Please Help Me Choose a University & Plan
I'm currently a senior in high school interested in investment banking and am set to graduate in a couple of months. I've been accepted to UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego, and am currently on the waitlist for UVA, UCLA, and NYU (Stern Undergrad). I was also accepted to Bentley University, although they can't offer me a spot until January of 2024 instead of Fall of 2023 like the others. Given my situation, what would be the best thing for me to do in order to get an IB offer? If I don't get off of any of the waitlists I'm on, I think I might choose UCSB over UCSD because they have a club called the Finance Connection that is apparently able to help a couple students per class get into IB. Additionally, UCSB does pretty well for accounting and consistently places graduates in Big 4 firms. Would it be possible for me to do a year or two at a Big 4 accounting firm (my major is Econ & Accounting) and transfer to IB after? This could be a backup in case I don't get any IB offers. Or could I transfer from a Big 4 firm to Private Equity, as I'm also interested in PE. I've also heard some good things about Bentley, and I have 2 quarters of Calculus 1 and 2 credits along with 5's on 3 AP tests and I'm taking 2 more AP tests this year which can potentially grant me more credit, so I think this will make up for the time I'm missing at the start of the year and won't delay my graduation. Or should I just attend one of these schools for one year and try to transfer to a target or semi-target school? Thanks for the help. (Edit: I forgot to mention I have a connection through mutual friends to an IB at Citi. I'm not sure how high her position is, but she's in her mid to late 40s and has been working there for a while so I'm assuming it's decent. Can this help me in any way?)
I want to prelim this by saying that when I first read your question, I assumed (and maybe am right) that you're only consideration in choosing a college is investment banking. After writing all this, it occurred to me that maybe the reason you asked this question of "which school for IB" was because future employment is one of your many considerations for choosing a college and for this specific consideration you came to WSO. If that's the case, and you have other factors you're also considering like family, location, other interests, personal fit at school, etc, then apologies for the unnecessary rant.
Dude… Go somewhere you enjoy and want to be at, not because of investment banking. College is supposed to be the best 4 years of your life. Don't do this massive disservice to yourself of selecting a college based on investment banking. I want to find this comical but I want to help you more. Some finance club is not going to help you break into finance, so scratch off that reason for your list. Everything you need to know is online, not to mention that breaking in is 90% networking and connections. Read the post on here titled "that's it" if you don't believe me. Kid thought he had it made because he knew every calculation. Well, he thought wrong. That's not how this works (most of the time).
You're 17-18 years old? Dude let me give you some honest advice. if you plan on obsessing the next 3 years grinding some finance club, grinding internship prep, trying to get internship, so that it hopefully leads to a job, you're going to miss a lot of experiences, prioritize the wrong things, and look back with a lot of regrets. Good that you have an idea of what you want to do but man… if you're 17-18 there's no reason you need to pick a school because of investment banking.
You're in for a huge shock when you waste your college years grinding for IB, then you finally get to NYC and you realize as an analyst you're basically an excel slave that works 80-100 works/week, you rarely see your friends, relationships are hard to maintain, you're on call all day, you literally just do excel and power point, and you're a certified yes-man to any higher up. Sure, you make $150k but dude there's more to life than making IB your main decision for choosing a college. this job is not worth choosing a school over.
To answer your question though, pray you get into UVA or NYU. I'm from east coast so can't talk about the UC's.
I'm not choosing solely off of IB, I just wanted to get some advice on my options. I'm from SoCal, so I'm considering the UC's for a few reasons (weather, in-state tuition, close to family, etc.) despite them not having the best reputation for IB. For NYU, I'm considering it because a couple of my friends are going there (not Stern though), and they love it, although it is very expensive so I'd have to see how much financial aid I'm offered to determine if I can afford it. As for UVA, from what I've read online it's a pretty fun school with a lot of things to do in the area and also the weather is decent (not Santa Barbara or San Diego, but still better than a lot of other places). I took a lot of factors into consideration when choosing what schools to apply to, as applications are pretty expensive so I had to be selective. Probably should've mentioned something about this in my post, my bad. I appreciate your concern though, and thanks for the advice about 90% being networking. I just want to make sure I don't kill my chances at ever getting into the finance field by choosing a school that's not a "target school," as I've read in other forums and places online that if I go to a school like UCSB or UCSD I'll have no chance at ever getting a good job in finance. Although what you said about it being mainly networking is a bit reassuring because in that case, I can get in from any of the schools mentioned as long as I network well. Anyways, thank you for the comment.
No problem. Your freshman year network with all the upperclassmen who did finance internships. Make sure they know you before they graduate because there going to know/help you when they're first year analysts. If you're diverse, apply to the diversity freshman IB programs.
Also, consider taking a gap year. One year to grow mentally and mature. I took one and I feel like I have an advantage mentally over other folks. Also, just was good to do something besides for school for a year.
Current sophomore at UCLA here. If you get off waitlist UCLA is substantially better than other UCs (places like 30-40 per year compared to like less than 5). But mostly run through clubs and student organizations so it’s gonna be a huge uphill battle without them. Particularly investment banking workshop, think our cohort this year is ~35, historically has been where the best placements have been.
But would echo what person above said, if no waitlist schools come through just go to the school you think is the best fit for you.
Tbh, I think the kids here are insufferable and extremely artificial and the classes are useless, but still went here bc it’s the best school I got into and it’s in state so cheaper. So gotta balance between future career and actually enjoying school.
UCLA would probably be my first choice from the waitlists I'm on mainly because of the in-state tuition and it's close to family and the beach (also because I'm a huge UCLA basketball fan haha), although from the numbers alone my chances of getting off the waitlist are pretty slim. UCLA was a higher choice for me than UCSD or SB anyways, so I might go to UCSB or UCSD for a year and then try to transfer to UCLA. If I can manage to do this, is it difficult to get into clubs and student organizations as a transfer sophomore? Or do they mainly take freshmen students? Thanks for your comment.
I don’t think UCLA takes a lot of transfers after 1 year, mostly from CC after 2 years.
But if you did make it happen, most clubs have much higher standards for sophomores. Need to have a couple internships, good GPA, demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.
Have seen multiple kids do fine without clubs though, something like 4-5 without help from clubs in banking workshop this year and they’re doing fine. Have also seen kids in clubs struggle a lot this year, really comes down to individual effort and networking like other person said.
Looks like things are becoming a lot more meritocratic in the future and less of this club connection bullshit.
I broke in from UCSB and think it’s very doable if you don’t get off the waitlist anywhere. UCLA and UVA would be materially better for recruiting opportunities, network, and school perception, though.
That said if you go to UCSB and join the finance club Finance Connection and the investment fund IAC, you’ll get access to the resources and network that I personally know got 10+ people into IB full time in the last couple years. There is an investment banking workshop we started a few years ago that if you join it as a freshman will be a very helpful resource. The cohort ends up being small and you have very direct access to upperclassmen who just went through IB recruiting. Very mentorship focused and a great environment to discuss recruiting, prep, and get mock interviews. I can’t speak to UCSD but it’s a great UC and might have a similar club.
UCLA is a solid west coast target with much better placement and UVA is a straight up target so if you get off the waitlist forget about UCSB. But wanted to make sure you knew how to get in from there if you need to stay in state. I’m actually from NOVA and would have gone to UVA if I had gotten in.
Try to get into the best school possible but if you end up at a non target it’s still 100% possible to start in IB. The fact you’re focusing from freshman year means you have an even better shot once recruiting comes around for you at the beginning of 2025. Best of luck man. You can enjoy your college experience and still get a good job. I loved every second at UCSB and would pick it again in a heartbeat. I chose it over semi target schools and regretted it at some points but all worked out in the end. Careers are long but you only get to do undergrad once. Just some perspective.
If you do choose SB I would be happy to chat about how to get where you want to go from there.
Thank you so much, this was very helpful. If I do end up at UCSB, I'll be sure to PM you. Thanks again.
Of course. Best of luck deciding man
Ending paragraph is a great message
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