Anonymous
08/19/2025 22:50
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Then there are schools like Umich Ross, UVA commerce, which are supposedly the “best” business schools that will also place, but you must major in business while the Harvard people major in philosophy ( what makes a business school the “best” seems to be controlled by acceptance rate, which is in turn controlled by yield and popularity so it’s superficial in that sense). Lastly, the “target/non target” distinction is supposedly based on academics; however, strong academic schools are disregarded despite strong academic reputation if they never had a reputation for sending people into finance. U of Texas and U of Wisconsin are two of the strongest examples. By academic reputation, both of these schools are peers to UVa and Umich ( not necessarily exactly as good but they are in the same orbit). Nevertheless, a strong student from Wisconsin could get their resume ignored…
What? Wisconsin is not in the same league as UVA or Michigan/Ross. Just as the latter two are not in the same league as ivies/stanford +
Companies recruit where there is the highest likelihood of finding academically talented students.
It should be no surprise that ivies and a few more are the main targets.
OP is talking about academic reputation, that is the reputation of the professors and the departments of the schools. In this sense, Wisconsin, Michigan, and VA are all academic peers ( just look at the U.S. News department rankings across all subjects).
In theory, the best schools have the best professors which makes them the most desirable to attract the best students. The paradox is when a school has top departments, yet goes unrecognized. Wisconsin is clearly the foremost example of this phenomenon more than any other major university. Econ, Poly Sci, History, Math, Bio are all T10 or T15; yet, the yield for Wisconsin is remarkably low, signaling the student-market does not think too highly of its academic reputation.
As it turns out student yield is probably the best indicator of how the general public (including elite employers) view universities. Wisconsin is obviously not the only school like this; Purdue and CWRU are two other ones. But Wisconsin is by far the most well rounded and the most distinguished historically, making it the best example of what OP is talking about target schools being “arbitrary.”
Anonymous
08/19/2025 22:45
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I’ve been saying this for a while. The toxic college competition stems from companies that hire only from certain colleges. If so-called top-tier firms like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey hired from a broader range of schools, there wouldn’t be as much crazy competition for the top 10-20 schools.
Frankly, it’s also very short sighted of them as there are lots of smart and great kids at all schools. Many kids can’t even consider applying to HPYSM due to finances.
I agree with you on the solution, but if you look at it from the company perspective it would be different.
They can go to ASU or U Arizona and interview 5000 students at each university to find out the smart kids or interview a small pre-filtered student body at T10. It is also lower risk to them of a candidate does not work out. Hey, we picked a HYPSM student but did not work out, what can we do? Or "Why the hell did you hire from ASU? What are you thinking?".
Bingo!
Anonymous
08/19/2025 22:43
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:That's not what target means, OP.
Learn the lingo before posting.
The above poster is wrong; the OP is using the term "target" correctly.
Several readers fail to understand that terms, such as "target", have different meanings in different contexts.
We know. We are criticizing OP for not defining her term, because her definition is part of a subcategory that is less widely-known by the general public than the usual definition used on this very forum.
OP needs to understand her audience. Most of us are not finance people. Most students we post about will not go into finance. On this college forum, we ALL use the term "target" to mean a college which is most likely to admit our student, given their profile.
This is why OP, and yourself, are wrong in this context.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 22:36
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Then there are schools like Umich Ross, UVA commerce, which are supposedly the “best” business schools that will also place, but you must major in business while the Harvard people major in philosophy ( what makes a business school the “best” seems to be controlled by acceptance rate, which is in turn controlled by yield and popularity so it’s superficial in that sense). Lastly, the “target/non target” distinction is supposedly based on academics; however, strong academic schools are disregarded despite strong academic reputation if they never had a reputation for sending people into finance. U of Texas and U of Wisconsin are two of the strongest examples. By academic reputation, both of these schools are peers to UVa and Umich ( not necessarily exactly as good but they are in the same orbit). Nevertheless, a strong student from Wisconsin could get their resume ignored…
What? Wisconsin is not in the same league as UVA or Michigan/Ross. Just as the latter two are not in the same league as ivies/stanford +
Companies recruit where there is the highest likelihood of finding academically talented students.
It should be no surprise that ivies and a few more are the main targets.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 22:19
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:That's not what target means, OP.
Learn the lingo before posting.
Yes, it is what target means in the recruiting process for the financial industry.
FWIW There are "target" schools as well as "semi-target" schools for financial recruitment/placement.
Yes and UVA is usually considered a semi target.
Ivies and Stanford, Duke, MIT are targets.
This applies to the very top end of financial careers and consulting forms only.
Those who care about such careers need to do what it takes to get into such a school, or at least a semi-target.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 22:16
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Does the OP mean target in terms of which college is a target for finance / consulting recruitment?
Yes they seem to be speaking of high level consulting and banking that target a narrow group of tippy top schools for hiring.
Life is not fair OP, and like it or not college attended matters, for some fields only. The vast majority of jobs/careers do not target such a limited range of undergrads. Just pick a different career.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 22:05
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:That's not what target means, OP.
Learn the lingo before posting.
The above poster is wrong; the OP is using the term "target" correctly.
Several readers fail to understand that terms, such as "target", have different meanings in different contexts.
That was on OP to make it clear at the beginning, then. On this forum, the term target far more often is talking about likely/target/reach schools when applying to college.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:59
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:That's not what target means, OP.
Learn the lingo before posting.
Yes, it is what target means in the recruiting process for the financial industry.
FWIW There are "target" schools as well as "semi-target" schools for financial recruitment/placement.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:54
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:That's not what target means, OP.
Learn the lingo before posting.
The above poster is wrong; the OP is using the term "target" correctly.
Several readers fail to understand that terms, such as "target", have different meanings in different contexts.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:54
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Plain and simple: The “target/non-target” school culture is extremely harmful to youth, arbitrary, and counterintuitive to the American dream. For those unfamiliar, “target” is the name given to the most popular schools among the wealthiest Americans, mainly HYPMS+ private schools. Then there are schools like Umich Ross, UVA commerce, which are supposedly the “best” business schools that will also place, but you must major in business while the Harvard people major in philosophy ( what makes a business school the “best” seems to be controlled by acceptance rate, which is in turn controlled by yield and popularity so it’s superficial in that sense). Lastly, the “target/non target” distinction is supposedly based on academics; however, strong academic schools are disregarded despite strong academic reputation if they never had a reputation for sending people into finance. U of Texas and U of Wisconsin are two of the strongest examples. By academic reputation, both of these schools are peers to UVa and Umich ( not necessarily exactly as good but they are in the same orbit). Nevertheless, a strong student from Wisconsin could get their resume ignored just by going to Wisconsin, while a student from UVa who didn’t work as hard could still get the job. Does that seem meritocratic? In conclusion, the “target/non target” distinction is one of the obstacles to the American dream. Prep kids who go to Harvard are the main beneficiaries of this system. It’s sad to see because there likely are qualified students from genuinely good academics institutions like Maryland, Wisconsin, or Purdue who will never break in because they didn’t come from money/connections.
None of this was "plain or simple". Total word salad.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:47
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
That's not what target means, OP.
Learn the lingo before posting.
Learn the lingo before posting.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:41
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:Does the OP mean target in terms of which college is a target for finance / consulting recruitment?
Yes, and folks here just jumped on the opportunity to attack OP without giving any benefit of the doubt. Par for the course for the toxic people here.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:26
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:I’ve been saying this for a while. The toxic college competition stems from companies that hire only from certain colleges. If so-called top-tier firms like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey hired from a broader range of schools, there wouldn’t be as much crazy competition for the top 10-20 schools.
Frankly, it’s also very short sighted of them as there are lots of smart and great kids at all schools. Many kids can’t even consider applying to HPYSM due to finances.
I agree with you on the solution, but if you look at it from the company perspective it would be different.
They can go to ASU or U Arizona and interview 5000 students at each university to find out the smart kids or interview a small pre-filtered student body at T10. It is also lower risk to them of a candidate does not work out. Hey, we picked a HYPSM student but did not work out, what can we do? Or "Why the hell did you hire from ASU? What are you thinking?".
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:16
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
I’ve been saying this for a while. The toxic college competition stems from companies that hire only from certain colleges. If so-called top-tier firms like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey hired from a broader range of schools, there wouldn’t be as much crazy competition for the top 10-20 schools.
Frankly, it’s also very short sighted of them as there are lots of smart and great kids at all schools. Many kids can’t even consider applying to HPYSM due to finances.
Frankly, it’s also very short sighted of them as there are lots of smart and great kids at all schools. Many kids can’t even consider applying to HPYSM due to finances.
Anonymous
08/19/2025 21:11
Subject: The “target school” culture is extremely toxic
Anonymous wrote:That’s not what target school means. Also learn to use paragraphs.
+1 wrong from the subject line