Advice on internship offer

Hi WSO, this is my first time posting.


I'm currently an undergraduate freshman at a non-target school in the U.S. (but still a known T50 school) who wants to do investment banking, and have been interested in it since high school.


I worked very hard and was able to land a Big 4 internship for my sophomore summer, and I want advice on whether I should take it or not. Given that I want to do IB, I would be giving up the opportunities of sophomore IB recruiting, and also giving up non-IB finance-related roles like asset management, which I think would translate better than a big 4 sophomore internship.


Note: The internship is cross-functional so it exposes to all service lines, if that matters.


TLDR: got a big 4 internship for sophomore summer, am a freshman right now, want to do IB, don't know if I should take offer?

 

Hey MergersMaestro, I definitely agree, but I'd want to keep the door open anyway just in case. It's also to keep the door open for a finance-related internship like even in wealth management, which I feel like would set me up for more success when IB recruiting than a big 4 internship. I want to hear other people's thoughts on this though before I make up my mind.

 

Sophomore internship ranking:

IB-internship > Banking internship at a reputable bank (commercial banking , corporate etc) > finance internship > any internship > no internship

Sophomore IB internships are extremely competitive as only a few banks actually offer them and spots are very limited

 

Do you have any current recruiting processes that look promising in IB/AM/PE? What service line is the Big 4 offer in? If you have interviews with investment banks lined up that look promising, request a deadline extension on the B4 offer. If you don't have anything else in the works, accept and renege later on if you get an offer you really feel you can't turn down. If your offer is in transaction services, PE value creation, management consulting, or anything related, I don't think it would be worth reneging. If it is in audit or another accounting field and you don't receive another offer, it is still a great internship to have going into your junior summer recruiting. It's only a sophomore internship and any Big 4 offer will help you when it comes time for junior internship recruiting (the one that really matters)

 

I don't currently have any promising recruiting processes in IB/AM/PE. The Big 4 internship is rotational so it's across all service lines, but I'm under the consulting branch, if that makes sense. If I were to accept and renege later, what are the implications of that? Wouldn't I face some sort of consequence from my school or the employer? Also sorry if I sound naive, but don't you think only having a big 4 consulting internship going into junior year would set me at a disadvantage compared to other students who go into junior year recruiting with more favorable internships? I heard from upperclassmen at my school that when it comes to IB recruiting, the internships you have don't really matter, it's more how you phrase what you did in the internship during interviews, and how you can tie that to "Why IB". Is this really true?

 
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