Biochemistry Major from non-target school
Hi,
I'm a senior at a non-target school. In high school, I considered going into either finance or medicine. I would have double majored in math/comp sci if I had gotten into a better school, but I got rejected from everything and waitlisted from Cornell. So right now, I'm going to have a 3.8 GPA in biochemistry from a non-target school.
I honestly wouldn't mind going to medical school, but from what I've heard, it just seems too grueling for me and I don't want to be in my 30s before I start making money. I don't want to continue school for that long. I'm wondering if it's feasible for me to break into investment banking.
My resume is probably really bad compared to everyone else because I don't have any finance internships or any connections. I look like a stereotypical pre-med. I volunteered at hospitals, shadowed doctors, and I should be getting published in a paper soon.
However, I've always been interested in entrepreneurship. Since freshman year, I've been buying and selling stuff on Amazon. It's growing steadily since I've started taking it more seriously (I'm at $60k in product sales so far this year), but it's a ton of work having to ship everything at the post office. I also created a website and managed to rank it #1 on google, and I made a lot of money off of that too. At its peak, I was making almost $500 a day from ads. Even though these are not related to banking, I think maybe those could help my chances of breaking in?
Also, people who know me say I'm pretty quiet, so maybe this field isn't for me.
I was just wondering how hard it would be for me to break in, especially since I'm not at a target school.
Thanks.
Out of curiosity, Why do you want to go into banking?
Wow. Scary how similar this story is to my previous situation. I was a bio major at a severe non target and crappy university in a foreign country I had no business being in. I even own my own online business! Like you, I had aspirations on getting into medicine via the pre-med route.
As fate would have it, this pathway did not pan out the way I had initially hoped. Without boring you with the details, I moved back to my home country (Australia) and currently attend a target and in my final year of finance/math double major. Yes, I started university all over again (not saying you should do that haha). I had no other choice due to my dire situation (once again, won't bore you with my woes).
I was also afraid I wasn't cut out for banking. But I thought "fuck it. Give it your best and if you don't make it then just move on". I've gotten pretty mediocre grades (think subpar 3.0 GPA) but I hustled like a motherfucker; cold emailed 100s of firms, networking events, extra curriculars etc. I secured a venture capital and investment banking internship, and now want to get a grad offer from either place.
Point is, it's all about the hustle. I know your situation is different than mine in the sense you've already finished biochem and wouldn't want to start all over. So I recommend you apply regardless. You've got an extremely solid EC, being your online business (bankers love that shit). Keep hustling from there; cold email boutiques for some work experience (be ready to get grilled with technical, so read up on those), make some friends that can get you an interview. Worst case scenario, leverage yourself to get into a good MBA program and rebrand yourself from there.
Just do something. Anything. Just keep hustling.
PM me if you like. Refreshing to see a fellow pre med on WSO!
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