Non-Target School with 3.1 GPA
Hello all,
I'm new to this forum and getting used to this site but I wanted some feedback.
I'm currently going into my third year of college with a 3.1 GPA and 3.73 Major GPA, I go to a non-target state school. Freshman year my grades, which caused a dent in my GPA, were not too great because I went into a major (Biology/Pre-Med) that I thought I would be very interested in but soon realized halfway through 2nd semester it didn't interest me as much.
Ever since switching to Finance and Econ (double major), I worked hard to get the grades where they are today and feel like it's still steadily rising. I'm wondering what's the likelihood of landing an internship in top banking firm or analyst position next summer with my grades, EC's, and networking. And any extra tips would help!
You can put your major GPA on your resume and exclude the overall. So you have that going for you. However, you might be asked in interviews what your overall is being you're only a junior and you probably haven't had that many classes within your major.
Being a non-target will put you at a disadvantage and I assume you don't have any finance internships, which will also severely dent your chances at getting an IBD SA internship at a top firm. If you do have internships, then go ahead and list them here so everyone can better assess your chances.
If you're a non-target with minimal to no finance work experience, your best bet is networking and cold-calling/cold-emailing banks to get your way in somehow. Don't have your expectations too high and focus the majority of your efforts on smaller and MM boutiques.
Thanks for the response!
To be more correct, I'm a Sophomore standing due to some issues in my family that hindered me from being a FT student during my second-year of college. I don't have any finance internships/experience other than being a Cabela's Club employee (store credit card) about a year ago.
So my best bet is most likely talking to alumni that have broken into the finance industry especially the ones that I'm interested in and like you said, cold-calling/emailing.
Also, is it wise for me to go in or call my local Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, etc. to work for free and gain some experience so that it could help set me up for recruiting season later during this year?
If you've completed three full semesters of college or if you plan on graduating in December 2017, then you would be eligible for two summer internship opportunities remaining instead of one, which would be good.
As a sophomore, you could put Cabela's on your resume and make it relevant as best you can to the positions you're applying for. Illustrate everything you did finance related and with respect to customer service.
For your first internship, I would focus on either smaller boutiques for summer analyst positions, or else a lower division within a BB (like PWM or AM). Then you could make yourself reasonably competitive for a BB SA position in the summer of 2017. Of course, this is assuming you're graduating past May/June 2017.
But you'll need to make sure you have demonstrated some finance interest beforehand, preferably through work experience. Even though it's only a 10-week stint that they're hiring you for, they want to make sure they're not hiring somebody who realizes they don't really like the job in the second week. And their preference is through work experience that you obtained through an interview process. It sucks that this is the way it is (firms want experience even for people who haven't had the chance to get it yet), but that's how it goes.
You could do internships during the year, even if it's pro bono. But you need to make sure you're not spreading yourself too thin and not getting as much time to study as you need to such that your grades suffer as a result. You can consider finance-related clubs to demonstrate interest, and being a finance major in itself helps as well.
When's the best time for me to start contacting these small boutiques or lower division BB that are local or at most regional (from the Midwest) for SA positions for the next summer?
Right now, my main target is hopefully landing an internship at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Morgan Stanley, or Charles Schwab in my city, dependent if they hire internships for the summer.
You can never start too early with networking. That should start as soon as possible. Just make sure you prepare you pitch correctly and know exactly why you want to go into finance, why you're targeting that bank, and other such fundamentals.
Application season is usually anywhere from late October through December, with interviews in January/February. But each firm is a bit different, especially if they're smaller or mid-sized.
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