What's the best path I can take out of high school?
I'm graduating high school this year and my passion is investment banking. I know I will have a career in finance, but I'm poorly positioned to break into the world of i-banking, especially with banks like MS or GS. I might of screwed myself over by not getting into a target school, but I'm trying to make my situation better. Here are some inhibiting factors, and the things I'm doing to fix them.
1. I go to high school in rural Minnesota, and have no connections with anyone in banking.
2. I was rejected from my top choice college (UW-Madison) and instead I am settling on University of St. Thomas (Twin Cities), depending on wheather or not I get accepted to UofM Twin Cities or Marquette University.
Here's what I'm grappling with:
Should I try and transfer to a target from the University of St. Thomas, or should I just get an investment banking job in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area with someone like UBS or US Bancorp?
I have no doubts about my abilities or intelligence, but I know since University of St. Thomas isn't a target, it will be very difficult to get a job in investment banking.
Any advice on what I should do from here?
Ok...Hate to say this but you
Ok...Hate to say this but you need a reality check. You say you got rejected from UW Madison (good school, but definitely not a super competitive place to get into), but then you say you'r smart. You need something to show the firms that you'r smart.
Your focus at this point shouldn't be IBD, but graduating from HS with top grades in your last sem and then doing supremely well first year or 2 of college. Everything else will fall in place once you have your top GPA and few ECs, and you can then maybe even transfer to a target.
can't tell if this is a joke
can't tell if this is a joke post. if not, do what the above poster said.
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I'm making it up as I go along.
Kid's way ahead of where I
Kid's way ahead of where I was at that age. The only passion I was aware of as a senior in high school was for anything in a skirt. I was as horny as a three-peckered billy goat.
Thanks for the advice
Thanks for the advice unqwertyfied, that's basically my game plan from this day on.
I know getting rejected from UW Madison is bad, but for some background, here are my grades etc.
GPA unwieghted: 3.48
7 AP classes
ACT: 27
Loads of EC's
Long story short, I did waaaayyy too many sports and extracirriculars freshman and sophmore year, and that coupled with taking all advanced classes led me to crash and burn. I'm trying to dig myself out of the rubble now.
Here's my angle on this: how
Here's my angle on this: how on earth you can say i-banking is your passion when you're in high school is completely beyond me. I can understand if you say basketball is your passion as you may have actually played basketball in high school.
But until you're working 100 hours a week, paying out a metric shit ton of rent and taxes, constantly worrying about which bonus bucket you'll be in, and thinking you're a failure for not getting KKR, and loving every second of it, I don't think you can call it your passion.
Lazard Middle Market is based
Lazard Middle Market is based out of Minneapolis.
You should also consider working your a** off frosh//soph year and join some strong finance related EC's. Then try to change schools.
Being from the Chicago area,
Being from the Chicago area, I know many kids who went to UW-Madison that got IB gigs in both NYC and Chicago
NYC kids: JPMorgan , Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Blackstone, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, UBS, Lehman (were retained by Barclays)
Chicago kids: JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, BMO Capital Markets, Houlihan Lokey, Robert W. Baird, several boutiques
If I were you, I would look at going to a cheap college in the UW system for your freshman year, do well, and then transfer into the UW-Madison. Get a finance related internship the summer of your sophomore year (it can be anything). Join some finance clubs at the UW, keep your grades above a 3.5, and you will be competitive for Chicago summer analyst positions. If you can get closer to a 4.0, you will be competitive for NYC summer analyst gigs.
Also, keep in mind that the UW-Madison is much more renowned for its real estate program (top 5) than its finance program. So consider double-majoring in finance and real estate.
Many of the top real estate investment firms regularly recruit Wisconsin real estate majors: Jones Lang LaSalle, Eastdil, Tishman Speyer, etc.
good luck
Here's my suggested plan of
Here's my suggested plan of action.
1. Go to St. Thomas. Forget about transferring to a target. Honestly if you really thought you could get in a target, then why didn't you apply to one in the first place?
2. You will be in the Minny area, so you should get a list of all the investment banks in town. There's a relatively large amount of i banking activity in Minny so you're in a good spot. Look in a Minneapolis business journal and look for a list of investment banks.
3. Read the vault guide to investment banking or any of the jillions of "what is investment banking?" summaries out there so you have at least a general idea.
4. Set up meetings with area bankers where you introduce yourself and ask them about banking, how they got into the business, how you should approach undergrad, banking in Minneapolis and the Midwest in general, M&A vs. product groups, etc.
5. LISTEN to these dudes. No one likes a know it all but especially not one who is a Freshman in college. Allow your contacts to talk about themselves and how they like the business.
6. Your thought process going into these meetings should be - "I'm making a new friend." You are laying the groundwork for your network that you will have your entire life. Don't be like - "so when should I expect to hear back about the internship" - just be curious about i banking and have them come away thinking you are a nice kid who's motivated to work hard and get into finance. At this point you are developing allies - people you will go to bat for you years later when the interviews are actually happening.
7. Cross reference your list of banks with St. Thomas alumni. Befriend any and all that you can find.
8. Last but not least - GET FUCKING AWESOME GRADES. Doesn't matter really what your major is - you could major in "Being an Analyst at a Minneapolis Investment Bank" and you'd STILL know shit about what the work actually entails - but it probably wouldn't hurt to get a working comfort level with accounting and to a lesser extent, finance.
9. Do one cool activity where you really own what happens - as opposed to being VP of ten different bullshit "investment clubs".
10. No one cares about the "portfolio" that you "managed in college" so don't waste your time. Better off organizing a Braille book drive for your club that will parachute into the Himalayas to deliver the goods to blind paralyzed Nepalese kids.
Lol - "last but not least" is
Lol - "last but not least" is 8 out of 10.
Victory Capital recruits from
Victory Capital recruits from UW-Madison if you decide to transfer.
http://www.victoryconnect.com/vcn/home_companyOver...
MSF Website
MACC Website
MSF Twitter
Great list jhoratio, that
Great list jhoratio, that information is very helpful, and I will act on your advice to do those things.
To answer your first question, I didn't apply to any targets because I was so sick of the college application process when the deadlines approached in December. Since the summer, my parents (specifically my mom) had been running me through dozens of hoops and tests and "study programs" to try and ready me for filling out applications. When the time came to apply, I was like "Fuck it, I've already spent hours filling our bogus forms, I'm not doing it for the thousandth time", and my parents discouraged me from applying to out of state schools, or schools where they "thought I would have a hard time". They've told me they want me to stay close to home, and get a liberal arts major. I regret giving into them.
It's my mistake, but I've learned that I'm my own best advocate, and in the future I should ignore people that try and influence me to make decisions that they approve of.
peggyice: I've never been in any capacity close to an investment banker, but based on my current interests, it is something that I anticipate I will be good at. I rabidly follow the markets, I read the NYT, the Star Tribune, the Economist, and Barrons, and I literally soak up any financial information I can get my hands on. I've found I can accurately predict stocks, and it's something I want to do for the rest of my life.
keep in mind that predicting
keep in mind that predicting stocks isn't what investment bankers do, unless you want to do equity research.
ahaha im in highschool as
ahaha im in highschool as well, and i would never say that ib is my 'passion'. ESPECIALLY on this site where everybody here will roast you. Anyway, i feel that as long as you get into university and do well, you can get yourself an interview. At that point it doesn't really matter what school you attended; either they like you or they dont. good luck dude, mayb ill work with you someday.
Yo, hit me up on PM. A friend
Yo, hit me up on PM. A friend of mine is a finance professor at St. Thomas. Great guy, deff someone you want to talk to. When I knew him he had some industry contacts. Probably a smart idea to start building a relationship with him early.
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MACC Website
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