I am 18 and from 3rd world country

Hello. I recently graduated from my high school. Since I was 13 I have been learning about the finance and economics all myself. By now I am familiar with basics of DCF valuation and EV and such. And I truly love everything about finance and banking and I woud love to work 100 hours a week.My big concern is I was stupid and I missed the chance to enter top university even though I have 4.0 gpa and good extracurriculars. However I entered some random university with no name in New York city but I declined. Now am planning to go to America as transfer student. So my question is what are the possibility to get a job in a investment bank as a international. It doesn't have to be prestige bank, just decent one in decent role is fine because I just love to work at it.Please give your wise advices.Thank you

 
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I was in a similar situation coming from an impoverished 3rd world country. What I did was I took a gap year, went to college in my country and applied to the good us colleges during my gap year. The odds were a kinda against me because I wanted a fullride scholarship and as you might know that is very rare for international students. I was very lucky and got a fullride admission from a good school (think Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Penn/Columbia). I found out about IB and finance my summer after freshman year and went through recruiting my sophomore spring and a received a few decent offer. 

For your situation, I don't know how feasible it is but definitely look into transferring after maximum two semesters or coming in as a freshman. First cycle of recruiting for many of the good banks happen in your sophomore spring semester and you don't want to miss that. It's great that you are already passionate about finance (I wasn't when I came to the states) and it will definitely pay off in the long run. Moreover, you can always transfer to a better school after your first year in the states. I would recommend giving it your best shot to get into the "target schools" because it will make recruiting (and life?) easier for you. Even if you come in as a junior, I'm sure there are tons of banks that recruit fulltime (your junior summer) and although it might be harder, it's definitely not impossible. 

When you get here, join your school's business clubs, join communities with like minded people, and network with the seniors and alumni. You must also have solid GPA/Extracurriculars. Good luck on the process man, I am sure it'll work out!

 

Thanks for your advice. About joining prestige universities, I am very worried about it because I actually applied for a some top universities but they all rejected me, so I dont think I would actually be able to join in target schools. So is it possible to get into investment banking from non target school as international ?

 

I am sure that it has been done before but I just wanna let you know that I found recruiting very difficult as a nondiversity international student and I go to a target.

 

Honestly, stay in your home country boyo. Many firms no longer hire internationals unless you are eligible to work in the US. 

 

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