1-year master's degrees for top London banks

Given that some target school master's are 1 year degrees which END IN 2025 (for instance)—how could such students have easily recruited into banks that are strict on a 2025 graduation date for 2024 SA internship classes if admission decisions were not made as at the time in 2023 when 2024 SA applications were being submitted? Is it that top banks like GS/JPM/MS/BAML are not strict with the penultimate year requirement for 1-year target master's students (say Oxbridge/Imperial) who would be starting their master's programs AS AT the time of APPLICATION—to finish their master's right before the SA—given that admission decisions would not have been made for those whose proposed 1-YEAR target master's would end at the correct year (post-SA) to fit the penultimate year SA requirement?

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Most people use these as a fifth year immediately after college, so they can apply to SAs on the right timeline. A lot of people just put the later grad date with their current school, and if they land SA they will figure out a masters program or just delay undergrad graduation a lot.

But otherwise you are correct, you would not be able to get SA with the short timeline of a 1 year masters. Schools do not hold spots for masters students. At best, you can use it to recruit FT, but even that will mostly wrap up before you start school. They are not very useful for IB for this reason

 

How about if one graduated too many years ago for these scenarios you mentioned to be implemented – is it okay just to write a single line at the top of the education section stating that one intends to start a 1-year master's in the September after the SA?

 

No, that won't fly. Masters are a challenging/uncommon path even in the best-case scenario (going right out of school) - let alone trying to do it with lots of work experience.

If you have a year or more of work experience, you should be looking at MBAs. That is a very easy and well-trodden path to BB/EB ASO if you can get into M7/T15.

 

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