3.9 GPA from an Ivy League school in a useless major. What are my options?

Your logic for avoiding law school was sound.

Your liberal arts degree is not a handicap. The real handicap for a career in finance will be the fact that you're off the increasingly dogmatic recruiting timeline.

It's gotten absurd. Right now in August 2017 there are kids who start junior year at the end of the month sweating over their applications and interview status for 2018 summer analyst roles. That is wild to me.

You need to decide which is more attractive to you: a slower start to your career but comparatively better odds for the elite job trajectory Or a quicker start but an effectively guaranteed closed door at the most prestigious names.

If you're okay with the latter, you simply need to start interviewing. You would be surprised how many places will take first-round phone screen for a kid with a 3.9 from an Ivy League school. For both banking and consulting these will be the boutique or mid-sized places whose total hiring needs aren't so bulky that they're forced to rely on a rigid and regimented recruiting system like a Goldman Sachs or Barclays does.

I was pretty close with a kid I interned with in college who had a complete change of heart after going through a grueling summer program. He was from a HYP school, had grades dramatically worse than yours, and simply smiled-and-dialed his way to a boutique consulting firm in New York. The total team size is below 20, comp is probably 30% worse than MBB, and the MBA prospects aren't attractive, but the hours are consistently 50-70/week and you can simply put time in and expect to be promoted routinely (albeit slightly slower than at the big shops).

There was a guy from my school who crapped out during summer recruiting. I was actually surprised, because he was one of the smarter guys I knew out of the whole school, maintained solid grades, and was as technically sound (probably more, actually) than I was. He wound up at a real boutique.

It wasn't a trash firm; the founders were all guys with an impeccable academic pedigree and professional resume (group head at bulge bracket banks decades earlier, board member at glitzy New York philanthropic or arts organizations; you got the sense that they either lost out in or hated the politics that are inescapable in the big firms and set up shop on their own) so his dealflow was solid, it just didn't have the volume or scope as if he was at a BB or EB.

About 9 months in he was able to lateral over to a GS/MS/JPM and from there moved to a megafund; he had no analyst 'reset' and was able to recruit during his second year for a same-year start. His case is a real anomaly; I shared it to illustrate that he plugged in as quickly as he could and worked on improving the caliber of firm he was at once he had a foot in the door in the industry.

If you're more set on the former, you need to look for something that will allow you to re-recruit as an analyst. This would be either another academic degree or a fellowship of some kind.

For the academic route, look at the one or two-year master's programs. Easily identifiable options are the Duke MMS and all the one-year MSF programs. @TNA" founded and runs msfhq.com, check that out as a resource.

You have a bit of an unfortunate element to deal with in that the caliber of your undergraduate institution means that if your next school was too far away in terms of pedigree, your resume would look really lopsided and people would cotton on in a hurry to what your real situation is: a last-minute career switch and ensuing scramble to figure out next steps.

Options off the top of my head that wouldn't fall into this scenario: Duke, MIT MFin, Princeton MFin, and Columbia (has the MSFE [out of IEOR], MAFN, or MSFE [out of CBS]). Princeton probably isn't a fit for you, the program is notoriously quantitative and it's doubtful you'd get in: they look for rigorous prior academics and their program is unique in that most people are coming in with meaningful work experience. It's a self-selective thing and people often use it in lieu of an MBA because they're coming from and hoping to progress in fields where an MBA is completely useless. IlliniProgrammer could speak more on this.

Don't be afraid to look abroad as well. Americans often ignore the fantastic programs at Oxbridge. Both Cambridge and Oxford offer a number of fantastic one-year (they call them 'terminal', as in you can apply directly and it's not something earned progressing en route for a PhD) degrees.

You could find legitimately any program interesting to you and write a coherent personal statement as to why you are a compelling applicant and enjoy decent success at Oxbridge. Keep in mind that UK universities are very different than US ones in terms of the application.

They are focused solely on your suitability for the academic course you are applying for. Don't waste words writing about extenuating circumstances, personal difficulties, your background, diversity, or anything. They want you to explain in the statement why you want to study what you're applying for. The admission decision is made directly by the department, not a dedicated ad-com like we're used to, so you're assessed by the very people you want to study under.

They really love grades and they really love brand-name institutions. You have a 3.9 at an Ivy. You could pick anything related to a social science and will very likely get in.

Another great option is the bucket of master's programs Judge Business School (Cambridge) offers. They have an MPhil for people exactly like you who've never studied business before (it's similar to the Duke MMS). They also have an MPhil in Innovation, and with the emphasis on the qualitative research methodology, you could probably write a convincing story weaving your sociology degree to answer the 'why' question.

Better still is how much Americans love prestigious and recognizable names. With this route you're suddenly the Ivy plus Oxbridge kid who wants to be an analyst in the M&A group. People will trip over themselves to interview you. (Or, if you want to go into consulting, McKinsey will eat you up because you're even more marketable for international staffings.)

The application deadlines are all coming up in the next few months; you're recent enough out of school where it should be very easy to secure stellar recommendations from professors who haven't forgotten you (and hopefully liked you).

Amusingly, since the recruiting cycle has moved as early as it has, you can also be applying now for an internship for summer 2018 since as a class of 2019 student you'll have that summer free. You went to a target school, so it shouldn't be hard at all to find or get the contact info for the lead campus recruiter (here you actually want an HR person, not the senior banker).

Explain to them that you're applying to graduate schools and need to fill your intervening summer; it happens more frequently than you'd think. You need them to know this before you submit your application, otherwise it gets filtered out with a 'why the hell is someone done with school applying to be a summer'.

This has gotten really long so I'll be brief with the other fork under this second option, which would be something like Fulbright or TFA where you get a really shiny brand on your resume that all the 'prestige' employers will immediately recognize and be okay with hiring you out of.

I know three people (one Fulbright, two TFA) who struck out of recruiting in one way or another and all wound up with very elite jobs once they got the fellowship on their resume. One summered at a mid-tier BB and failed to get a return offer, did TFA, and got into GS IBD as an analyst afterward. Another completely failed in summer recruiting, did the Fulbright, and went to MBB. The third failed in summer recruiting, went to TFA, and then to MBB.

So, in summary, if I add up the facts of your circumstance, I see a strongly compelling route where you can:

• apply for a one-year degree abroad with very favorable odds of acceptance
• get a good internship for summer 2018 if you hustle starting immediately
• completely eliminate the unspoken ding on your candidacy for having failed to get anything immediately out of school by effectively resetting the student timer and securing something before it runs out
• acquire another top-notch academic brand for your resume
• develop an international network
• enjoy time in Europe at one of the most gorgeous campuses in the world
• boost your profile for a future MBA application if you go that path

Even if you don't go the Oxbridge route, there are numerous ways to 'fix' this. Keep your chin up and remember that you can always find a way to get what you want. The great news here is that you have a stellar academic profile so far, so as long as you're willing to be a bit patient, there is zero reason why you can't enjoy equally stellar career placement.