Sup guys, where should I go to school?
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This post has been removed from the Hedge Fund Forum, and will be removed for the considerable future.
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I don’t understand why Ridgemont never gets mentioned. Places well into IB. Exit opps are phenomenal.
Maybe because they are not as well-known? To be honest, I didn't know what it was and when I googled it, I got results for a pizza store and shoe shop.
What's ridgemont? Is it the business program at one of the colleges?
It’s a bad joke - I was referring to Ridgemont High like the movie. Fell flat. Lol
So ill give my 2 cents, I posted briefly in the other thread. I think UVA is the best choice for going HF out of undergrad. UVA probably is not the best option for PE/IB but UVA has an incredible network at hedge funds due to John Griffin and Julian Robertson. Griffin donated a ton of money and started an investment class where he taught it himself, he ran one of the largest tiger cubs of the last decade, Blue Ridge (equivalent to a Lone Pine in its time) before shutting down. Julian also went out of his way to hire guys from UVA cause he loved the state so particularly in the tiger cub space you will find at least 1 person that went to UVA at virtually all the funds. I would say its the most common school except for wharton and harvard.
There are also a lot of UVA guys at Soroban, Dragoneer, Darsana, etc. so it isnt only the tiger cubs.
Dont wanna comment on any other dynamics but UVA is great for SM HFs specifically.
Can't go wrong with any of those schools that you mentioned, but as a current student at UVA/McIntire, I can vouch for the placement here. As another commenter mentioned, Julian Robertson and John Griffin indeed had/have strong connections with McIntire (UVA's undergrad business school to which you apply during your second year). McIntire consistently places kids into BX/KKR/Apollo for MF PE and has sent several into a few of those funds (Melvin, D1, & Light Street off the top of my head) as well as Point72. Definitely going to be tough to break into those places since competition for those spots is understandably competitive, but hopefully this insight can serve as a data point in your decision process.
As everyone has said, UVA does a great job training and placing folks into HFs. Alumni network is also strong.
There's 2 paths for you: IB/PE --> HF or straight to HF. Still don't see many people successfully go straight to HF b/c they'd rather you just get trained for 1 year in IB. I'd narrow it down to UVA and Cornell, since I think Cornell seems to be a bit better at placement into IB.
Rule out Berkeley, the investing network is weak. Had friends struggle to break into the good HFs b/c of poor network.
Notre Dame has a good alumni network, but it's just tough to compare against UVA.
What school??
Lol this is the kid from the Dyson recruiting thread
SM HF out of any of these schools may be difficult (current junior at one of the schools who interviewed for a summer program with one of the funds you listed but ultimately ended up at a MM HF summer program (P72/Citadel)). If you’d like more info about the specifics of what school, what single manager, and what MM I can PM you without being anonymous. But I ultimately think that there are so few seats at the funds that you listed that, as long as you’re a top performer at any of the schools, you’d have a great shot of landing a seat later on in your career following top banking/PE/even MM HF undergrad programs. Just my two cents.
I work at one of the above funds and went to a school in the same tier as you listed. I was like you in that I was very focused on my career and was dead set on MF PE>Prestigious HF. Congrats on your offers. They’re all great choices and you can do incredibly well from any of them.
Go to the school that you will be happiest at and where you are best positioned to succeed. If you want to be on the east coast, eliminate Berkeley. If you like football, go to Notre Dame. If your wardrobe is all vineyard vines, then UVA. These schools are actually quite different culturally and socially.
People like you and me have the tendency to optimize for our careers and only our careers. At some point you need to optimize for your life. If the differences to your career are so marginal (effectively zero), then you should prioritize your life. Getting a great job is important, and I am sure you will do well. Enjoy the ride while you’re on it.
I was buyside or bust in undergrad, too. Be more open minded towards banking. The reality is, unless you go to Wharton, your base case is banking. There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact, there are many benefits to doing your two years.
How much does an analyst at one of these places make in a good year? Like $2-3m? No wonder it's the dream job
Varies dramatically but that’s the right zip code for an experienced analyst (typically late 20s or early 30s) at a large fund with good or great performance. We’re coming off a historic year for HF, but I’ve heard credible numbers in the range from 500k to 5mm.
Just saw this, couldn't agree more, basically the message I was trying to convey to the kid.
Please go to the school that you feel like you will be the most happy in. Please, take this advice. Stop thinking about HFs/ IBs watever, just enjoy your life in college. It's not worth it.
Cornell. It’s not even close
not sure why i'm getting MS, but having an ivy league degree > anything for finance
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your #s for uva are way off - by like 100% lol
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I just want to point out that you're comparing Cornell's business school (Dyson) to all of UVA as a whole, which has many other undergraduate schools, such as nursing and engineering. If you strictly look at McIntire (UVA's business school) data, you will find that the numbers are much closer, with 30% going into IB. Take a look for yourself: https://destinations.mcintire.virginia.edu/bs-commerce. I also agree with you on the count that UVA is more fun.
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By the time you're done with school, the desirability of working at these funds will probably be much lower than they are now. Don't underestimate performance chasing by not only the media and investors, but perspective employees. When I went to school the hot funds were Greenlight, Paulson, Pershing, Saba etc. No one had even heard of Tiger Global.
Echoing the above, just choose a school that you like, use it as a time to explore your interests and yourself, and don't be overly fixated on career. No one likes that kid that spends his entire life doing career clubs and networking events. Making friends and connections in school will be much more valuable than a HF job out of college.
Agree you are so far ahead of other people. You really do not need to network/join every club etc. Find the school you are most comfortable at, it will let you relax and enjoy school (high gpa, good connections, a few clubs) but also then you will have time in your free time to keep honing your passion of investing. Trying to find the "cheat code" to get into one of these places is a waste of time. What if the first place you intern is a smaller than those funds you mentioned and they like you and ask you to come back etc...Never know where life will take you.
I don't get why the HF grouping on here is 5-10 funds or bust...while even the PE discussion of MF/UMM/LMM is much more diverse.
All good schools from brand name perspective. If you are looking to have a good time notre dame and uva got nice looking gals while berkeley is... granola. Idk where you’re from but the top kids in my high school either went to VTech, uva, or william & mary. The running joke was the smart kids went to tech and w&m while uva is where the kids who cheated off them went and honestly having worked with uva people out of school this seems to hold true more and more. The fact remains it sounds like you are super driven (hopefully for the right reasons) and will do well no matter where you go so just go to a school where you will feel comfortable and have a good tome.
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This is pretty accurate for outcomes from NoVa. I went out of state, but I can't recall a single person from my year who went to UVA who was very impressive outside of high grades. Some really great people went to W&M and VT though and I would work with them anyday.
I think Berkeley is underrated given its proximity to the technology industry and technology investing in general. I know people from Berkeley at Matrix Capital Management (Tiger Cub), Light Street, Kingsford, Bridgewater etc. and many in venture (Battery Ventures, Accel) /growth equity (G Squared ,Stripes) / MM AND MF pe (Audax, Ares, Leonard Green, Alpine), so I wouldn't say the investor network is weak. I think at Berkeley, just like UVA, it is important to get involved in the right activities (Berkeley Investment Group) and be around peers that are focused on similar goals as you.
Everyone I mentioned is straight out of undergrad. If you want a good sample size to look at go to the Berkeley Investment Group website's alumni section. Also, I completely think it is possible to get to your goal from any of the schools mentioned, so at the end of the day you should go where YOU feel the most excited about.
Good luck getting a high GPA at UC Berkeley my guy...
hard disagree. am several years into the HF space and have watched friends from Cal (some in the Berkeley Investment Group) struggle to get good gigs after the first 1-2 jobs, esp. the ones listed by the OP. at a certain point, your ability to get a good seat in the HF space is increasingly difficult and contingent on getting interview opps as a "friend of the fund". the network just is not there for Berkeley, or at least for now. could change in a few years.
but considering OP has the luxury of choice, if you want to purely do HF, UVA and Cornell have much better networks. see folks from those 2 schools at all the HFs I encounter. if interested in tech/tech investing, Berkeley could be the better choice, but unfortunately not really the case for the equity L/S funds mentioned by OP
EDIT: also, should clarify. think Berkeley is great school. know plenty of brilliant grads there who have done well. but in terms of HF specifically, and OP seems unusually advanced and focused for his age, thought i'd be more specific
Would second this. Berkeley tends to have more inroads to tech rather than East Coast HF's.
I know you're set on going straight into HF, but you could get a great IB analyst position from any of these schools and then go hard recruiting for HF. Don't stress too hard about this, man. Try to tour (even virtually), talk to students, get a feel for the type of people you'll spend the next four years with. Like others above said, these schools have incredibly different cultures. Just between UVA and Cal you have a massive difference in cultural conservatism and liberalism. Notre Dame and Cornell have their own cultures, too. You'll be best positioned for finance from the school where you fit the best. Look into each school's finance club. What do they center the club on? Are interested in Greek life? Look into the courses you'll have to take, do you think you could get a good GPA? Etc. There are a lot of intangibles at play and you'll thank yourself later if you go somewhere you can succeed and be happy.
I'd go with Cornell, 2 reasons. First, name brand actually matters a decent amount and I think Cornell beats out everyone else here. Look at some of the funds who have historically taken undergrad interns (Whale Rock, Matrix, Abdiel, etc) and if you LinkedIn stalk all their profiles, it seems they all went to schools with very strong brand names– often some mix of HYPSM. Don't get discouraged by that though. Know that it is doable via a ton of networking and some luck, and I hope you use this as inspiration to work harder instead.
Second, in the situation where you don't get an offer at one of these top HF's or a megafund PE (and let's be real here, both of these routes are ridiculously hard and sometimes takes sheer random luck so there's a decent chance this happens), you want to be at the school that would serve you best for IB recruiting. I assume – given your drive and passion – that you'd target mainly the top IB's (GS MS JPM). For these banks in particular, I believe Dyson has the slight edge. Hope this helps and best of luck!
So what did you go with?
I’m also around your age and also have interest in the alternative investments space. I want to ask you what your favorite way of gathering info about the busyide is ? Do you use HFOBSERVER ?
Read almost every post in WSO's hall of fame hedge fund forum: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/wso-hall-of-fame-hedge-fund-forum
Then google "Investopedia Hedge Fund Guide" and read all the articles on that tree. You should already know a lot of this info if you read the WSO HF hall of fame thoroughly.
That's to build foundational knowledge. Now, to keep up with the industry, you can read:
WhaleWisdom: https://whalewisdomalpha.com
Institutional Investor: https://www.institutionalinvestor.com
WSJ/FT
If there are any funds that catch your eye, find them on a tool like docoh.com, which shows you their holdings, 13F and Form 4's, stuff like that.
Thank you so much I appreciate it
East Great Falls
First off, congrats on the opportunity
I’d narrow it down to Cornell or UVA.
Pedigree of an Ivy might help with HF recruiting but either barely/not enough to justify > UVA. UVA much more fun but Cornell will give you Ivy League prestige, albeit less than the rest.
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