The Athlete Disadvantage
Are athletes interested in finance at target schools able to land WSO's coveted jobs? Or are they often too busy with juggling practices, academics, and game schedules to deal with networking and focusing on their careers?
On the other hand, do these top athletes maybe have a specialized network provided by the Athletics Department to help them attain these prestigious internships and jobs to compensate for the athletes' lack of time and energy?
Depends on the school,
-Athletes in the Ivy League are able to get summer internships as their schools don't have summer training programs for their teams. I'd say students in this setting are at an advantage because although their GPAs will take a hit they'll have a differentiator as an athlete. There are tons of IB bankers who are ex-Ivy League athletes.
-Athletes at top non-Ivy schools (Stanford, Michigan, Duke) are at a slight disadvantage because they aren't able to pursue those internships as most have full time summer conditioning programs. They do still have strong alumni networks and their GPAs don't look too bad from their schools.
-Athletes at non-targets I'd argue are at a pretty big disadvantage because they don't have the ability to do summer internships, don't have much of an alumni network to turn to and their GPAs don't look great especially from a non target.
Former athlete and from experience I would go to greater lengths to help out a current college athlete who reached out. That being said, it comes down to them actually making an effort to take advantage of their network
Was a college athlete myself. That line on my resume was probably the most talked about one in interviews. People tend to ask how the season’s going, how I got into the sport etc. It makes you a more interesting candidate so in that sense it’s an advantage.
However, I find a lot of athletes from target schools fall into the trap believing that their networks (which are usually very strong) will carry them to the offer. While that is true for many non-IB jobs, it’s not true for the jobs talked about in this forum. Steer away from that and you should be good! Study hard from the guides!