Advice for a freshman interested in RX
I am currently a freshman at a target school (Harvard, Wharton, Yale) looking for some guidance. I will likely finish the first semester with a GPA in the 3.9-4.0 range depending on a few outstanding final exams and projects but my CV does not have any other finance experience on it. I have been reading a lot about restructuring and it sounds very interesting as a possible career path. As such, I am trying to learn as much about it as I possibly can.
Could I feasibly network my way into an internship this summer at a local boutique in restructuring? If so, would that be preferable to an internship in something like PWM or AM if I plan to recruit for a 2027 RX SA position next fall? Any other advice about the industry, restructuring, or school would be greatly appreciated as well!
distressed investing internship is probs best, not many rx boutiques
Echoing above commenter - go for credit/high yield research
Great job on the top target, alleviates a lot of the bullshit everyone else goes thru
Do normal investment banking - study hard for Rx. The quality of candidates we interview now is absurd. You have to seriously know your stuff.
Yea echo above. The quality of candidates interested in Rx is absurd. Couple that with the fact it is a relatively small field (maybe ~10/12 reputable Rx banks averaging maybe ~6-8 per intern / analyst class). Keep grades up, join student orgs on campus focused on RX, study hard (you really can't get your technicals wrong for RX recruitment) and try and get the most relevant freshman and soph summer internships you can. Not going to say what I did for anonymity, but have seen people succeed with BB sophomore internships --> EB RX junior summer, or distressed credit soph summer or MF PE soph summer. Try and get something relevant for freshman summer as that will help for soph summer. Good luck
honestly i think thats more self-selection, the ppl who get those internships know about IB in freshman year and are likely the ones prepped well. Ppl who can answer the techs didnt learn them in their upcoming soph summer
Don't think it matter if you do something super relevant to restructuring / distress for freshman or sophomore summer. Most important thing is you have some sort of finance internship freshman summer and can say "incoming xyz" at some name brand institution for sophomore summer. The best restructuring groups are basically prestige whores who care way more about the signaling of some shiny brand name vs real demonstrated interest in credit (the median exit from the best rx groups isn't even credit related anymore and those banks know people come to their group just because its a good program and they just want the smartest kids) so landing an internship at sequioa is worth more on your resume than some LMM credit fund or rx advisory shop.
Source: I worked at PJT / EVR RX and most analysts we hired had some sort of BB / Tiger cub / name brand hedge fund / MF PE / MBB sophomore summer internship. None of those were nepo seats either, kids were just absolute sweats.
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