What Are Your Odds Of Getting In

Mr. Bulge Bracket

  • 700 GMAT
  • 3.1 GPA
  • Undergraduate degree in economics from Fordham University
  • Work experience includes three years at a “top performing but unknown” hedge fund
  • Extracurricular involvement includes active leadership role in college alumni organization, member of an NYC private club.
  • Goal: To gain “a client-facing position at a bulge bank on the wealth management side.”
  • 26-years-old at matriculation

Odds of Success

Virginia: 20%

Dartmouth: 20%

Cornell: 30% to 55%

Texas: 40% to 60%

Georgetown: 50+%

New York: 70% (part-time)

Sandy’s Analysis: Darden and Tuck are not going to bite because your stats and story are just too low for them, unless someone at your Hedge Fund or your private club in New York City can pull a string. Cornell takes guys like you, although near the bottom the deck, so you got a 30 to 55% chance there. Texas ditto, but they are maybe just a little more GPA conscious, Georgetown is the flip side of that coin, so chances there are better. NYU part time should not be that hard. Wealth Management is good goal to say to these places, and make it clear you won’t have a hard time getting that job. Otherwise, if they hear you want to join a bulge bracket firm, they may just put you in the ‘seen-the-Wall-Street-movies-too-many-times’ basket.

Basically ALL schools, and especially ones you are targeting, don’t want unemployed grads. So you need to make it real clear that based on x, y and z of your career so far, getting a Wealth Management gig will not be hard.

Here is another, ahem, tip. You might just tell them Wealth Management and skip the bulge bracket wording. Bulge bracket is often what dreaming schmucks say at 2nd tier places to sound “with it.” It’s a real turn-off to adcoms, probably because they have, over time, met the actual candidates who say that, and those meetings have just confirmed their initial distaste. The cultured among us, including moi, say “leading investment banks.” The fact that real people on Wall St. may or may not say bulge bracket is, as you might guess, of absolutely zero to possibly negative interest to an admissions officer, especially one at a bulge bracket school.

Ahem, having a bulge in your package may help you with the buff babes at the gym, but having a bulge in your admissions package is no way to get a date with Ms. Darden, Tuck, or Johnson.

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