McCombs (Average GPA & SAT) (Wharton, Dean: public schools, low cost, versus)

[Bp25]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Why do you care? Do you have a kid at UT or something?

And you are becoming quite a bully. Calm down.

[MKartman]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

We do volunteer work with minority students and they often have college related questions so I like to stay informed.

McCombs feeds into local Texas companies. It doesn't compete to get a student into Hdegefund/investment banking type roles. Hence the SAT and for that matter even GMAT avg score for Grad school is on a lower scale. However, the UTAustin Engineering school is a different league and SAT scores are competitive and on par with ivys.
Since you mentioned Minorty students, the actual score to get in might be even less if they are non-asian minorities. No Offence to anybody, just a stat.

[unexpected]

Originally Posted by aggie972

Ivy League schools serve less than 1% of the student population and the future college educated workforce. It's true that if you can get into Harvard, you can study Renaissance sculpture and still get a good finance job if you want it. If you go to UT or A&M and you want a good finance job, then you better study finance, network, intern, specialize, etc. A liberal arts degree from those schools (and every other non-Ivy) could make it very difficult to ever get a lucrative finance job in this day and age.

I don't agree with this. Most good finance jobs are going to MBA students - where you do your undergrad is kind of irrelevant. The top i-banking jobs going to McCombs/A&M students are simply analyst positions. Those are 2-3 year roles designed to eat away at you. You're supposed to leave after this period and go on to business school.

You can easily go to UT, get a degree in, computer science, then go back get your MBA, and you'd be much further ahead than the guy who went to McCombs for 4 years and did nothing afterwards.

No one is becoming a high-level investment banking associate without an MBA these days.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by unexpected

I don't agree with this. Most good finance jobs are going to MBA students - where you do your undergrad is kind of irrelevant. The top i-banking jobs going to McCombs/A&M students are simply analyst positions. Those are 2-3 year roles designed to eat away at you. You're supposed to leave after this period and go on to business school.

You can easily go to UT, get a degree in, computer science, then go back get your MBA, and you'd be much further ahead than the guy who went to McCombs for 4 years and did nothing afterwards.

No one is becoming a high-level investment banking associate without an MBA these days.

^^^ This. Even if you have a BBA from a ranked program with a pristine GPA, you need an MBA from a ranked B-school to run with the big dogs.

[UnfairPark]

Originally Posted by MKartman

McCombs feeds into local Texas companies. It doesn't compete to get a student into Hdegefund/investment banking type roles. Hence the SAT and for that matter even GMAT avg score for Grad school is on a lower scale. However, the UTAustin Engineering school is a different league and SAT scores are competitive and on par with ivys.
Since you mentioned Minorty students, the actual score to get in might be even less if they are non-asian minorities. No Offence to anybody, just a stat.

We work with first generation URMs but no denying that it is tough out there for Asian-American kids.

[aggie972]

Originally Posted by unexpected

I don't agree with this. Most good finance jobs are going to MBA students - where you do your undergrad is kind of irrelevant. The top i-banking jobs going to McCombs/A&M students are simply analyst positions. Those are 2-3 year roles designed to eat away at you. You're supposed to leave after this period and go on to business school.

You can easily go to UT, get a degree in, computer science, then go back get your MBA, and you'd be much further ahead than the guy who went to McCombs for 4 years and did nothing afterwards.

No one is becoming a high-level investment banking associate without an MBA these days.

The post I was responding to was saying "undergrad business degrees are worthless, because the Ivies don't offer them." You're falling into the same trap of assuming that the only "good" finance jobs are i-banking jobs that require 80 hours a week and $100k in MBA tuition. What if I told you I make more money in a non i-banking finance job than the latest published median starting salary of Harvard MBA grads, and all I have is an undergraduate business degree from A&M?

You sound like a credential worshiper. What if I told you that hustle and competence are more important than credentials, AND much cheaper?

[numbersguy100]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

^^^ This. Even if you have a BBA from a ranked program with a pristine GPA, you need an MBA from a ranked B-school to run with the big dogs.

Not even remotely true, even within investment banking, which as another poster has pointed out is only one segment within the broader umbrella of high finance. Slightly more accurate in private equity which is significantly more popular and higher paying than investment banking, but I still don't agree with your comment.

[unexpected]

Originally Posted by aggie972

The post I was responding to was saying "undergrad business degrees are worthless, because the Ivies don't offer them." You're falling into the same trap of assuming that the only "good" finance jobs are i-banking jobs that require 80 hours a week and $100k in MBA tuition. What if I told you I make more money in a non i-banking finance job than the latest published median starting salary of Harvard MBA grads, and all I have is an undergraduate business degree from A&M?

You sound like a credential worshiper. What if I told you that hustle and competence are more important than credentials, AND much cheaper?

Oh, I think it's totally possible (and probably preferable) to have a career like you have. There are many successful people with "only" a 4 year business degree from UT/A&M, etc.

My point was the credential itself - people compete on that basis for the fanciest jobs. I have been in that analyst job - it is terrible (and would never do it again).

If you want to work at Google/Uber/Goldman Sachs/BCG tier level companies, you need the credential. You don't have to work at those places to have a successful career and make lots of $$!

[aggie972]

Originally Posted by numbersguy100

I'd agree with this, although I'd broaden it to "very elite private schools" not just the 8 Ivies.

That's fair, and I agree with you. When I say "The Ivies", I really mean to include schools like Stanford and MIT that are of the same or higher caliber than some of the Ivies, but are not in the actual Ivy League. But I agree that you can probably expand the list to include other very elite private schools like Chicago, Duke, Cal Tech, Rice etc.

[aggie972]

Originally Posted by unexpected

Oh, I think it's totally possible (and probably preferable) to have a career like you have. There are many successful people with "only" a 4 year business degree from UT/A&M, etc.

My point was the credential itself - people compete on that basis for the fanciest jobs. I have been in that analyst job - it is terrible (and would never do it again).

If you want to work at Google/Uber/Goldman Sachs/BCG tier level companies, you need the credential. You don't have to work at those places to have a successful career and make lots of $$!

Fair enough, it sounds like we miscommunicated then; I initially took exception to what you called a "good" finance job. If you would have said "prestigious" job like Goldman or Google, I would have agreed. Those companies get so many applications that they have to use a filtering mechanism like requiring a top 10 MBA.