be, at best, top 25. The caliber of the average student at an ivy is much higher than a top-10 biz school, and if you look at the data they use to rank the schools, an ivy would be ranked higher than most of the current top 10 as soon as it opened its doors…
wait… Harvard Business School isnt a business program?
not undergrad…which is what we’re talking about, I believe…
I don’t want to offend you or anything, but due to the questions you are asking on your other thread, there are lots of people with ibanking M&A internships, excel/macro training, half a year to a year of part time banking experience that go to school with me right now that could probably handle your job better than you. And some of us have the 7 and 63. Of course, they won’t get a job at your firm even after all these great efforts because they failed to get into Wharton, got only 1440/1600 on the SATs instead of 1500/1600 and had to settle for top10 undergrad B-school. And didn’t have the ivy-league-bulge bracket connections and probably didn’t go to a pompous private high school that ships dozens into the ivy league per year thanks to ivy connections while we rotted in public schools that ivy’s never care for. where the valedictorians of these hundreds of public high schools with perfect credentials still wonder what they did wrong. Wow, we are so inferior for life. luke77 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > DirtyZ is spot on in my opinion, and some of you > are extremely misguided if you think that I-banks > are full of ivy-league art history majors with no > experience. Even if you come from an ivy, you > can’t get a banking job if you don’t have > experience and a decent background in > math/science/engineering. Most of the ivy grads I > work with majored in econ, and all are extremely > competent in math, know a good deal about the > markets, etc. > The caliber of > the average student at an ivy is much higher than > a top-10 biz school, and if you look at the data > they use to rank the schools, an ivy would be > ranked higher than most of the current top 10 as > soon as it opened its doors…
sternwolf Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > How about students from top 10 undergrad BUSINESS > schools? Who have completed banking internships, > finance/acc. knowledge, excel skills, etc…to > lose out to a bunch of ivy leaguers with > philosophy and art majors with 3.8s? To get a > fraction of placement spots just because their > school doesn’t have so much old money and > connections with the big firms… unfair, yes. > But that’s life, isn’t it? ceteris paribus (except the university itself), I’d rather hire someone with a higher gpa despite whether it is an ivy league or a state school, given that it is a challenging school and not like Devry etc. GPA tells me more than someone’s intellectual aptitude. It tells me that they have safe hands, consistantly delivering with high work ethics. For the 99% of the population enrolled in a challenging school, maintaining a 3.8 is done with good effort, and not solely on raw intellect.
GPA is not necessarily an indication of an individual’s intellectual aptitude. challenging schools have relatively easy course and easy professors. and a student can pick and choose their classes accordingly. i think a lot of hiring mangers tend to forget this. i know some intellectually challenged students with high GPAs.
Don’t worry about offending me. I went to a public high school, aced my sats by buying a $12 book and studying on my own, and was accepted to every college I applied to, including 3 ivies, but went to a very good state school because they offered me a full ride. I have zero connections in finance - none of my parents/relatives are in the industry. I’m probably the exact opposite of the uber-connected ivy kids, and I have no doubt that there are people at top state schools that could do my job better than I. However, 3 months from now I think I’ll be just as good at the job as them. My point is very simply that there is a massive oversupply of qualified people. Banks have to find a way to narrow things down, and selecting analysts based to some extent on school pedigree seems to me a very reasonable way to do things, and it is probably what I would do if I was involved in hiring analysts. sternwolf Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don’t want to offend you or anything, but due to > the questions you are asking on your other thread, > there are lots of people with ibanking M&A > internships, excel/macro training, half a year to > a year of part time banking experience that go to > school with me right now that could probably > handle your job better than you. And some of us > have the 7 and 63. > > Of course, they won’t get a job at your firm even > after all these great efforts because they failed > to get into Wharton, got only 1440/1600 on the > SATs instead of 1500/1600 and had to settle for > top10 undergrad B-school. > > And didn’t have the ivy-league-bulge bracket > connections and probably didn’t go to a pompous > private high school that ships dozens into the ivy > league per year thanks to ivy connections while we > rotted in public schools that ivy’s never care > for. where the valedictorians of these hundreds > of public high schools with perfect credentials > still wonder what they did wrong. Wow, we are so > inferior for life. > > > > > > luke77 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > DirtyZ is spot on in my opinion, and some of > you > > are extremely misguided if you think that > I-banks > > are full of ivy-league art history majors with > no > > experience. Even if you come from an ivy, you > > can’t get a banking job if you don’t have > > experience and a decent background in > > math/science/engineering. Most of the ivy grads > I > > work with majored in econ, and all are > extremely > > competent in math, know a good deal about the > > markets, etc. > > > The caliber of > > the average student at an ivy is much higher > than > > a top-10 biz school, and if you look at the > data > > they use to rank the schools, an ivy would be > > ranked higher than most of the current top 10 > as > > soon as it opened its doors…