I felt that it was necessary to write this post now, as an important step in my life has transpired recently. Coming from as much of a non-target background as possible, I have managed to get the coveted SA offer from a BB, and I could not have done it without WSO.
To put what I said in perspective, I'd like to point out that I'm an international student, and that I'm coming from a country that few people I go to college with would be able to point to on a world map. I grew up in severe poverty, and have been supporting my parents with three jobs (one full-time and part-time) since I was in my mid-teens, all the while going to high school. At one of those jobs I was lucky enough to meet a colleague who told me that it was possible to study in the U.S. for undergrad (however strange it may sound, where I'm from this is not obvious to people, especially kids in high school). I applied to several schools, got a full scholarship from one, and ended up going there not only for its good academics, but also as an opportunity to help my family even more.
As it is a small private school, the only finance group on campus attracted people interested in many areas of finance. I was again lucky, as the then-leader of the group was a senior with an offer from an MM IB. I enjoyed what he was teaching us (what to read on WSO, basics of DCF, comps, etc.), but what I really took to heart was his stressing the importance of networking and internships for non-targets. So, I spent most of my free time studying, working three campus jobs, and reaching out to people (I really don't want to use the term 'networking', it always felt too artificial to me).
It is through this large effort in reaching out, and getting in touch with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend that I managed to land a regional semi-BB IBD interview in my freshman year. At that point I had already put in a lot of time reading WSO and learning the basics, and had already done a couple of (bad) DCF models on my own, so I had something to leverage. While the interviewers were impressed that I understood the concepts as a freshman, they nonetheless told me that these internships were meant for juniors and that I shouldn't get my hopes up. But, I got lucky again, and I got contacted about a month later with an offer for an internship.
My second internship was quite similar -- reached out to many, many people, leveraged my knowledge and previous experience, and got an M&A internship for my sophomore summer, this time in NYC. While I wasn't working full IBD hours (averaged about 65-70), I tried to use ALL of my free time to meet people in New York. (Note: 90% of my contacts came through cold-messaging people on LinkedIn)
This year, I continued reaching out to people, and finally calling up people that I had met/spoken to over the last 2 years. I have probably spoken to at least about 200 people. As many users on here have said, it is vital that you don't treat the relationships as Niccolò Machiavelli -- people are more than peons, and it is infinitely more valuable when you make genuine contacts with people than when you call people solely for the purpose of "networking". I have learned something, however banal, from everyone that I have spoken to. In the end, even though I am a non-target student, I managed to land first-round interviews at almost every BB and a couple of independent advisory firms. Eventually I got invited to a special final round (not an accelerated one), and I managed to get an SA offer from the BB. I have yet to prove myself and get the even-more-coveted FT offer, but all in good time.
Without WSO I would have not been able to be where I am, as I have gotten a lot of information just reading and absorbing posts, and have met many extremely kind and helpful people (a big thank you goes out to @Kidflash). To reiterate: I did NOTHING on my own, and have gotten A LOT of help from a bunch of people along the way.
With that said, I would love to help out others in any way that I can, so please feel free to ask any questions, and I'll do my best to answer them.
Thanks again monkeys, keep working, and don't give up!
