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Sophomore here at non-target tied at ~#37 nationally. I can relate.
If there are no internships directly related to S&T or IB you can pursue, I'd say go after a Main Street finance internship that interests you. Excel at it. For example, we get recruiters from Shure at our career fair; as an audiophile I would look into that. Also consider study abroad--I'm looking at Amsterdam--because if you don't want to miss out academically, this summer's the best time to do it!
But largely I'm in the same boat as you. Monitoring this thread.
Your best bet would have been applying to one of the soph programs offered by many of the BBs. I think most of the deadlines have passed now. I'd consider reaching out to some smaller boutiques and work on building a network.
Call\Email some local boutiques, saw it once on here 'There is nothing better on a BB SA resume than IB summer analyst.' Also, it should be pretty easy for you to nab an AM or PWM internship if all else fails, seems to be a pretty common theme for sophomore summer amongst people here, and a lot of people have used them as stepping stones, so to speak, for and IBD internship.
What I personally did (I'm a sophomore) was make some calls and email some local boutiques, and set up a few informational meetings. From my experience, the boutiques with no structured internship program put a lot of emphasis on how well you fit in, obviously merit does matter, but they looked at my GPA, asked once about it, and that was it. Just be normal on the calls or meetings, and you should be fine.
Thanks for the input so far, guys. It seems that from what I've been reading from you guys and also from other sources are that my primary options are either boutique IBD summer analysts or AM/PWM internships at larger banks. What do you all think about which of those is preferable in terms of my resume when I'm applying for BB IBD SA in summer before junior year?
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