For the monkeys still in college

I thought about transferring to a better target because my college GPA would allow me to, but I felt that it wasn't worth it as I love my college community, classes, and friends. I know a friend who transferred for IB and she didn't land any good finance internships even though she is at an Ivy now. If you're happy, do well at the college you're at and things will work out.

Many people don't mind transferring because they believe that their careers are more important to them than the friends they have in college. I feel the same way. Though I am already at a non-Ivy target, I don't think it would be too difficult to make new friends if I transferred. In the end though, it all comes down to how easily you can make friends and how much you care about your college or anything besides your career/where you end up in life.

I respectfully disagree with you. Honestly, I could not disagree more.

I went to a non-target and wish that I would have transferred. To be fair, what you are saying is very easy to say once you've already broken into IB. Before that, however, your viewpoint is quite different, especially if IB is your dream career. Also, to be fair, not transferring in order to keep friends is not a real argument. You don't lose real friends by moving, and even if you did not transfer, you would just be delaying moving by four years (unless you and all your friends just happen to stay in the same city after school).

The truth is that college is only 4 years of your life and soon those "incredible memories" you made will fade. You'll make even more memories in the next decades and your friend group will change as well. The only thing that won't change is where you started your career. I didn't transfer college because I go to a semi-target (large school in the south) and I'm paying in-state tuition.

As others have stated, your school and branding trump everything else in the long haul. College connections and friendships are tenuous and fleeting emotional attachments in the grand scheme of things. If one is poised to position oneself as optimally as possible to enter a competitive career with huge barriers to entry, the only rationale decision is to maximize one's chances by transferring into a university that one may presume is out of his or her league.

I go to a lower-tier NESCAC school and worked my way into a great SA role for this summer, in my opinion. If I had worked harder in high school, I could have gotten into better colleges, but there is no way I would transfer from where I am now. I love where I ended up and it fueled me to pursue a career in IB. I learned from my mistakes and I played the hand with the cards I was dealt. Sometimes you can turn a 2 and a 7 into a full house, and thats what I did.

Back when I was finishing up my freshman year I considered transferring as I had the grades to do so and was coming from an above average state school but a non-target. Ultimately I decided against it as I felt I would be at a disadvantage socially and that was not worth it to me. I know I could have made friends and had a good time had I transferred, but in no way would it have matched how amazing my 4 years were. I managed to graduate and start at a BB in IBD, but I wouldn't have transferred even if that wasn't the case The right decision here is obviously going to depend on a number of variables that will be different for everyone though (how good your current school is, how good/bad your social life is at current school, how much do you value your college experience, financial situation, etc).

In my mind though, if you are smart enough to be able to transfer to a target school and get an IBD job, you are smart enough to get either an IBD job from a solid non-target or another great job that might not be IBD. So if you value having the best college experience possible and don't have the "Top BB - Top group or bust" mindset, I would not transfer. But again, this all changes based on a number of variables and I understand why some people who are 100% confident this is what they want to do with their life and that it will be enjoyable for them opt to transfer.

I think it greatly depends on what kind of non-target you are talking about.

Non-target as in highly respected school with good academics, but perhaps is just really small and not many people are interested in finance? A lot of top LACs fall into this category. In that case no need to transfer.

Non-target as in some shitty state school? Yeah, you should transfer.

I have many classmates here at my target who transferred from solid academic non-targets for the purposes of getting better prospects (LACs/lower ranked private schools). Many of them had sub-par academic performance and were not able to land strong opportunities. For those types, I felt like staying put and networking hard would have been a better idea.

If I had known that I was interested in going to EBs earlier I would have tried to transfer to Harvard or Wharton probably. I go to a top target but felt as if I was at a disadvantage against these two schools specifically. Losing a friend group and other sentimental value is worth way less than recruitment prospects IMO.

i am getting an internship job in a Boutique firm ( FOR 6 MONTHS) just 30-40 employees in the Debt Capital Market Department as an Analyst do anybody think i will be able to get Transfer into M&A role after few years

I transferred from a non-target to a solid target, and then landed a top-BB IB position. Never would have had that opportunity, and transferring is the best decision I ever made.

I actually did the exact opposite. I transferred from a top target (one of H/W) to a lower target. It hasn't helped at all in terms of opening doors into finance. I don't regret it, as the educational experience was actually pretty poor at the old university. But it has severely diluted my potential network and interviews I could have gotten by simply doing resume drops.

In terms of friends and all that BS, people are pretty similar regardless of where you go even if their SAT's are on average a bit higher or lower. If having close friends is important to you and you have reasonable social skills, you'll be able to do that anywhere.

Think of it this way -- if you're going into high finance you need to be prepared to make your career head and shoulders above everything else in your life. There are plenty of MD's and guys who made it into top positions (or at least tried to) who have been divorced three times or never had a family or much of a social life altogether. If this was the medical doctor forum I would agree with you, but for finance school-based discrimination is extremely high.

This is not an easy industry to break into. Coming from a non-target will make the process 100x harder.

Honestly, "college is the best years of life" is so fucking cliche and needs to die slowly. Seriously.

IMO, it all depends on where you start. If you go on to Wharton with Wall Street ambitions and your first semester you get a 3.5, then you know exactly what you're doing. But if you grew up as an actual kid and had fun, then went to some college and realized that the people around you were not going to amount to much, you'd probably keep them as your friends but distance would be created by you making on your own way.

It's not until college that a pivot in life will happen that you actually begin taking yourself seriously. That's when the uphill battle begins and it's a challenge too great to spend time trying to make the time, "the best years of your life."

If you know what you want to do and transferring will help, then by all means do it! But caution that you could end up wrong about what you want to do. That would hurt you because then you would have lost out on some good times and friends. It all depends on where you start in freshman year: self-awareness; goals; work ethic; maturity etc.

If you're there as a freshman then you're there. If not, you should really use the time to make sure that you are prepared for your future whatever that will be, instead of playing some more.

If money wasn't a factor, I'd like to stay in college a little longer even though I won't graduate for some time. Also, if money wasn't a factor I'd like to go to a UCB/Stanford/Wharton/Harvard/Columbia tier school. Everyone that I've met from those top tier schools were very polished.

I go to a target school but honestly, if money wasn't a problem, I probably wouldn't major in econ/want to work in IB. To go to law school or med school, I need a lot more money than what I have now. If I worked in IB, I could make a nice amount of money and save for an MBA. If I want to be premed, there is no way I can afford it because it is not like I can get a nice paying job for two years and save up for it. If money wasn't a problem, I probably won't work as hard as I did in high school/college and I won't spend my weekends in dorm room studying and writing posts like these. Part of me is glad that I wasn't born into money because most of the people that I know who are born into it are either stupid or addicts. When I first moved into my dorm room, there was a guy in my suite whose dad is some big politician in DC and another guy whose family founded a F500 company. At first, I was pretty jealous of them and their cars/watches/girls. 5 months later, the politician guy is in academic probation for cheating/failing multiple classes and got caught with drugs and the rich guy nearly burned down our dorm because he didn't know how to use a toaster. Sure, it would be nice if my family was rich and I didn't have to work hard but I am glad I did not end up like those idiots at my school.

While transferring is definitely a big change and causes a hiccup in your college experience, I completely disagree with saying it isn't worth it. It definitely takes the right type of person to transfer, as you don't get the luxury of naturally being included into the campus socially/extracurricularly, but if you're proactive then it really isn't a huge issue. As some others have mentioned, I think people really forget that college is one of the biggest investments you're going to make (or your parents will make for you). Paying $50-60k at a private school, its fine to want to have a good experience socially, make life-long friends, etc but you better make sure you see a return on that investment.

Personally, I came into college my freshman year at a school that was decent (regionally-known, solid business school) but I knew that I wanted to do better. As ridiculous as it may be, your alma mater really can play a huge difference in the start of your career, and even the connections you continue to make throughout it. While I made a great group of friends, I ultimately ended up transferring to a target school for my sophomore year. The first semester there was definitely a difficult one, as you do consider if you'd be having more fun/a better social life if you didn't make the move, but if you're able to take the first-step to connect with people and join clubs, then by the second semester its fine. I still keep in touch with my friends from freshman year and have visited throughout my time at the new school, so its not like you "lose" your friends, unless you had shitty friends to begin with. Besides, at this point in your life, you meet so many people that end up being temporary friends that you really need to focus on what is best for you. I ended up getting a IBD SA position this summer at a top BB and I'm positive that I wouldn't have been able to get anything close to that had I not decided to transfer. While maybe you value your "college experience" more than your career, the difference that a target school can make for you provided you're able to work hard and still be competitive at the target is absolutely incredible.

I'm probably going to get some flak for this but what the hell. Just live your life, be happy, and success will come. People on this forum are so concerned with doing everything in the same rigid and prescribed way. Be innovative and hustle. It's possible from a non-target and if you love the experience, transferring just so you have a slightly better shot at getting GS TMT is foolish...especially if the non-target is a good LAC. Let's be real, schools get you in the door. There are plenty of ways to get in through a backdoor.

I hope this doesn't come across as douchy, but I went to a non-target state school and had relatively little trouble getting interviews wherever I wanted (within reason) and am at an EB now. When you're at a non-target, you need to perform significantly better than your target-attending peers, but the bar is subconsciously set lower by your interviewers, so it balances out. Getting interviews requires work as opposed to a resume drop, but having made solid connections in order to get the interview leads to much more backing from insiders when it comes to picking candidates, so again, it balances out.

You also have so much less competition than at a target. Yeah if you're a decent student at Wharton you'll get an interview at GS, but of the maybe 5-10 spots open for Wharton kids, how many very qualified individuals are vying for it? 100? Where as in the non-target pool, the process is so much less efficient, it's easier to stand out relative to other non-targets if you're good. Also - I know others have been calling this unimportant, but I disagree - I went out 3-4 times a week all through college and have the same caliber job as kids from Ivys who slaved away for four years.

Not discounting the value of a top tier education because it's obviously huge, I'm just saying there are virtues to going to a non-target. The two shouldn't be compared apples to apples.

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As someone who went to a non target and target if you want to work in IBD you should make every effort to transfer to a school where banks come on campus to recruit. There are no guarantees but it makes the climb much less uphill and the opportunities are significantly better both in quantity and quality. Staying put because you're afraid of losing a couple years with some drinking buddies is a really bad long term career decision.

I'm not going to college to make friends. I attend college because I want to get an education and get my career on track. I tried to transfer last year and I didn't get into the school I wanted. Did it ever occur to you that maybe some students also aren't having a good time at their school? Friends don't go away when you move, they go away if you stop contacting them.

To summarize: 1. Transfer to a Target does help increase the odds of getting IBD/MBB interviews thanks to brand/network, then it's all up to you to get the offer. 2. There are people at Target you can befriend with, and if your current squad loses interest in keeping in touch with you and vice versa, then they are not your squad in the first place.

Worth noting: 1. The degree to which the transfer helps is inversely correlated with how good your current school is. If good LAC/regional school with alumni on the Street, stay put and network is likely a better move. 2. Mind the competition at Target as one of the guys mentioned above.

Last thought: Where you go to school only matters a little (would say bottom of the checklist) - maybe would only be brought up when you are neck-to-neck with another candidate in review session. If you effortlessly show your technical chop, your okish social skills and your hunger to be part of the miserable circle of SAs/analysts, then my group/bank would gladly extend you an offer without questioning what the fuck is bumfuck university (we may even be impressed af at you hustling your ass off to be invited to superdays).

I agree that you carry with you a college network your entire life. However, I transferred after my freshman year and it worked out for me. In my case, I chose to pursue a college sport and ended up unhappy with my surroundings. I was headed towards an excellent business school (can only apply to Goizueta after first two years) and moved to GW to finish a finance degree. Hard to say where I'd be now if I'd stayed but I wasn't happy. For me, I believe it was the right move. DC provided a diverse experience for me and allowed me to mature a great deal. While I may have made a trade down on school rankings, hindsight, I dont feel it was too far. I would also argue that my network is more robust coming out of DC than it might have been in Atlanta. To me, you have to think long and hard about transferring as it's not the right move for everyone. But with well reasoned assumptions and persuasive enough arguments for making a move, it can be done successfully. In my case, I needed to do some growing up and DC was a good fit for that period of my life.

Life is not always that simple, sometimes people have to leave their countries to accomplish their goals, this part of life. Even when you get a full time job, people get transferred, so I see no difference whether it is college or school, change is something that nobody can avoid or they end up as the Dinosaurs.

If looking back college wasn't the best experience of your life either:

A: You're a pussy B: You were too closed off socially, something that will come back to haunt you later in your professional life

Doing well and going to an elite / prestigious school is great as far as getting your foot in the door and understandably you should take advantage of the network that this can bring you.

But, when you have the job, nobody wants to hear about how cool you were for studying a lot and breaking into banking or how you built models in your free time after transferring to Harvard. As a matter of fact people will stay away from you professionally because at the end of the day you choose to work with people you would want to hang out with and office life can become just as cliquey as college life. This is where there is perceived value lies of "non-targets" who actually enjoy themselves in college and work hard and play hard. NOT ALL target school kids are dull by any means but how many socially awkward losers have you encountered from HYP etc. who have no interesting stories / social skills / piss themselves the second they have a sip of alcohol because they were too focused on getting the job (studying), than learning how to handle themselves in social situations. Good luck making it to senior level positions when a major factor is how much people like and respect you as a person, not just some academic machine. The best Senior People do good work and are Universally liked by the people they work with as a person

Moral of the story, make friends for life, have fun, work hard, don't transfer just for job prospects because the kids who have fun and can balance everything(or at least look like they do) are the ones who add value to an office ultimately and your career will reflect that