Choose office in less popular city and get hired?

Will choosing a less popular city make a higher chance of being selected for summer intern?

Take Goldman Sachs as an instance, besides those popular cities like NY or Chicago, there are a bunch of other cities you can choose such as Norwalk, Salk Lake City, and Phoenix.

Given such a competitive selection process, will choosing a less popular city increase your chance of being selected? The reason behind this is very simple; the NY office has much more possibility of receiving top-tier resumes from yale and Harvard.

My plan is to get an intern at Big Bank first as a stepping stone and use it as leverage in future job hunting. Similarly, some people apply to less competitive majors like human rights majors in their college admission, then transfer internally to their business school in their sophomore year. 
Unlike associates or more senior positions, as an entry-level analyst, potential employers shouldn't care that you interned in Salt Lake City instead of New York City. They care if you are reliable and can get the basic job done, and there is no difference between building a DCF model in NYC or in Salt Lake City.

For more senior positions, 10 years in NYC vs. Salt Lake City can make a big difference, including the networks you make, resources, client relationships, etc., which will definitely be different in the two cities.
Not sure if this is a practical strategy for me. Thank you very much for your input!

4 Comments
 

Cool you have provide me a screenshot of a drop down menu. That does not mean that those functions exist in those offices.

I may be wrong, but typically offices outside of the NY/SF/LA markets do not have robust banking practices. I am really not trying to burst your bubble, but rather I do think that there is bad logic to your thinking.  Its more like saying, why go to an Ivy when Washington state has a finance degree too. 

 
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