I am a rising junior at a college prep school How do I get started networking and what do I need to do to get the best jump start in IB. Courses, classes, competitions, etc.
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First off, you should remove (they originally had school location in here) and change your username from what looks like your 1st and last initial.
As for IB: Get into the best college you can, for your reference, look up “WSO, college tierlist” and “___(school)____, WSO” in google. Getting into a good college is really all you should be doing right now. As for the rest of your questions, be a business(finance + maybe accounting) major, or econ if the college doesn’t have that (like Uchicago). You shouldn’t be networking or doing case comps until you are at least in college.
Honestly, the best thing you can do for IB right now other than getting into a good college is just reading stuff on WSO.
Thank you!
bro named it DCF destroyer lmao, love the name.
Echoing the above I think it'll really serve your sanity/mentality well by trying not to think about IB/PE (or anything finance) until at least you finish 1st semester of Freshman year in college. Personally, I'd even recommend not looking at WSO. There is no need to waste your time reading 'Bank Tiers' or 'College Tiers' or PE exits.
While I realize that competition is worse than when I went to college 7-9 years ago I didn't even know what IB was as I came from what people here call at 'semi-target' school not until probably my second semester of sophomore year.
As the above mentioned, get into the best school as possible. While there are certain schools that punch above their 'weight-class' (or not as good i.e., JHU) the higher the college is on US News, more likely they will be a target school.
Lastly, enjoy school and your youth while you can. I sound old saying this but it does fly by. While I hated college applications, I would give back everything to go back and re-live my hs/college life (probably just college if we're being honest). That isn't to say I don't like my life, I actually quite enjoy it, (married, 7-figure NW) and have walked the proverbial 'elite' 2+2+2 path, but HS/college is just such a special time.
Wow, sounds like you live a great life. Thank you for the help!
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don't sweat it right now. live your life, hang out with your friends. go to the beach, run some football with the boys and chill. This is not the time to think about networking, recruiting season, and stuff like that.
It doesn't hurt for you to read some things about Investment Banking, or watching plain simple educational videos about it, but don't worry about actually reaching out to people and getting stressed out about it.
Right now, what I can advise is being a part of a lot of extracurriculars at school to pad up your resume for some college apps and really maintaining a high GPA/SAT score (idk if they even have those anymore for college acceptances because I know they were optional for years now after Covid).
Try to get into a T1 school that has high placement rates in IB/PE and I would say those are colleges like Wharton/UPenn, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, and there's a long list after that but yeah do you're homework on that.
When you get to your first semester of college, I would say try to focus on recruiting for one year in advance and not do too much but get a gist or idea of how recruiting is like so that when it comes to your year, you know exactly how to reach out to people and move with the process. Also, UNI CLUBS AREN'T EVERYTHING.
Thank you all for the help!
yeah bro. trust. live your life right now and just be happy. no need to stress for this bullshit. I think one thing I did wrong was take away my social life for recruiting and now that I look back, I never took that into consideration from others who said the same. But I guess, as we know, you have to live it and then you'll realize it. But yeah, you will be fine, trust.
Yeah, would just echo the comments said above - enjoy life, get into a great college, read WSO if you want.
I would suggest watching Peak Frameworks IB videos/college videos though, I watched those a few times end of senior year, but definitely helpful.
this.
On it
You're still in high school. Be a highschooler. Do what you need to do to get into a good college. If you're worried about networking, do some extra-curriculars in your free time. Believe it or not, that might be the topic an MD wants to chat about. For networking, you want to have a vast array of different points to touch on. If you share an experience with a networking prospect, the call will be infinitely easier to navigate. Something I would recommend is to make it a habit to follow the market. I'm one lazy bum so I listen to a 30 minute podcast every morning that sums up each day's top headlines. It's called the Morning Brew. Check it out.
But seriously, for now, focus on your academics. Worry about getting into IB later once you're in college.
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