UCLA vs WashU for IB

Can speak about UCLA a bit since I went there. UCLA as a school doesn't really offer anything that will help you out with recruiting, but there are finance clubs on campus that can help you get a leg up on recruiting. Recruiting from UCLA is getting better now thanks to the clubs and the alumni from them placing in to IBs and I think the Undergraduate Business Society (UBS) club hosts a career fair that IBs send people to. When I was a student I think UBS, Bruin Asset Management, and DSP (business frat) had the best placement into IBs.

Something to keep in mind is that UCLA is on the quarter system, so timing for when the summer analyst program starts might overlap with the last couple weeks of class in the spring quarter. Recruiting for summer analysts is now in your sophomore year spring so that isn't an issue, but I remember when I was in college recruiting started in the fall of junior year and it started before the UCLA school year started, so some firms didn't do OCR at UCLA.

Assuming you're a business econ or econ major, it's helpful to take the beginner accounting classes (management 1a and 1b) early because you'll learn about the financial statements which will help with getting through technical interview questions. Other than that there aren't really any finance classes you can take before summer analyst recruiting starts. There's a handful of upper div econ classes that cover finance stuff but I don't think you'd be able to take them until your junior year given the pre-reqs you'd need to finish first.

UCLA should get looks from west coast offices of IBs but recruiting for NYC offices might be harder unless you network hard since you're competing against Ivy Leagues/NYU. Just keep in mind that west coast offices usually have smaller teams than in NYC so hiring needs are less, and you'll be competing with kids from other west coast schools like Stanford, UC Berkeley, USC, etc.