Advice on career and the switch into investment banking

Hello everyone,

I have browsed this site on and off for the past few years (thanks for all of the insight everyone) and now the time has come where I want to make the most out of it. I'll try to make this short and sweet, so I will get right to it. I have two main goals here: 1) quick background/current situation, 2) goals/plans. Any advice from people in the current investment banking world would be very appreciated.

1. Non-target state school 3.9 GPA, graduated Dec 2019. I love finance but I never realized exactly how early you have to get on top of things to get into "high finance," nor did I realize I actually had a shot. I genuinely just enjoyed the material and I loved college. Anyways, no SA internships. Graduated in 2019 and moved to SE region to a BB for wealth management as a full time intern. (I get saying BB is a stretch considering I'm not actually in investment banking). Just recently earned my spot on my team full-time and now about to licence up (SIE, 7, 66). We do a lot of options trading on my team and I assist with that, as well as the investment director in PM, and I have other random responsibilities.

2. I have been reading a lot of epic finance books (Barbarians at the Gate, anything by Howard Marks, What it Takes (Blackstone), etc.), and I also deal with our alternatives platform a lot and have gotten to talk to PMs and analysts at these elite firms, and naturally now I want my slice of the pie. I am highly confident in my ability to get into a great business school and I believe I can pivot from there to an associate role at a good firm. So my questions: Should I just stick it out for 2-3 more years here before b-school? Or should I try to lateral before without a target-school background? Further, I realize I could barely pick a worse time in the last 50 years to try to make an entrance. Specifically I am interested in Mergers and Acquisitions, Capital Markets, and Corporate Advisory. The goal is to give myself a skill-set for a buy-side exit if I wanted to, while also doing meaningful and interesting work.

Would appreciate any feedback,

Sincerely,

Incoming Monkey