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LA banker from East Coast who applied for LA SA back in the day with no ties to the city - it's definitely doable. it's harder, but that's primarily because LA cares about "Why LA" and naturally students from LA or attending school in LA often have a better "Why LA" story. With that being said, if you have good personal or professional reasons to live in LA and can fit those reasons into your Why LA answer, you'll be fine.

 

Since you were able to get an offer in LA, do these banks still offer students a chance at interviews/superdays even when they know they're not from LA and give them a chance to speak about "Why LA?" Or do you think you got lucky in the sense that your resume and stats were very high so that's why they offered you an interview even though they knew you weren’t from LA. Sorry if my question seems confusing

 

LA analyst here, I got relentlessly grilled on “why LA” throughout my recruitment process including like 20 minutes during my superday by several of the senior bankers. Expect to have your reasoning for/interest in LA absolutely dissected.

For context, grew up in LA and I transferred from a nontarget school in CA to an east coast school and I did SA for a different bank in NYC so this was FT recruiting. They saw me leaving California (which I did to get to a target school) and having worked in NYC even though it was just an internship as red flags despite having lived in CA for most of my life/having an LA area code lol.

 

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