Are the top 3 really the top 4 and is M7 really M8?So i

and also i know someone is going to say this but rankings are completely useless blablabla etc :P

Not saying anything against you, but how do you or anyone else actually determine when a school is getting "better" or changing its rank

Booth and Columbia are in the same tier.

I wouldn't put booth in the same breath as H/S/W.

I also think Sloan is highly overrated (maybe it's because I've been in finance too long).

Booth/Kellogg/Tuck/CBS are all very solid and obviously have different strengths. I would say, however, the caliber of students is noticeable between H/S and W +the rest (for the most part). Granted, there's an element of luck involved for many people, which may skew things. And, I'm sure that there are more than a few at H/S who somehow slipped by the adcom but for the most part, I wasn't surprised at some people i knew who got into Wharton/Kellogg/etc. and didn't get into H/S [i'm not sure that made any sense..but you get my drift].

At my firm, Kellogg is held in higher prestige than Booth, just below Wharton, which is below Harvard and Stanford.

call booth and tuck the emerging economies then of each :P

just from a lot of movement and what ive heard and read on the forums and from the recruiting end of the spectrum as well -- but also this can depend on what industries youre looking at

i may also be indirectly trolling to start a rankings shit storm since we havent had one in a while on the site :P

ill agree that the rankings are subject to many things esp industry -- booth better for buyside than kellogg, kellogg better for marketing and consulting, etc.. but i guess overall its a PARADOXICAL ARGUMENT to look at the actual rankings of the schools and how / why theyre put in such sections as we do...

shorttheworld, you're suffering from b-school obsession. As an applicant, it is completely natural. None of this will matter as soon as you step onto campus.

haha no i know but i more so i guess was raising this as to why people fret over the rankings so much -- but more so to analyze why or rather WHERE the m7 thought process came from when tuck is definitely a very strong player and gets the MBB as strong on campus (as well as banks?) but theyre not in the cool kids club.

where DID m7 even come from orig?

I would like to see rankings according to perception of the school within specific geographic areas. For instance, if you want to work in New York, Stern might be better than Ross, but if you want to work in Chicago, Ross might be better than Stern. You could then layer industries and whatever other variables on top. Either way, H/S would probably be at the top of every area, but a vast majority of people care more about 3-15 since they haven't given Paris Hilton the shocker or done something else H/S worthy.

Just a quick note, I wouldn't put Mendoza in that tier if you're interested in finance. Unlike their undergrad program, their MBA program is shit (unfortunately). Kelley is a more respected Midwest-based program at that level.

hey bro, i always appreciate your posts, i can totally relate to your b-school ranking obsession. but that being said... i think you're disecting this a little too much man.

I feel like you almost have to differentiate by what you want to do. I know 2 high school curriculum developers with MBAs from HBS but Wharton is hard finance. Really doesn't matter too much but thought it was worth pointing out.

haha wel i personally dont care too much about the rankings seeing as ive found that it mostly matters that the school does what you want to do -- when i was more so focusing on energy finance and brazil, texas and rice were pretty crucial to that -- while for investment management that is an entirely different deck of cards. that combined with WHERE you want to work are definitely the two biggest things - when it comes to generic banking there probably is the more 'generic' listing.. and i was just throwing mendoza in there from what ive briefly read blabla btu kelley def better in there.

I wouldn't put Wharton in the same tier as Harvard or Stanford.

People routinely turn down Stanford GSB to to to Harvard

People routinely turn down Harvard to go to Stanford

Almost nobody turns down Stanford to go to Wharton

Almost nobody turns down Harvard to go to Wharton

And rankings are all opinion and don't mean anything.

Any particular reason? I'm genuinely curious because I haven't met many senior, successful traders over the long term that went to graduate school after already being in the industry and I've met even fewer that believe they learned/gained much from grad school as it relates to trading. The MFE is changing that a bit, obviously, but not by a lot. Perhaps I'm being too narrowly minded on compensation, but after being in the industry, I have a hard time imagining willingly doing something else because of the massive disparity in pay between most other professional jobs and trading (if you're good at what you do).

haha i think the lifestyle is much more the bigger change between trading and anything else -- but i have more interest going into long term investment management

and also semi scary thing with trading is that the well can dry up or the game can change :>

because its true. COMPUTERS R TAKIN OVER DA WORLD.

i dont really buy into the whole 'oh trading can completely disappear and be done by robots' but i definitely think that your edge can disappear because of certain changes in the market -- things that work one day wont work in a few months potentially.

forget to finish your sntence? lol

No, but I realize it was incredibly unclear. I just meant that most traders at these places are in their 20s (early/mid 20s at that), so by definition not greatly experienced, partners often in their 30s. It's clear that the industry has been evolving quickly enough that the population changes frequently. There is an older guy in my building (53) who still trades (started off in the future pits in the early 80s) that has said he's seen generations of traders walk-in/out and most of them don't leave because they want to, but rather, because they cannot make money anymore. Not even necessarily a technology thing, the market just evolves and it isn't always easy to change the way you do things.

Yep part of it I'm doing fine but not making as much as I would like to be ESP compared to my rockstar first year in 08 so since im going to be five years in I think it's time to shift to something with a better trajectory ESP since the street is very particular about your swapping times... Plus let's face it trading is good for knowing the market for one product but other skills aren't too useful in other things :). Which is why I want to transition to buy side in equities at a fund even though I know it will be a totally different game. Only other closest things I can think of are things like working in treasury for Exxon or a similar company where you have to hedge and evaluate tons of thjngs

You've never thought of your out? You trade options right? Market making?

This thread has become depressing.

Lmao

u jelly bro?

go work on our start up

rob banks