(FORTUNE Magazine) – Bud Fox, Wall Street wants you. In fact, it's begging. Once upon a time, ambitious up-and-comers like the character from Oliver Stone's 1987 classic lined up for the privilege of interviewing with Wall Street firms and big consulting houses. But the tables have turned. Students now spend the campus recruiting season chasing dot-com dollars and snubbing Wall Street. Career offices at Harvard, Wharton, and Stanford estimate that the number of interviews that investment banks and consulting firms had with second-year students were down significantly this year. On some campuses traditional recruiters have even resorted to cold-calling students to fill up interview slots. "I wish I had a dime for every bank and consulting firm that has been calling," says one second-year student at Wharton. "It's hard to fight them off."

Oh, greed may still be good, but in the Internet age it's more easily sated at a startup. At Harvard, for example, more than 500 business students--about a third of the school and 200 more than last year--went on Westrek, the school's annual networking trip to Silicon Valley.

"We came away scared to death about recruiting," says Stan Miranda, head of Bain & Co.'s London office. To compete with the startup gold rush, Miranda resorts to scare tactics: He begins interviews by slamming down a stack of hundreds of failed business plans penned by eager MBAs.

The traditional firms will probably hire about the same number of MBAs as last year, but that's thanks to their new tactics, which include pitching their e-business and work-life initiatives and extending their reach. At NYU's Stern Business School, investment banks like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan held meetings with the gay and lesbian student organization for the first time this year. The firms are also knocking on new doors. McKinsey, that Harvard of consulting firms, has widened its recruiting from the top business schools to--gasp!--the likes of the University of Colorado at Boulder, New York City's Queens College, and the armed-services academies.

"All the standard rules no longer apply," says Catherine Baker of Mercer Management Consulting. "We are pleased with our success so far, but it has definitely been more stressful."

Despite the rough season, recruiters see hope with first-year MBA students, who still seem interested in Wall Street. That, they say, could be a sign that the dot-com bubble may be ready to pop. "We'll still be here to take them in two years when all these new dot-coms start to fail," says Miranda.

--Cora Daniels