Applying to spring weeks as a final year UG student?
Title might sound ridiculous but hear me out.
Heading into final year (2025 grad) of a bachelors at a semi in the UK (KCL/Bath/Notts) and was planning on applying to 2025 SA positions in London before undertaking a top Msc Finance in either the UK or EU. Am targeting 2 year Msc Finance/MiM programs post-undergrad, such as HEC, Bocconi Msf etc which would allow for a SA position in between years 1 and 2 of the program. With this, I’d technically be recruiting for both 2025 and 2026 SA positions, as well as potentially even 2027 SA positions post graduation from said Msc Finance program as that’s quite common.
Being that on spring week applications it requires you to be either in the 1st year of a 3y degree or 2nd year of a 4y degree, hypothetically could I apply for a spring week while putting the expected graduation of a 2y Msc Finance of 2027 (therefore being the equivalent of a 2nd year of a 4y degree etc.)? Now I know this might sound ridiculous, but reasoning for me is that i’m coming from a completely unrelated bachelor's degree in humanities (English/Philosophy/Classics) and frankly found out about finance late, scrambled this summer/last semester to pull together an IB internship and will be doing some work for an asset manager this summer.
Being that spring weeks have such a strong and direct pipeline to SA positions in London it would be much easier to recruit through this pathway, has anyone done this or know if it’s possible to do what i’m considering?
Or am just going to face rejection and brand myself as a jackass for applying to spring weeks as a final year UG with intent of a 2y masters expressed in my application?
Would banks take this idea seriously or do they not care and will look at my application anyway?
Most firms don’t check beforehand but some do
It’s really 50/50
Agreed. There is no safe answer here. You will of course forfeit your chance at applying for summers this year.
To me OP, your profile sounds pretty good. You have experience. Your degree isn't ideal but it's not necessarily the world ending problem you seem to think it is.
OP here. Thoughts would be to potentially apply to high conversion spring weeks & spring weeks that cover exclusively all of the firm’s SA slots (ie. Lazard etc) and then apply to the SA positions of banks that have lower conversions from springs? Or would I blackball myself if that’s a thing?
XXX
just PM’d
Brother you’re in your FINAL year….
Ikik it sounds mad but want to see just how mad it is
People did this for Barclays just saying…
Can I PM?
Also hsbc
were they in the masters programs yet or still undergrad?
I’ve seen masters students in some spring weeks for some reason but you got nothing to lose if you apply and in many cases they don’t really check. If you do get a convertible one it should be really easy to convert as most first years are weak in technicals allowing you to stand out.
Right, was more so considering targeting certain firms who have a higher conversion rate
I'm not sure if it'll be possible to recruit for both 2025 and 2026 SA positions as, even as a pre-uni student, I've noticed some banks' job pages for example will have a limit of 1 app per season (or something to this effect). Haven't tried circumventing this on many pages, but I do know some firms will detect the same details and not let you put forward another app.
But, if you don't mind can I dm to learn a bit about how you went about finding your internships?
Probably would target some firms for SW and then some for SA, so yeah only 1 per cycle per firm. And sure if you make your account non anon i’ll PM you
I've come off anon now, appreciate it
I see. But either way tbh, I've seen that some Master's (especially for EU unis like Bocconi I hear) are purposely longed out and set up to give you the best chance of recruiting so you're probably still in good stead even without this.
Don’t do this
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