McGill = Ivey = Queen's for undergrad. The debates on this forum are focusing more on MBA differences. Yes, for MBA decisions, Ivey is the only school worth going to. I would not stress out. The difference between Queen's and Ivey is barely noticeable. Just look at past year numbers (and also numbers for 2006, 2005, etc.). Roughly 15-25 kids from each of those schools made it into investment banking. So don't stress, congrats on getting into one of Canada's top universities. Now focus on getting your A game tight for partying and getting girls and don't worry about ibanking when you're 16 years old. Jeez louise,

Mr. Canuck

jwj11,

Congratulations on your acceptances. These are all great schools and knowing that banking even exists puts you ahead of the curve.

I agree with Mr. Canuck with respect to recruiting. All of the Canadian banks and most of the global banks will come to all three schools in most years. This means you have "access" to the jobs and your resume is guaranteed to be read. However, once you're in the recruiting process what school you went to becomes marginal in relation to your personal characteristics (i.e. grades, extracurricular leadership, internship experience, poise in the interview, etc.). In other words, the fact that 5 Queen's Commerce students got offers from GS this year is more about those 5 people than the fact they went to Queen's versus Ivey or McGill. By the way, they are all in front-office banking roles.

A couple of other things to keep in mind.

- You should look at the recruiting data published by each of the schools. Personal opinions are great, but they are always biased (especially on message boards) and anecdotal. The data will tell you what percentage of each class goes to what industry and probably how many offers were made by each company. Be sure to keep in mind that there is always a lot of self-selection. For example, if the McGill stats say 20% go to banking and the Ivey stats say 25% go to banking, there could be more banking offers at McGill but those students decided they really wanted to work in consulting. This also tells you something about the make-up of the class, which is really important.

- How focused are you on a business education? Queen's Commerce is a 4-year program whereas Ivey HBA is a 2-year program. I don't think either is better, but you need to think about what you want study. Queen's will give you earlier exposure to business in general and finance in particular. Ivey will gives you broader exposure and two years to study anything else that interests you.

- How do you think you will learn the best? Ivey is 100% case-based, Queen's is probably 60% case based, McGill is less than 50% case based. Again, I don't think any one approach is better, but they are different.

- University is about more than just school, so what do you want outside of class? McGill is in a great city and as phenomenal night life. Queen's has great school spirit and a fun student ghetto. Western is a great party school.

- How sure are you about banking? Banking is not the only desirable career out of undergrad. Which school gives you the most options? All three schools have strong reputations in all industries, but on the margin I think these are the differences. Ivey probably has the deepest banking network in Canada. This is partially because of the HBA program and partially because it has traditionally been Canada's most elite MBA program. Queen's probably has a broader network that includes banking, consulting, brand management, and industry. McGill probably has the deepest US network. Americans love McGill.

- Do you want to get an MBA afterwards? All three schools plus good work experience should get you in wherever you want. For some reason, my MBA program (top-3, US) had a lot more people from Queen's and McGill than Ivey. That's only one data point, but worth investigating if this interests you. Perhaps the Ivey HBAs decided not to do an MBA because they all worked at GS and then moved over to Blackstone instead of going back to school, but I don't know.

- Recruiting by the global banks at Canadian schools is extremely cyclical. During boom times (i.e. this past year), they will recruit heavily. During down periods, they tend to retrench to their core US target schools. Many of them might even close their Toronto offices or maintain just a small staff to pitch work. When I started undergrad, the sense was that anyone with an 80% average could get a job at GS. When I finished undergrad, nobody had an offer from GS and only 2 people had offers from global banks. I expect recruiting will be in full swing again by the time you start looking for internships, but would be really surprised if GS or any of the other global banks make many offers next year.

Hopefully you find this helpful. I was in a similar situation after high school and these are some of the factors that I wish I knew about. I tried to provide a balanced view because I really think that you can't go wrong and I have worked with phenomenal people from all of these schools. So you know my bias, I went to Queen's and loved the school. However, I didn't even know what banking or consulting or any of the other popular business school careers were before I arrived. I actually chose based on the strength of the varsity team in my sport and where my friends were going. That should probably tell you something too.

carlicahn

As far as I know, Ivey has a lot more alumni in banking than Queen's does. I find students from both schools to be equally polished. I was speaking with a VP of CS in NY (former alum from my school), and he said that the most recognized Canadian schools on Wall Street are McGill and Ivey.

Do not fall into the tap of thinking that 2 years of b-study is not as good as 4 years worth. you take a lot of courses which you will recall and make little use of in your four years (i.e. business history). The two year program at Ivey is more condensed, but it gets into the heart of the matter.

A friend of mine currently at Ivey told me this. Also said that they are going to GS Toronto, NYC, SF, and LA. All IBD and S&T. And this is out of 300 total students in the program - 3% of graduating class going to Goldman - pretty good if you ask me!

if Queens commerce is harder to get into than AEO. Back when I was going to school, all of my classmates had turned down Queens commerce for AEO. It wasn't even a contest.

I'm gonna have to stop donating to Ivey.

This should be an easy choice if you want to do banking. Ivey places 20-25%, Queen's half that.

Re: GS and Queen's - rumours are sort of true... last year 2 SA IBD NYC, 1 SA IBD Toronto, 1 SA CSSG (Toronto). FT... I think 2 or 3, none to NY.

2 vs 4 years does not matter, they work you like a dog in those 2 and you only get a internship in 3rd year anyways.

Based on above, do not choose a school based on how many were sent to GS. What if you are not a cultural fit for GS? In my opinion, it is better to have more options than less. Since a lot of your Ivey classmates would be in banking, you establish a strong network early on. I would go to Ivey.

GS is not the only bank...and given the current situation I'd think long and hard about choosing a school solely for the purpose of having a better chance to get into an industry you don't actually know you want to work in and into a firm that you may not like or may not even consider you regardless of where you studied.

That having been said, I think the Queen's graduates I've met have been significantly less intelligent than their claims of the university's prestige would suggest. Ivey and McGill have better names in the US and from what I hear UWO is party central.

no love for rotman. Sorry bro. Their placement in IB sucks ass.

And btw, for undergrad, I think both schools are very good and offer great placement in IB.

Summer placement for Ivey last year (I don't know this year's summer numbers) was as following for the U.S./U.K. (and Goldman), and these are the actual numbers, not hearsay:

4 Goldman NY IBD, 2 Goldman NY Investment Partners, 1 Goldman NY S&T, 1 Goldman LA IBD, 1 Goldman Toronto IBD.

Also, 2 CS LA IBD, 2 CS UK IBD, 1 Moelis NY IBD, 1 Moelis LA IBD, 1 DB NY IBD, 1 HLHZ LA IBD, 1 Barclays LA IBD.

I may be missing 1-2 but this covers the bulk of the offers. This totals ~ 18 kids leaving Canada from Ivey for IBD / S&T (excluding HK), which represents around 4% of the 450 person class.

Full-time placement for Ivey this year is as follows:

3 Goldman NY IBD, 1 Goldman HK Investment Partners, 1 Goldman LA IBD, 1 Goldman SF IBD, 1 Goldman Toronto IBD.

Also, 1 JPM NY IBD, 1 Evercore NY IBD, 2 Moelis NY IBD, 1 Moelis LA IBD, 1 HLHZ NY IBD, 1 HLHZ LA IBD, 2 CS LA IBD, 1 CS SF IBD, 1 CS UK IBD, 1 Barclays LA IBD.

Again, I may be missing 1-2, but this is fairly thorough. This totals ~19 kids for full-time, pretty much the same as summer.

For summer recruiting this year, I know that GS/MS/JPM/Barclays/Evercore/Moelis NY all posted, as well as GS/CS/Moelis/Barclays/HLHZ LA, and GS/CS SF (and of course GS NY Investment Partners). I would not call these "lower tier" firm placements.

To clarify, it is highly unlikely that GS will come back and recruit another 5-6 students for full-time. This year, they gave out only 1 offer (which was not accepted) to the normal full-time candidate pool (1 student signed to GS IBD SF through the accelerated process).

Hope this helps you in your decision.

Isnt the ivey class 600+ not 450?

So roughly 10-15 get into investment banking from ivey, 4% as you stated..... it it really that hard? what percentage of people in ivey and queens actually apply to IB positions? or even plan on IB as a career? i ask because that 3% is a very grim statistic...is anyone here in IB?

masn -

You're misunderstanding the statistic. 10-15 ivey kids will get investment banking positions in the US. If you include banking jobs in Canada, the number is higher. I'd say overall, ~40-50 kids will land banking jobs out of Ivey (~10% of Ivey).

Landing a SA spot is tough, as around 100 people will apply to each job positing. However, full time recruitment is a bit better, with ~40-60 people applying to each posting.

I hate to spoil the East Coast party here but UBC should be included on the list. Though not up there with Ivey or Queen's, UBC meets McGill in terms of BB recruiting and is definitely well above Schulich and Rotman.

Lets presume you do have an immediate family member that is a Sauder prof. Is he a finance professor? Is he an adjunct/visiting professor or a full-time/tenured professor? Telling me that he's a Sauder prof doesn't make your argument more effective unless you can provide some FACTS.

First off, you should know that BC is huge in mining, forestry & natural resources, which is one of the main reasons why there are investment bankers in downtown Vancouver. Also if you run a linkedin search, you'll find that there are A LOT more Sauder students that are placed in BBs in recent years than at Schulich or Rotman. Same goes with consulting.

All I'm asking from you is to provide some facts. Obviously you don't have any and instead you're stating how you're this hotshot kid who "worked in IBD as an SA in Vancouver freshman year", and how you're related to a Sauder professor. I can easily say that I'm a Harvard-educated investment banking executive in Wall Street and expect people to believe everything I post. Nobody cares where you're from or who you're related to, you ignorant fool. If you've ever worked in investment banking let alone written a research paper for any University-level course, you would know how to make a convincing case using credible sources of references. So here's my suggestion: go on to google, gather some facts, post some links and then we'll talk.

if you want proof..

http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Careers/For_Students/For_BCom_Students/~/media/...

http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Careers/For_Students/For_BCom_Students/BCom_Emp...

I hate most of the d-bags in QUIC. Just sayin...

trafalgar how old are you? recruitment at sauder to BBs is weak, everyone knows that. Not really sure what the discussion is here.

masn, I recently had to go through the whole decision process - pm me if you'd like.

This highschooler nailed it

There's a huge gulf between Rotman Commerce and Rotman MBA, so you'd need to clarify which program you're talking about.

Sorry, I'm talking about the undergrad, so commerce.