The fact about NYU's Stern School that comes up most often is its location. Stern sits right in New York City's Greenwich Village, between Manhattan's Midtown and Financial District. Students and grads rave about the schools’ location, and the administration smartly plays up its ties to New York when promoting Stern.
Given Stern’s location, it is not surprising that a large number of grads pursue jobs on Wall Street, where the Stern name and alumni network are the strongest. Eight of the school’s top 10 recruiters are investment banks. Although Stern’s overall academic reputation is strong, most people consider its finance department to be by far the school’s greatest strength. If you are interested in working outside of finance, don’t rule out Stern, but know that finance is where most of the action has historically been. The school is aware of this perceived inequity and has been working hard to balance its strengths across disciplines.
Although many would call Stern a finance school, its approach to management education is mostly a general one. First-year students go through a complete required curriculum of courses in all of the business fundamentals, with the bulk of elective coursework coming in the second year. Most students major in one or two of the school's 12 majors (including Finance, Economics, Marketing, and Operations), and some take a co-major or "program initiative." These latter two programs demonstrate Stern's generalist approach by involving faculty and courses from across the school's academic departments to teach specialized subjects such as Entrepreneurship, Digital Economy, and Law and Business.
Another way in which Stern's New York ties are apparent is in its teaching. The school boasts nearly 100 adjunct professors, many of whom are highly regarded veterans of the New York business community. Some of the bigger names who have taught as visiting professors at Stern include former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Nobel laureate Robert Solow. The school prides itself on giving its students lessons with real-world applications, and part of this is letting students hear lessons straight from these veterans' mouths.
Stern also emphasizes the global orientation of its student body and its curriculum. A third of the class comes from abroad, and Stern offers an International Business co major option for the many American students there who have some interest in working overseas. You don't need an international angle to your story when you apply to Stern, but at least acknowledging the importance of a globally-focused education should help your cause.
Stern works to cultivate and maintain a spirit of teamwork and cooperation among its students, who do a fair amount of work in groups. Students and grads sometimes comment that they were pleasantly surprised to find that the culture is more cooperative than they expected, especially given the "shark" reputation that bankers tend to have. If you apply to Stern, don't discount the importance of teamwork in your message. The school is less impressed by individual achievers than it is by well-grounded people who have excelled in their past jobs by working with others. Keep this in mind, especially if you are a banker who is looking to distinguish yourself from the pack.
With a yield in the low 50s, Stern gets stiff competition from the likes of Columbia and Wharton for finance-minded students. Showing the admissions committee that Stern really is where you want to be—and having convincing reasons for why this is the case—will greatly help your chances of being admitted.
Although Stern's name is best known on Wall Street, the school is also serious about entrepreneurship. The school's Entrepreneurship and Innovation co major is a popular choice, as is its Entertainment, Media, and Technology program initiative. Stern's annual Maximum Exposure Business Plan Competition gives budding entrepreneurs a chance to compete for cash prizes. Successful business plan teams are matched with experienced entrepreneurs or venture capitalists who serve as mentors. This is an area of the program that the school continues to emphasize. If you consider yourself to be an entrepreneur, or you want to be one, be sure to let the Stern admissions committee know about it.