Summer courses vs. IB internship

Hi guys, rising junior at a non-target (top 50 UG B-school). I'm interning at an IBaB in a shadow IB rotational program for a month or two this summer (sophomore). My grades are OK at best, but going into recruiting I'll most likely have a ~3.4/3.5 cumulative GPA and a 3.7 or 3.8 in my double major (finance and stats). I can take two classes this summer which may boost my GPA a bit higher, but that's at the risk I'd be taking courses DURING said IB internship. The summer courses are naturally easier, but this would be with an internship where I'm commuting and working decently long hours.

Do I eat the GPA and continue to try and network or should I try and bulk up on some classes during my internship to bolster the GPA a bit higher heading into recruiting this summer/fall?

 

Graduating senior here. Would recommend internship over summer classes. A guy in an upper MM told me about the GPA cutline he knows: banks will look at your majors and decide a cutline (at least in his bank). It's not fair to say that a marketing major (no offense) 3.5 GPA is equivalently to a math major 3.5 GPA. Math is just a harder major. Get more internship experiences.

Persistency is Key
 

tough call - two different types of risk but I'd personally go for an internship because an internship becomes a network. Summer school also potentially signal the things you mention - why cant you muscle another class during the semester instead?

GL

 

tough call - two different types of risk but I'd personally go for an internship because an internship becomes a network. Summer school also potentially signal the things you mention - why cant you muscle another class during the semester instead?

GL

 

tough call - two different types of risk but I'd personally go for an internship because an internship becomes a network. Summer school also potentially signal the things you mention - why cant you muscle another class during the semester instead?

GL

 
couchy:
tough call - two different types of risk but I'd personally go for an internship because an internship becomes a network. Summer school also potentially signal the things you mention - why cant you muscle another class during the semester instead?

GL

I'm confused here on how another internship can become a network? Sure if i might want to go back there for FT. But not really if im aiming for BBs.

Im planning to take max credits next semester.

 

What did you do on these internships? Did you just use a proprietary database to find M&A candidates? Or, did you build/update financial models, help with PBooks/presentation materials? If you did something meaningful with a 3.5, I am sure you will get first round interviews. When is the deadline for summer course registration?

The difference between successful people and others is largely a habit - a controlled habit of doing every task better, faster and more efficiently.
 
mhurricane:
What did you do on these internships? Did you just use a proprietary database to find M&A candidates? Or, did you build/update financial models, help with PBooks/presentation materials? If you did something meaningful with a 3.5, I am sure you will get first round interviews. When is the deadline for summer course registration?

I have a few weeks to consider doing summer courses. My past work experience i would say are in-between. didnt go all out and build financial models, but learnt a decent amount of stuff. got to work on some deals (research, DD, PBooks , offering memorandums, etc).

Its just that even if i did get another summer internship and scratch plans for summer courses, i wont know how meaningful and how much i can learn from it.

 

I would think another internship would outweigh a mere .2 on your GPA. Honestly, in my opinion I would think it would outweigh it by a landslide if it was a strong internship. Are you not applying to SA positions?

Frank Sinatra - "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy."
 
yeahright:
I would think another internship would outweigh a mere .2 on your GPA. Honestly, in my opinion I would think it would outweigh it by a landslide if it was a strong internship. Are you not applying to SA positions?

im a sophomore right now. So i got one more summer before applications for SA. but tbh, i kinda think a .2 is pretty big. If i have a IBD internship, a PE internship, would another internship really add that much value? Sure if i have a BB or even top tier MM internship, i would hands down go with the internship. But thats kind of hard to get with my grades.

 
Dreamgazing:
yeahright:
I would think another internship would outweigh a mere .2 on your GPA. Honestly, in my opinion I would think it would outweigh it by a landslide if it was a strong internship. Are you not applying to SA positions?

im a sophomore right now. So i got one more summer before applications for SA. but tbh, i kinda think a .2 is pretty big. If i have a IBD internship, a PE internship, would another internship really add that much value? Sure if i have a BB or even top tier MM internship, i would hands down go with the internship. But thats kind of hard to get with my grades.

This makes no sense.

 
rufiolove:
Dreamgazing:
yeahright:
I would think another internship would outweigh a mere .2 on your GPA. Honestly, in my opinion I would think it would outweigh it by a landslide if it was a strong internship. Are you not applying to SA positions?

im a sophomore right now. So i got one more summer before applications for SA. but tbh, i kinda think a .2 is pretty big. If i have a IBD internship, a PE internship, would another internship really add that much value? Sure if i have a BB or even top tier MM internship, i would hands down go with the internship. But thats kind of hard to get with my grades.

This makes no sense.

How so?

Any more thoughts guys?

 
rufiolove:
Dreamgazing:
yeahright:
I would think another internship would outweigh a mere .2 on your GPA. Honestly, in my opinion I would think it would outweigh it by a landslide if it was a strong internship. Are you not applying to SA positions?

im a sophomore right now. So i got one more summer before applications for SA. but tbh, i kinda think a .2 is pretty big. If i have a IBD internship, a PE internship, would another internship really add that much value? Sure if i have a BB or even top tier MM internship, i would hands down go with the internship. But thats kind of hard to get with my grades.

This makes no sense.

How so?

Any more thoughts guys?

 
Best Response
Dreamgazing:
rufiolove:
Dreamgazing:
yeahright:
I would think another internship would outweigh a mere .2 on your GPA. Honestly, in my opinion I would think it would outweigh it by a landslide if it was a strong internship. Are you not applying to SA positions?

im a sophomore right now. So i got one more summer before applications for SA. but tbh, i kinda think a .2 is pretty big. If i have a IBD internship, a PE internship, would another internship really add that much value? Sure if i have a BB or even top tier MM internship, i would hands down go with the internship. But thats kind of hard to get with my grades.

This makes no sense.

How so?

Any more thoughts guys?

If you have done a PE internship and a banking internship and you have a 3.5 and you can't get a banking internship for this summer, the issue is not your grades "." end of discussion.

 

Don't take summer classes. Few kids do that, so it's not like you're going to be making friends off the bat. Wait until the fall to get a handle on the campus; do the internship.

Also, good luck rushing a fraternity as a junior.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

I just transferred universities, and I would personally recommend doing the banking internship. The only downfall is you won't have a GPA for recruiting, and you have to work extremely hard to keep a strong GPA.

I also have a question if anyone can answer (this can also relate to you, Hopkins55):

If I get a mediocre GPA such as 3.2 or 3.3 my first semester (hardest semsester) at my new university, will that hurt my chances of getting an interview even if my previous university's GPA is around the 3.8-3.9?

Will that matter as much, since I had a banking internship this summer at a boutique? I only know a handful of people in my class who did banking sophomore summer.

 

I just transferred universities, and I would personally recommend doing the banking internship. The only downfall is you won't have a GPA for recruiting, and you have to work extremely hard to keep a strong GPA.

I also have a question if anyone can answer (this can also relate to you, Hopkins55):

If I get a mediocre GPA such as 3.2 or 3.3 my first semester (hardest semsester) at my new university, will that hurt my chances of getting an interview even if my previous university's GPA is around the 3.8-3.9?

Will that matter as much, since I had a banking internship this summer at a boutique? I only know a handful of people in my class who did banking sophomore summer.

 

Resume reviewers will also give people with directly relevant experience a bit of a bump up into the interviews even with a slightly lower GPA over some kid with a 3.8 who only worked at something not relevant.

 

This depends strictly on GPA, IMO. If your GPA is low, take the summer classes and you must get good grades. If you goal is S&T, then an internship in the HR division of a non financial services firm will not do much... You can probably spin it as a positive by working in a corp environment, being exposed to different functions of the business etc. But if a higher GPA is the end result, I would take that route.

 

Thank you guys for the responses

My GPA after this semester should be around a 3.5-3.65 so i am not to worried about taking the classes to bump my GPA.

And this would potentially be my second internship, my first was a back office IT role at Bain Capital

And any tips on IB BB S&T and Risk recruiting for next summer

 

Non-sense. The HR internship is 1) Unpreftigious and 2) Useless for S&T.

Take the courses.

[quote]The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.[/quote]
 

You've already worked in backoffice, you don't want to keep staining your resume with these experiences.

HR work is bullshit, you're not going to learn anything relevant for S&T recruiting. As a matter of fact it could even hurt your chances. You might as well take that course, boost your GPA and learn on your own, I guarantee this is the better option.

[quote]The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.[/quote]
 

For your HR internship, will there be opportunities to perhaps get involved in more financial type of responsibilities? Also, isn't there a big communications aspect to HR that could be leveraged as sales experience?

I tend to agree that a lot of people may be turned away from the "HR" title, but if you spin it the right way (job title and responsibilities) you could make it work. Also, if you do a good job in HR with this company could you leverage that to something more directly finance related with the company the next year and then ultimately look for S&T full-time?

 

Do not worry about the internship this summer.

One of my key pieces of advice to new students (work as a peer mentor for new business students each year at my university) is to take classes in the summer after freshman year. Summer classes are much easier, which really doesn't make sense and isn't all that fair. I took a notoriously hard corp. fin. class this past summer during May term and got an A-, which allowed me to take 4 classes in the fall so I could do an internship.

So take the classes! And start "nurturing" your connections so you have them down pat when time comes for the internship.

 

Normally I would say take the internship. But since you are a freshman, you have time and you need to build a solid base for GPA for OCR, Plus taking one less class will allow you to crush your other classes in the fall. I would see if your connections would allow you to intern during your Winter break.

Fear is the greatest motivator. Motivation is what it takes to find profit.
 

I meant, that it matters much less if you do one or the other.

If you want to go Prop, you WILL need programming, as their are very very little "discretionary" shops out there anymore. Almost all of them require knowledge of programming so you can speak to the developers like you know what you are talking about, and the stuff that is really important, the low latency multi-threading memory management blah blah blah is not taught in any CS101 type course that I am familiar with. It usually would be in the 3rd or 4th CS course you take...so just be warned of that.

 

yea, gotcha. I mean I know that a class or two wouldn't make me that proficient, but I figured that it'll give me at least a solid background. I was also thinking of just buying some books and picking up some programming myself. Thanks for the response by the way

Were most prop traders comp sci majors or minors in college or did they just learn programming on their own?

 

If I saw a resume with two previous IBD internships, I'd definitely set it aside to see if everything else looked good, and if everything else checks out, that kid is most likely going to get an interview.

If I saw a resume with a spring IBD internship and nothing for the summer, I'd wonder why this kid didn't do anything relevant over the summer if he was truly interested in IBD.

Just my two cents.

 

Look, I don't know if you are just this clueless or bull-shitting, but there is no way in hell that you should turn down a top-tier consulting internship to graduate a semester early. Unless your schooling is costing you 10 billion dollars per semester, always go with the summer position. I really don't think graduating a semester early because you are taking summer classes instead of working does anything to boost your resume, especially considering you said you are interested in consulting as a career.

Not trying to be ultra-harsh here, but seriously, take the internship.

A couple of thoughts: there is very little value to graduating a semester early. Most of these firms have very standardized training programs and want all of their incoming classes to start at the same time. Take the internship opportunity. It'll be better for your resume and you'll make money over that summer to 'offset' the money you would have saved by graduating early.

These days, getting the internship is as important as getting the job. Get the internship, most likely you get the job.

Also, you said you wanted to either be a consultant or a trader. Well, this consulting internship sure would help you figure that out, don't you think?

Your interviews next year will go something like this: interviewer: "I don't see anything on your resume last summer. How'd you spend your time last summer?" you: "Well actually I was taking summer classes so that I could graduate early" interviewer: "WAIT WHAT??? Why the fuck would you want to graduate early? Working sucks. I wish I was still in college BLAH BLAH BLAH"

 

experience trumps gpa 10 times out of 10. A 4.0 without relevant experience gets you no job. Think big picture.

Additionally, sophmore year internship A) puts less pressure on you for Junior year SA recruiting B) Gives you something to TALK about for Junior year SA recruiting C) shows long term dedication for Junior year SA recruiting or potentially FT recruiting

 

Take the internship. Big difference between working part time hours and doing a full 3 months of IB hours and banks will question why you didn't work your sophomore summer.

Also you go to a non-target, if your plan was to resume drop online then you never had a chance anyway whether you have a 3.3 or a 3.7. You need to network with bankers and if they like you and think you know your stuff then the difference between a 3.4 and a 3.5 won't matter.

 

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