Selective clubs at colleges?

[Anonymous]

Can those with experience share more about this? I have heard this is a thing with business-related clubs at selective undergrad business schools, but another thread made it sound like many clubs are now selective at large universities. Is that the case? And if so, are these just academic clubs? Does it matter if people join? I would think internships and grades are most important for resumes. (I know internships are very hard to get but that's another thread.)

[Anonymous]

The popular clubs, project teams have very low acceptance rate. The not popular ones have higher acceptance rate. But still have to go through interviews

[Anonymous]

It’s shocking that we’re experiencing a loneliness crisis, when you think about it. I mean people have to interview even for unpopular clubs, how could anyone ever find themselves left out and alone?

[Anonymous]

Business and consulting clubs at many colleges have a lengthy application period that involves coffee chats, interviews, etc. Applicants are cut over 3-5 days leading to an overall acceptance rate of 2-5%.

They can help with recruitment because they're generally chapters of national organizations and have pipelines to people in NYC and/or bring in hiring managers to talk to members. Many also manage funds of 500K or several million or have a book of local consulting clients so give practical experience and are difficult to replicate by someone who wants to start their own club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Business and consulting clubs at many colleges have a lengthy application period that involves coffee chats, interviews, etc. Applicants are cut over 3-5 days leading to an overall acceptance rate of 2-5%.

They can help with recruitment because they're generally chapters of national organizations and have pipelines to people in NYC and/or bring in hiring managers to talk to members. Many also manage funds of 500K or several million or have a book of local consulting clients so give practical experience and are difficult to replicate by someone who wants to start their own club.

And I'm not saying that this is great. I think it all sort of stinks. Just trying to explain how it works from someone who's kid went through it this year as a freshman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s shocking that we’re experiencing a loneliness crisis, when you think about it. I mean people have to interview even for unpopular clubs, how could anyone ever find themselves left out and alone?

You forgot the /s sarcasm sign for those who are literal minded.

I'm really surprised there are selective clubs at state supported universities over and above the Greek scene. It makes absolutely no sense. And I'm sorry students are having to go through this.

[Anonymous]

It’s almost harder to get into some of these clubs, especially the ones that business/econ/finance majors want, than to the universities themselves. Crazy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Business and consulting clubs at many colleges have a lengthy application period that involves coffee chats, interviews, etc. Applicants are cut over 3-5 days leading to an overall acceptance rate of 2-5%.

They can help with recruitment because they're generally chapters of national organizations and have pipelines to people in NYC and/or bring in hiring managers to talk to members. Many also manage funds of 500K or several million or have a book of local consulting clients so give practical experience and are difficult to replicate by someone who wants to start their own club.

And I'm not saying that this is great. I think it all sort of stinks. Just trying to explain how it works from someone who's kid went through it this year as a freshman.

As one who works on Wall Street I hate it, but I stand alone. I would rather take a smart, ambitious, down-to-earth kid who had a normal college experience and teach them then have them spend half their time in college sucking up, learning financial models, and wearing suits. But unfortunately many other financial firms feel otherwise.

[Anonymous]

A number of threads on this topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can those with experience share more about this? I have heard this is a thing with business-related clubs at selective undergrad business schools, but another thread made it sound like many clubs are now selective at large universities. Is that the case? And if so, are these just academic clubs? Does it matter if people join? I would think internships and grades are most important for resumes. (I know internships are very hard to get but that's another thread.)

The larger the university the more selective the clubs, for the top 40 up.
Ivies get accused of selective clubs but in actuality the clubs are less selective than UNC and UVa. Additionally, because MBB and other top companies recruit on campus openly to all undergrads, the clubs are much less necessary than they are at non-target schools.

And you are correct internships and GPA are most important. Beware that while overall GPA is important, which courses taken matter a lot: a bunch of easy classes with a 3.9+ is not going to get the same looks as higher level courses on the transcript with similar or slightly lower GPA.
The course difficulty is particularly important for quantitative fields.