Worth Transfering to T-10 Target from Hopkins
I'm currently a freshman who got a 3.9 my first semester at Hopkins as an Applied Math major. I'm wanna do banking or (best case scenario) PE at a MF out of college. Here's the scene at Hopkins, a strong student investment team that regularly places kids at BB/EB banking internships/jobs. Every single one of the kids of the investment team who applied for banking roles got into an EB/BB, except for one kid who's going to Jefferies I think. We only have OCR with like 3 EB/BB, and then a bunch of regional smaller firms. But in total, we probably place like 3 or 4 kids total to MF (BX, Carlyle), which is probably like 15 or 20% of everyone going into high finance from Hopkins. So basically, you have to make the student investment team, which is pretty competitive, and even if you do, a good PE gig is very hard. I also have a friend group that I really like and am not sure that I'll find if I transfer. In your opinion, is it worth it to try and transfer to another T10 school, but is a target for finance to boost my chances of going buy-side out of college?
Sigh, this is sad for a lot of reasons.
1) read the letter I wrote to current undergrads that is very highly ranked on this website. At Hopkins you are a target. If you have a good gpa from Hopkins and good test scores, people will take your call. Ignore this website and it’s bogus target/ semi-target etc. A top 10 university is a target and you can recruit to almost anywhere from there full stop.
2) do you enjoy your school? College is about more than just getting into IB. If you don’t feel the school is a good fit, transferring could make sense. But otherwise, absolutely do not transfer for IB. I promise if other parts of your resume are good enough and you network properly you will be able to land a role. Everyone knows Hopkins is a top 10 university. Alumni connections are not the most important factor when recruiting.
3) clubs do not matter. Let me repeat that, clubs do not matter. When you interview, you don’t give a flying fart what clubs an undergrad did aside from maybe showing they have an interest in finance. For your school there might be a correlation because the kids who got into the club are the ones who studied hard and interviewed well which also happen to be the ones who got good jobs, but do not think employers care about whether you got into some undergrad club.
Transfer if you don’t like your undergrad experience, but transferring because you think it will make getting into IB easier is a pathetic life decision and indicates your priorities are so beyond warped. Honestly, if in an interview you said you transferred colleges to recruit for IB better, a well adjusted person would immediately not want to hire you because it shows a complete lack of awareness and appreciation for normal things in life. As an example, we had one potential candidate who stated they thought investment bankers were the most important job in the world. My team died laughing. The candidate even doubled down when people were like not ER doc, teacher, medical researcher?
If you show a complete lack of perspective you aren’t going to interview well. Don’t transfer, there are more important things in life than IB.
^ I agree with the second point a ton. I came to a school for IB placements and don't really like it here at all. Every day I think about transferring out.
Second this
I broadly agree with you but to pretend JHU is a "target" is a bit of a meme. Know someone who transferred to UVA for recruiting and found it much, much easier than JHU. JHU is a great school and better than UVA from a ranking perspective but for IB recruiting OCR is king and majority of spots don't have OCR at JHU.
Honestly think it's easier to break into IB from BC than JHU.
Also on a side note since moving to PE I really haven't through about target / non-target / schools very much haha... typing this almost feels nostalgic.
Hired at an EB, 0% we would not give an interview to a kid who networked well with a 3.8+ from Hopkins. As for networking well, people will take your call with that name.
So many of you undergrads seem to think you can only network with people from your school—it blows my mind. I and my colleagues were taking calls from not our old colleges all the time. Less students may go into IB from JHU, but that doesn’t mean it is hard. The barrier isn’t going to be your school coming from JHU.
wheres the letter
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Hey man, think pathetic is harsh, I felt some of your pain when trying to break in. But i do agree with the sentiment of above. Also might recommend switching up the username just to be safe and anonymous. Hopkins is a great and well regarded school so long run you'll be all right.
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You're a mike ross fan and you care about going to a target college? Randomly Walk in to interviews and find a Harvey Specter.
Don’t transfer haha. Everyone knows hopkins is absolutely unreal school. Pipe down over there man. Get some ass and get drunk.
Stay, network hard, invest in the process, and all will be well. Don't beat yourself up too hard for being driven and considering how to improve your position, but I agree with above that you are fine where you are - enviable position in fact! Good luck.
Why do you want buyside so bad, the grass isn’t greener same hours, similar comp as EB, and comp only differentiates once you hit MD/Partner which is very hard so why buyside so bad, relax you will get a very good 1% job out of colllege
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basing life decisions on "doing lbo seems cooler than m&a"...
As far as breaking in goes, all going to a "target" really does is get your foot in the door (getting through that stack of resumes and actually getting to speak to a human). Once you're at that stage, it's all about knowing your stuff and being likable. Transferring to Harvard isn't going to magically make you likable. Having a 3.9 as an Applied Math major at Hopkins is more than enough to actually get you in front of a human, and from there, it's up to you to convert. Going to a target probably isn't going to make you perform any better once you're in the room with an interviewer. Don't give up what you already have in what sounds like a great group of friends and a solid campus community.
Didn't Bloomberg go to JHU? Just finish your program man, it's tough on social life also being a transfer. You can get into an M7 from JHU.
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Curious, what banks are recruiting OCR at Hopkins nowadays? Sounds better than when I was there (can only think of two and neither are EB/BB)
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