Incoming Target Uni Social Sciences student with no work experience – apply now or spend 2–3 weeks improving?

I'm an incoming first-year Social Science (Non-Econ) student at a target university in London. Since I haven't started university yet, I don't have any university societies or coursework, and I have no internship or work experience.

My profile currently consists of:

High school leadership (business club, student government, Honor Societies)
A few business competition awards, CEMC awards, 5 APs at 5, 1500+ SAT, Extracurricular legislative proposal experience, Beginner-level Excel and very limited finance, accounting, and programming knowledge

Some firms (e.g. BlackRock) have already opened Spring Insight applications and recruit on a rolling basis.

My dilemma is whether I should:

A. Apply immediately with my current profile for the firms that are currently or soon to be open, or

B. Spend the next 2–3 weeks improving my application (Excel, Forage, commercial awareness, CV refinement, and interview preparation) before applying.

Also, I am interested in finance and financial markets, but I am essentially starting from scratch in terms of technical knowledge and commercial knowledge. My networking skills are not that impressive too.

I understand that recruiting is rolling, so my concern is whether the improvement from spending those 2–3 weeks outweighs the disadvantage of applying later.

If you were recruiting for UK Spring Weeks, which would you choose?

If you think I should spend those weeks improving, which activities would provide the highest ROI (I'm starting my course in September)?

I'd really appreciate any fruitful advice, especially from people who've gone through UK Spring Week recruiting.

2 Comments
 

Assuming this is UCL or LSE? They're the only target uni's in LDN that do pure social science...... You should be fine, but it will be harder for you coming from a background with completely no relation. Practice your technicals, join societies, and network. Maybe pickup a project or two to show genuine interest to recruiters. Don't stress too much about technicals for spring weeks, you can have a bird brain and still get them. 

 

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