Does major matter for BBs?
Some background: I'll be entering Dartmouth in the fall and I'm curious to see how much major matters for recruitment. I'm interested in being a political science major (technically Dartmouth calls it government), but it seems like almost all recent Dartmouth grads going into iBanking were Econ/CS majors. The few who weren't mostly went to elite prep schools for high school, which makes me think that they probably had family connections to help them place in the industry (which I don't have). Any advice? thnx
Hey mate,
I think major is relatively important, but not the be-all and end-all. I myself studied History at LSE and still managed to wrangle my way onto the trading floor at Credit Suisse. While, admittedly, I was the only non-STEM grad out of my cohort, providing you can demonstrate a comparable level of interest and competence, studying Government at Dartmouth shouldn't put you at a disadvantage.
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Being a government major is fine, but you will have to dodge questions in every interview about why IB, why not politics, etc. For whatever reason "why IB" tends to be a big behavioral killer anyway as people don't have good answers. If you can come up with a good reason to want to do finance and make government seem relevant, go ahead.
Other recommendation would be to get finance experience on your resume early. Clubs, internships, etc. The more IB-relevant experience you get, the less skeptical people will be about your major.
GPA is more important than major IMO
Major matters less at targets than at non-targets. Yes at a non-target you should be a relevant major to business, but at a target matters less and you can see that by the tons of ivy league students that get into banking with diverse majors
Congrats. Major doesn't matter as much. GPA does and your interest in the industry you want to be. You can show interest through extracurricular activities. Just relax and enjoy. Join fraternity/sorority and talk to upper classmen. OCR is gold and alumni are very friendly.
Beware though median GPA for each major. Gov I think has 3.3 GPA. If you're an athlete it might be hard to keep GPA high enough between games, practices and gym. Although, I know athletes who didn't do internships and still ended up in IB or S&T. Plus it's not as competitive. Not everybody interested in banking.
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Doesn't matter if you're at Dartmouth. Keep the GPA high though. I always tell people to pick a major based on balancing a few different things. Ability to keep GPA high, interest in the subject, professors, other kids in the classes, ability to have time to do other things at college.
If you like the Poli Sci classes and will do well in them because you're interested and engaged then I'd go with that. Upside is Professors will start to like you as you'll be one of the better students in the department, so they'll spend more time with you and will be good for recs, etc. Lastly, if you don't have to work super hard to get As, you can spend more time on networking, clubs, etc which will ultimately be the most important levers for IB.
In this rare instance, I do agree with Harvey.
I think your major matters less and less the better college you go to (maybe exception of UVA/Wharton type schools). I feel like sometimes banks are more interested to see someone of a non-traditional major so they can ask you about. Also, leads to lots of "Why IB with a [insert non-traditional major here] major?" which is a nice softball question.
But agree that GPA is important. Not worth a 3.5 w/ econ when could have a 3.7 w/ poly sci. Do what you love.
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