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What would be the rationale for going to law school if you want to go into IB...? Are you interested in the legal aspects of transactions?
Sure, students from top law firms can easily get into IB, but why not network your way in from undergrad? Why spend the money to go to law school and not become a practicing lawyer?
I’m more interested in finance than law, and I will be apply for finance at other schools, I just thought that coming from oxford would look good even if it’s law. And it’s an undergrad degree too if that helps at all. And I hope to work in IB right out of undergrad with a law degree. I am interested in law so I’m not just trying to find a way into oxford (especially since law is one of their harder degrees to get into) I just enjoy finance more. The end goal is to work at a hedge fund so if I could do that out of undergrad too that’d be amazing, although from what I’ve read on here that’s extremely rare, even with a finance degree.
When you apply to the UK unis, you must use the same personal statement for all of them. Hence it will be hard to convince the admissions teams that you want to do Law/finance as the two are quite different. If you try and mix the two, your PS will look all over the place which would lead to an automatic ding from LSE and (most likely) Oxford. If I was you, I would take my time and think about what course you would REALLY want to study for 3 years and why. From then on your personal statement will write itself.
Everything dibs99 said is important. You need to understand that university in the U.K. is actually quite different to college in the U.S., from everything from the application process to the day-to-day studying of your degree.
For instance, you can apply to five universities at a maximum. From those that give you offers, you must lock in one firm and one insurance choice (in case you don't get your grades - this is because most people are applying before they've finished their final exams). You can't apply to both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year.
I suggest you read up more on university in the U.K. in general before you even think about how a law degree from Oxford will affect your IB chances.
In the UK subject doesn’t matter, only University does. I’d rather have an Oxford kid doing law on my team that is intellectually curious than someone that only cares about finance.
I heard that I need to take calc bc for finance or Econ at basically any other school, is this true? I’m unable to take that so that’d mean that I just couldn’t go there.
Did Oxbridge law and currently in IB EB in the US, moving to PE. I had the same thoughts as you going into Oxbridge law - wanting to do IB after.
Couple of considerations for you.
Would encourage you think about where you want to be for long term. If you're in US, I think it's better to stay in the US if you can land a top tier college (HYPSMW or at least an Ivy). It's almost impossible to do IB in US/NY from across the pond, unless you do a masters in the US (in which case why bother with Oxford). Comp in London is also terrible vs. US and even Asia, on a gross basis and across buyside as well. With the highest taxes of the 3 regions, I wouldn't bother unless you have a fetish for London/England and the idea of being in Oxford for 3 years (trust me, it gets old quickly). Plus Europe is on a long term secular decline. Sure, there are ways to transfer back to US via London, but you miss out on the college connections. Trust me, it's an impediment not having a huge network in US.
Law at Oxbridge is no joke... you need to study A LOT unless you are happy with a 2.1 (kinda like a cum laude). This takes up a lot of time for recruiting. The caveat to this is that Oxford law examines u in the 2nd term and then one major final exam in final year, so you can spend the rest of the time recruiting (unlike Cambridge). I liked what I studied and deferred my IB ambitions to pursue the intellectual interest - still got there in the end - but definitely felt like I couldn't achieve a first class and still get into a top BB/EB. Am very competitive so I personally would not settle for mediocre shops, which is what happened to some of my friends trying to 'balance' law school and IB recruiting, at the expense of both.
In general, UK prepares you way less for IB/high finance than US schools. Student clubs (and its students) are a joke, and you're kinda left preparing for recruiting yourself. The no. of slots in London are also far fewer than NY/SF, and they tend to go to the European kids who are like 25/26 and have done so many off-cycle internships (unavailable to UK kids because of how unflexible the academic terms are) and can model in their sleep. You cannot beat them.
The finance system in London also undercuts you systematically - e.g. many shops require 3 analyst years to become associate, prefer continental europeans (french, german, spanish, italians). This makes sense culturally from a european perspective because of their apprenticeship system but from a global perspective do you really want to play the european game? I also find people in US far sharper and driven than people who have been through the UK/Europe system - note that this is a comment on the respective systems and not on the people. For all its flaws, US does bring out the best (and also worst ofc) in you.
As the UK applications don't require much preparation (UCAS is a joke compared with CommonApp), would advise you to apply to both top US and UK (imo only Oxbridge merits consideration) and then decide from there. In short, go to Oxford only if you don't gain admission to a top US target.
American at a MF here thinking of taking a break to go do a second BA at Oxford and then possibly working in London - mind if I PM you? You seem quite knowledgeable about Oxbridge from a US perspective
Piggybacking off this, would you mind if I PM'd you yourself? Currently a HSW undergrad, have done a couple PE internships and am in the middle of banking recruiting. Really interested in going back to school for a non MBA after a bit of time on the buyside and would be interested to hear more about your reasoning for doing so, interest in Oxbridge, etc. Thanks!
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