Incoming Freshman - Best Clubs for Investment Banking/PE at UPenn

WITG is a must, especially when it comes to on-campus recruiting. Board Members and PMs are often times the main point of contact for both EB's (PJT RX/HL RX/EVR M&A/RX) and Hedge Funds (SPC/SLP). Can't speak for all the investment teams, but I know some of the juniors/seniors really go out of their way to make sure you understand the content. If you can, try to join the executive board and/or an investment team.

GPS is a great organization from what I've heard, but it's extremely selective. They recruit only in the spring, and it's a lot of investing fundamentals that are tested - not your standard memorization and regurgitation. WUFC is another club that has always had solid placement into firms like Evercore, Centerview, and Moelis. They have good mentorship as well, but it's less structured and arguably less accessible. PE/VC mentioned above is good as well, and they're sponsored by Ares PE. There's also a hedge fund club, but I'm not sure what they really do - know they hosted some recruiting events with GS and AQR. There are tons of clubs to pick from, and it's hard to go wrong with any of them.

That being said, recruiting for clubs on Penn's campus is brutal. Wharton actually has its own club fair without the rest of the school, and freshmen students are just trying to get to the front with the hope a board member remembering your name or face. There's not much "pulling" that can be done, and it's mostly merit based so that's why many of the students that make it in also make it later when it comes to OCR. Standard process for clubs is essays/resume -> first round interview -> possible second round interview -> results.

Just going to provide some more depth into what other people have said:

GPS is the best organization to join, and they have the strongest pipeline to banks and PE. They offer their own training curriculum, and recruitment is done through the members at each school. The interview process is resume screen, interview with current members at the school, and interview with a member from elsewhere. There's usually a stock pitch involved that tests fundamental understanding as opposed to how nicely formatted your model is. If I'm not mistaken, recent penn grads went on to Evercore RX, Warburg Pincus, and PJT RX. The Penn students here favor distressed/rx shops since it's more technical, and I believe every person has actually gone to either HL RX or PJT RX for a summer. It seems like you're just listing the two brand name firms everyone has heard, but those firms are a joke for people in GPS at Penn.

For "on-campus" clubs, WITG tops the list. The club is broken down into board and investment teams. Board gives you exposure and direct contact to all the firms, but there's not much learning unless you're doing education and have access to the development course notes (notes are not public and only available to VP for Education and the person under him/her). The presidents are juniors that have managed to demonstrate to PMs that they're both technically competent and good people - from what I heard, it's usually obvious who's getting elected. They haven't formally announced the presidents for this upcoming year, but for those who don't already know, they're both great people and knowledgeable - less hardo than in the past years, but they're more "work hard play hard". Investment Teams focus on teaching technicals, valuation, industry, etc, and they're run by PMs (usually seniors at top firm in respective group). As mentioned above, PMs vary drastically, with Tac Opps, SSG, and Industrials standing out as the best groups. Interview processes for both Board and Investment Teams are difficult. The club receives hundreds of applications every year, and they only take 5 or so students per team. Board is even harder since you only have 1 chance to make it, and they take even less. Your best bet is to come in with a legitimate reason for wanting to join the club besides "I heard it's a good club" or "XXX recommended me to join". If you had to pick, join an investment team, but if you're on both an investment team and board, you're in a great place.

I'm sure this all seems daunting, and there are so many acronyms and firms that you've never seen before. I wouldn't stress too much about club recruiting at Penn - upperclassmen want to help and mentor people, and they're open to talking to anyone. Talk to some of the people when you get to campus.

For all those not at Penn and are reading this thread, I honestly had a harder time getting into some of these clubs than landing at a EB. Preprofessional culture has taken over campus, but it also makes candidates prepared.

Won't speak much on GPS, PIA, QFG because I'm not personally involved, but I've heard all are amazing clubs to join.

This is beating a dead horse now, but WITG is a great club to join. Their development team is a direct pipeline into an investment team, given you participate in the courses (As mentioned, the notes and slides aren't publicly available). They're the only club on campus under the Wharton name (excluding GPS, PIA, QFG, etc...) that gives a solid, instructional foundation to investing, and the classes are always taught by amazing guys. Board gives access to sponsors and a lot of corporate firms, but most of the learning is done through investment teams. As many people mentioned, SSG, Industrials, and Tac Opps are consistently strong teams to join. SSG has solid PMs next year, so that's the one I would target, especially if you're hoping to go to PE/HF. I got the chance to work alongside one of the Industrials PMs last year, and he was one of the most intimidating, intelligent guys I've met. Viewing him in such a good light, I can't imagine the PMs for Industrials this upcoming year being anything less than good. For board positions, it's true the process is highly selective, but board members also vary drastically in what they do. The presidents this past year did a killer job with the club; probably 2 of the smartest guys I'll ever meet when it comes to investing, but they were some of the harshest guys as well. They tell it straight to you if they think you're not prepared or suck, but that's what you want. Incoming presidents are also good guys - but agree, they're nowhere close to as hardo as the past years. Whoever said "work hard play hard" is somewhat accurate; the other person probably has only heard stuff and doesn't know them personally.

P.S. There isn't really a bad club when it's based on the people on boards and stuff because there's a lot of overlap at the top between WITG, GPS, PIA, WHFC, etc.

Lol

Saw this thread earlier but didn't expect this to still be at the top of WSO. I graduated kind of recently so these are my thoughts from both my own experience and a campus recruiting POV.

I did WITG during undergrad, but I had three completely different experiences with three different teams. One of the teams actually cared about our learning experience and pushed us to enter the multitude of pitch competitions, but another team had people similar to what rubicon367 described though I will say the PMs favored certain students and didn't care about the rest of us. The last team provided supplementary content, but it was a great learning experience for everyone. In the end, people will have both positive and negative experiences with clubs. WITG has been one of the only clubs that hasn't received much criticism on the preprofessional front since they have some of the smartest people and the best job placements, but they've gotten some negativity due to the tight recruiting process and cold treatment to people that couldn't make it in. Rather than "WITG" as just a name on your resume, it's what you do with the club that matters a lot more. When I was recruiting, I was interviewed by many WITG alumni, and they always asked for details about what I was doing, whether it be pitches or who was PM of my group. Similarly, I've always asked prospective candidates about what they do in the club. If they're just planning events, then it doesn't mean much to me since it's not relevant to learning actual material. But, if they listed they pitched at the meetings or competed in competitions, then it leads to an interesting discussion. Like so many people have mentioned, it's the upperclassmen that run the group that make the difference. I personally loved it when PMs talked about their junior year summer experience; I recommend anyone that's not a senior to ask the current seniors about their summer experiences because some of the guys and gals at the boutiques did a lot of cool work.

I would also agree to the point GPS and PIA were insanely difficult to make it into, even if you had a semester's worth of experience. GPS was primarily fit based where they pick your brains to see how you think when it comes to investing, which also means there's not really a way to prepare. PIA had a lot more technical questions in the interview process, which I think means you can at least prepare a bit if you read up on any of the IB guides out there. Take this with a grain of salt since I'm not on campus anymore, and it changes a lot every year.

Just knowing all of these clubs and names means you're ahead of the pack. Like others have said, you shouldn't stress too much about these. Just be yourself and make an effort to talk to the juniors and seniors. You never know who's going to be interviewing you come junior year, or sophomore year given how absurd this new timeline is.

This post is literally the embodiment of Wharton culture Lol. Everyone here has made some good points, but there are important things to mention:

1. A big reason why certain clubs and groups are "good" is because of accountability.

Let's be real here, Wharton Council doesn't hold anyone accountable and that's why you have at least 20 Wharton clubs that end up on someone's resume, but nobody knows what the club is. Even within clubs, accountability matters. Just using WITG as an example, the PMs that hold the underclassmen accountable for learning material and working are the ones that are good. Sure, meetings are held every week, but not everyone shows up. When I was in WITG, PMs had attendance requirements and deadlines - you were given 1 freebie and then you were booted, and it meant that everyone in my group worked and learned a lot. I know Industrials was constantly asked to pitch in the GBMs, which meant that some of my friends were constantly up working since Q&A in the GBMs were rough. Also, the reason that only 1-2 people make President and everyone else disappears is because those 2 people were held accountable - they had a track record of doing their work and meeting deadlines; they showed interest in investing and finance; they proved to both the PMs and old Presidents that they were genuinely likable people. On the other hand, I heard from people in the Healthcare group that they do absolutely nothing when it comes to legitimate technicals and learning. All they do is just sit around and discuss what's "hot" in the industry, which is something you could just do on your own and doesn't require any guidance or mentorship. This applies to all clubs and not just WITG. Some of the clubs without good reputation lack accountability, which means the work produced and the people produced are terrible. Those are the bs clubs that end up on the resume for no reason. I'm not going to list clubs, but you'll be able to figure it out when you step on campus.

2. Wharton students determine self-worth and credibility based on superficial metrics like job placement

Most Wharton students are guilty for this, and even OP is. Imagine not even stepping a foot on campus and just asking what group sends the most students to GS and MS...Scrolling through this thread, everyone talks about what clubs or groups sends the most people to these prestigious firms. As much as people say it doesn't matter, it matters a lot for image and reputation, especially to freshman. All these underclassmen pick clubs based on how "smart" or what firm the other club members are going to. If I was 18, of course I would sign up for the club that sent 15 kids to GS as opposed to the one that sent 3. As a result, what you see is that "good" and "smart" literally means that they placed well with recruiting. A guy can be a complete idiot and get GS TMT, and he's all of a sudden one of the smartest people on campus. I'm surprised no one called rubicon out for not taking recruiting seriously and now he's scrambling to find a FT job - that's a low-blow many Wharton kids would use since people in his scenario are usually looked down upon; it would also explain why he's had such a bad experience. It's just culture here, and it's never going to change. The exception is that some people are genuinely smart and passionate about investing - those tend to be the ones that go direct to buy side and some top RX shops.

3. Just because an upperclassmen or PM is smart doesn't mean he/she is a good mentor/teacher

There are tons of people that land solid jobs and are smart people, but they simply can't teach. This is often the case for WITG - clearly every PM works at a T1 BB or EB, but the members can't always produce the same result. Sure, some of the investment teams like SSG and Industrials have good mentors, but it's impossible for each and every group to be the same. Your best bet is to just make it into multiple investment teams and clubs, and then determine for yourself whether it's worth it or not. At the end of the day, most of this stuff is self-driven. If you care about going to the firms you listed, you'll make an effort to learn from even the worst groups. You're too young to be throwing around names like GS and MS, and everyone else in this thread is too elitist to not throw around firms like HL RX and PJT RX. Wharton in a nutshell Lol

Anyone have any thoughts on how this would be impacted with coronavirus / classes potentially be moved to online? Incoming freshman for Fall 2020 and unsure how to do club recruiting in this environment.