Investment banking preparation during High school
Hey guys, I'm currently a high school student looking into Investment Banking. I'm quite interested in the field, and for the last year or so I've been playing around with stocks to get a feel of things, as well as reading up on various material (books, articles, etc.). My brother suggested that if it was possible, to find out if local banks would take up an intern or person who could shadow someone, that sort of thing. Now, I'm not too sure on if that's possible, so I figured I'd come ask around here what peoples experience is with that sort of thing, if any.
My main question is would be: what would you recommend for a high school student to do to prepare for Investment Banking? I would love solid experience but I'm not sure if that's possible. I understand building a resume is a big plus in most fields, especially this one. On that note what are some good programs/events that would be resume boosters not only for college, but for the future that relate to I. Banking?
Enjoy high school as much as you can while it lasts.
Seriously. The most I would try to do is reach out to anyone you / your family knows and begin to express interest with them. That way you have some people to reach out freshman year for a potential internship. You can also look at PWM or other positions in the financial services field, it does not have to be an IB internship that early on.
All you need to do is get good grades, a good SAT score, and into a good undergrad program that is targeted by the banks you're interested in working for. Aside from that, dick around and enjoy life. It's easier in high school.
If you wanna be real hardcore, you need to get into a top target and get your first summer analyst stint at a well known M&A boutique before you start freshman year. Then you are set for sure!
Yes, this has happened before.
I'm currently a high school senior. How can I get my first summer analyst stint with no finance related experience?
Have family connections
If I could go back and tell my high school self one thing career-wise (excl. stock tips, lottery numbers and whatnot), it would be to screw ibanking and start my own company. But I can't very well do that, so I'm just going to pass that advice on to you and any others in your situation.
Seriously, if you're ambitious, hardworking and smart, why would you spend 100+ hours a week bullshitting models on Excel (yes, it is bullshit... people would often ask me to tweak assumptions just to make the numbers look better for the client/pitch) and turning comments on PowerPoint slides at 2AM? Take this time to come up with an idea, work on a business plan, and try to get something off the ground during college. You have the potential to make much more money, have much more fun, and boss people around instead of taking it up the ass just to make your MD richer.
Also, I realize this is a site for Wall Street-focused individuals, so maybe I'm a little out of line in trying to turn people away from the industry...
EntrepreneurshipOasis, anyone?
Wall Street Training/Prep/Boot camp a good christmas gift for a High School Senior? (Originally Posted: 12/19/2014)
I believe that having, "Completed Wall Street Prep self-study course covering valuation, M&A and LBO modeling" on my resume may set me apart from other students in a highly competitive IB/finance club and help me get in. Especially for programs like the Fisher program or the Nittany Lion Fund, depending on where I go.
Do you guys think it would help in that respect? If so, which program would you say is best? I've heard a lot of mixed opinions on this subject.
Thanks for the input!
thefastlaneforum is a good place to start, and it's never too late ;D Although without capital your chances are dramatically diminished, and that's why some would-be entrepreneurs go into finance, to accumulate enough money to start a business in the future.
What if I'm already getting that?
Dude,relax! there are sooo many free resources from which you can study from.How about you spend time doing something that will distinguish you from other students so you can get into a good school.
Yes, there are free resources, but do you think I should study them and use them
And I always have trouble distinguishing myself from others and am open to suggestions on that. I always thought of starting an investing/trading club but I'd hardly know where to start. And judging by the tone of your comment, you would probably disagree with such a thing.
I'm currently on the swim team, treasurer of comp sci club, marketing manager for the school paper, "financial manager" of a startup co. founded by a few students, but this isn't really enough to make up for my lack of 4.0 GPA and 2100+ SAT scores so I'm still working on distinguishing myself ENOUGH to get into a good school. But again, I'm open to suggestions.
Apologies if this is becoming non-finance related.
People now want an elementary guide to DCF/LBO modeling that can be learned in 2 weeks instead of video games? My advice is to ask for something to get you introduced to a new hobby that would set you apart from everyone else and their mother who has read those guides. Doesn't have to be finance related, but if you have a cool hobby to talk about in interviews--that's something memorable. Anyone can recite how to lever/unlever FCF. But this is just my two cents..so take it with a grain of salt.
"People now want an elementary guide to DCF/LBO modeling that can be learned in 2 weeks instead of video games? "
Only the ones who aren't going to H/W/Y/P next year...and probably them too. But what you said makes logical sense to me. I've always wanted to do MMA, might be good interview material too.
Context: I run interviews and hire summer interns, grads and lateral hires for my team. So I'm within your target audience.
Correct!
Incorrect!
Doing this as a high school senior will distinguish you as a misguided fool. A person full of desire, but empty of sense.
delete
Aghh oh wise master SSits, then what does one in my situation do?
逢佛殺佛
ie "If you meet the Buddha, kill him"
Its great your interested but you never know you might like another career. My grandfather studied English Lit at Yale and ended up being on the board of Directors for a large firm. Spend your time with friends and go out and party you only can go to college once brother brother!
Try to get hold of the Rosenbaum IB PDF version free of the web. It's like learning the ABCs of IB.
Aspiring Investment Banker (currently a high school senior) (Originally Posted: 02/21/2014)
I'm currently a high school senior planning on majoring in economics as an undergraduate. I don't know where I'll be going to college yet, but I will know by April 1st. Top two choices: Harvard, UPenn Wharton. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see how I fare in the crap shoot.
I actually first became interested in pursuing a career in IB after the interviewer brought it up in my Harvard interview. I looked into the field further and talked to a family friend who worked for Lehman Brothers as an analyst and at Barclays as a trader (he graduated from NYU CAS which I found surprising). Depending on where I get into college I will most likely be learning more about and perhaps changing my future career plans.
Get into a target school. If you go to Fairfield/Quinnipiac/Loyola, no one will care if you can do a DCF on excel in 1 min, you will be in ops or selling 100 stock lots of XOM to old ladies and muppets (as GS puts it). Trade confirmations are also kind of dead-end: the fact you need a finance degree to get one of those jobs, let alone a degree at all, is a sign of the times of how degree mills are causing degree inflation: with increased colleges and grads the individual value of a degree drops precipitously. Also, going to a mediocre school will destroy your work ethic, if you had one before.
Improve your social skills if they need improving, or hell, even if you're captain popular, still make 'em better. Become knowledge about all things, sports, history, politics, pop culture, because networking, which for any school will help you, is a people-based skill. If you have a social deficit, aspergers, social anxiety, etc. FIX IT by any means necessary.
Improve your math skills. You're looking at a numbers based business and because liberal arts are assumed to be a joke outside of the Ivy League/Little Three/Stan/JHU/Duke/UChicago/MIT.
Enjoy childhood while it lasts. Getting krunk, hitting up ladies, having friends live near you and near always accessible, and your parents money at your disposal is a lot more fun than having to wonder IF you'll be able to afford the stuff you want, IF you'll stay on or get fired, IF you'll get laid (its much harder as you get older), IF you'll get promoted (in college getting a grade is just about hard work, in real life its office politics). If you go to adulthood without a decent childhood, having convo with other analysts and others in your age will be much harder, as will relating to them. Again, finance is people-based.
If all those "ifs" I gave you bother you too much, of you don't get into a target school, or you're amazing at B/C/Ph/Calc, go into medicine. If I had it to do over, I'd have sucked it up, taken pre-calc again when I started school instead of being scared off from the calc class I took before the college I graduated from BC I should've failed it but got a B, and shot for medicine. Unless you're IBD, PE, HF, you will probably make more as an MD/DO once you get either and you'll last longer. You'll be immune from further financial crises too.
Did you have a question?
I feel, but I am also one of those worried high school kooks
I apologize for not being clear (looking back at my post I can see my fault). I was hoping I might be able to hear from some people who are currently employed in investment banking. I've been told repeatedly that I shouldn't be focusing on a specific career that is 4 years down the road. So I guess what I really want to know is: Did any of you just KNOW that you were going to end up in IB at my age? Or did the interest inadvertently develop until its ultimate fruition at the end of your collegiate career? I'm torn between focusing on working towards IB or just being open to whatever opportunities may arise. What is some advice that you would give to a student such as myself who wants to one day be working in IB?
Get into college, get laid, go drink. Not necessarily in that order.
.
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Exposure to IB industry as a high school student? (Originally Posted: 04/17/2015)
Hey monkeys,
I'm currently a high school junior with interest in the IB field. I'd like to get some (any) exposure to the industry this summer to see what it's like on the job. Any advice on outreach to local boutiques to shadow or do something of that nature?
Thanks for the advice.
High school junior? You are ambitious kid. 10 points for attitude.
No offense, but people probably won't look at you seriously. We don't normally look at people in undergrad until their third year. This is because they usually haven't even started taking the basic finance courses yet. And we are looking to hire them for a summer as a "four month interview" for full-time when they graduate after fourth year.
Also people coming into the industry often want to volunteer not realizing that it actually burns way more of our capacity to staff someone junior (expect tons of mistakes, slower in excel, slow to format etc.) than it is to get someone "experienced" (at least one analyst year) to do it. It's actually not a great value prop.
If you are really serious, PM me and I can give you some personal advice.
I would look to family connections first or your school's alumni network--hopefully one of the contacts you make will be able to take you on as an "extern" and shadow their work and meetings. The networking threads on this site should help and many contacts would be impressed that you are showing interest in the industry at a young age!
at your age (and I'm not even that old) my only "real" goals were to get good grades, get into a good college, and get pussy worry about banking when you're a freshman or sophomore in college.
Preparing for IB/Finance - Senior in High School (Originally Posted: 04/13/2013)
I'm a senior in high school that will be attending a target school on the west coast next year. What should I prepare for and expect on campus to prepare for finding a job in IB or finance? How to network, extracurriculars, Greek life, etc. ?
Join an investment club (Every school has it), you can learn a lot from that. Make sure to have at least one leadership role at some point in a club or team etc. Take on internships during the semester if you're schedule permits, even if they are not banking related but still can be related to Banking "indirectly." That will set you apart from most, as most people don't take unpaid internships during the school year. Set up informational interviews, first by cold emailing, then follow up to set up a phone call. Assuming you want to be working in NYC, you cant really do a face-to-face informational interview from the west coast, so your best bet is to find contacts, whether through alumni or LinkedIn or friends/family, and cold email and then set up a phone conversation where you ask intelligent and useful questions. Build relationships with these people, follow up and keep in touch. This is the best skill you can have during undergrad. Hands down.
I know nothing. How do I network effectively?
Use the search function on the site, look up "networking," "cold email," etc.
Since you're going to a target, you're practically already set up, though. Just get awesome grades, join some finance clubs, and attend as many on campus recruiting events as you can.
I'm currently a freshman at a non-target so I'll give you pointers that helped me.
-Join an investment club if your school has one. If not, make one.
-Join a fraternity. Not a business fraternity, a social fraternity. A) You'll be able to possibly network with thousands of alumni from your fraternity across the nation. If you're at a target, then you might have fraternity alum on the street. They will pick you coming from the same chapter than just an alumni from the school every time. B) More fun in college. Take an easy course load first semester because pledging will be rough.
-I didn't start networking until March my freshman year, so get a good start and begin around October/November. I luckily worked an internship over my winter/spring break so I had something to bring to the table, but I still read as many books on finance/investing that I could get my hands on to make up for the lack of curriculum that I would've gone through at that point.
-If you've got this summer free try taking a couple finance/economics/etc courses at a local community college that'll transfer credits to your school. I did this, and now I'm able to take courses for Juniors as a freshman. Plus you'll have excess credits so if you feel a grade slipping in a course you can withdraw from it with no consequence.
-Campus recruiting did zero for me this year because I'm a freshman, and recruiters at my school are interested in sophomores/juniors. Spend a lot of time on LinkedIn searching for alumni in the sector you want and reach out to them personally.
If Stanford, you can take a deep breath. Join some finance clubs and Greek Life if you're into that. But don't worry too much. You're set (for life).
If Berkeley: you may want to contact triplectz. You should prepare well for entry into Haas, join consulting/investment groups and social/business fraternities, and network, network, network.
What can I do, as a high-schooler, to prepare for a finance job? (Originally Posted: 09/03/2015)
I am currently a junior in high school, and was wondering what I could to do prepare for a job in finance. Maintaining a high GPA and getting accepted into a target school is a given, but what else can I do? Just as a sidenote, I am currently taking APUSH, AP Calc AB, and AP Econ.
Lol. Get into a target school first.
Just keep doing what your tiger parents tell you, you'll end up in a cold room somewhere crunching algo's eventually
I second this.
Lose your virginity ASAP. It'll cut the edge and help you acclimate towards people.
LMAO!!!
learn about organizational psychology. it's much more valuable than quant stuff that you can take classes in college.
coke
Pass the CFA Level 1 before you get your degree. That'll give an edge over almost everyone and it'll speak volumes about what kind of person you are. If you want to be taken seriously you better start doing serious things, both will lead to serious results.
Get into a target and read the news and investor newsletters, googling what you don't know, and making some pitches.
Don't talk beyond getting into a target as if it's a guaranteed thing or you already "know" and think you need (and can) do more. Unless you have acceptances to all Harvard, Stanford, and Penn, you can always aim to study harder, do more things that generate genuine impact, and be more interesting as a person. Also you have no idea how a strong school will open doors for you that most willspend their lives never realizing they exist.
You coming as a psychology major from Harvard will get you more looks than a triple finance, accounting, business major from some random school. Does it make sense? In some ways yes, in some ways no, but whatever, it's the way of the world. Don't ask what more you can do when you most likely haven't even done the first on the checklist, which is get into the best target possible. Don't try to skip it and demonstrate your interests in finance in other ways like exams and certification. These are window dressings - no matter how good they are, if your resume is a piece of shit, no amount of window dressings can help. You're 17, go live the world and over commit to getting into the best school possible.
High school senior to break into banking: financial aid problems at targets (Originally Posted: 03/31/2013)
I'm a high school senior here, and I've gotten rejected at every college I applied to, even Vassar. I've got solid stats, but I can't afford any of the schools there, and they're not so generous with international financial aid this year.
Being the Indian native that I am, I still have a decent shot at an Indian university where I hope to major in econ or computer science. While GS does recruit heavily there, it's mainly for BO technology or operations; not even investment banking. This is taking non-target to a whole new level, so I don't know what my options are.
What do I do? I want to break into banking, because I've had dream of becoming an investment banker since I was in my freshman year in high school.
Thanks for your replies in advance guys, I really appreciate it.
EDIT: I'm Indian as in little country from Asia with lots of people, not Indian as in people who lived in America before Columbus came there. So in that regard, do you know any university in India that might seem like a good shot?
Why do you focus on getting into college first? No sense in worrying about your career if you aren't even in undergrad.
you dont break into banking, banking breaks you
Go to IU and transfer after your freshman year. You should consider Emory, UVA, UNC, Georgetown, and Vandy.
LOL you didn't even read the post did you? Dude is from India, not Indiana.
I wouldn't consider GS recruiting at my UG for BO "beyond non-target".
You won the genetic lottery anyway, just get above a 3.7 and you'll be fine. Network starting your freshman year.
LOL not sure if joking or serious
wat.
This is a really challenging situation, how hard is it to make it into investment banking in India?
No Bachelors, no banking. Go with getting accepted first.
I can't do that in America, schools don't offer financial aid to internationals.
Hi. It's just by chance I came across this post. Sounds like you had a similar problem to myself, in that I also struggled to get into a good university. My suggestion would be to get into the best type of university you possibly can in India (if your finances don't allow you to target a british or american school). Score decent grades within your first year then apply for a direct entry route into 2nd year at a target university such as IIT. This is the same route that allowed me to graduate from a target university in London and later I got to intern at Goldman Sachs in it's credit risk function. I later went onto work as a trader for a smaller specialist firm. Let me know how you get on.
Amit, thank you for the encouragement. I will PM you when all this settles down.
Sure, no problem. Glad to be of help.
I wish you all the best.
You've dreamed of being an investment banker since you were 14?
Yes, is that abnormal?
"Even Vasser" haha. Love it. Go be a kid and enjoy school. Finance sucks. Honestly, if you've really dreamed of this dry ass career choice since you were 14 no one is going to want to work with you.
Who the fuck dreams of this crap? God. Dream of doing awesome shit and driving an Lamborghini and then come to the soul crushing realization that finance is the only way this will happen. Means to an end bro.
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