List of schools I should apply to transfer to

A little about me: I'm a freshman at a non-target state school who's currently majoring in aerospace engineering. I've have some experience in the industry (will be completing an unpaid winternship with Lockheed Martin over break, will be interning at SpaceX this summer, I got really fucking lucky getting both of them) and I'm a little unsure about my career path. I've been speaking with a couple of MDs at a small-cap private equity firm in my hometown (a major city in the southeast) and I feel that's a career path that I would be a lot happier with than being an engineer.

A dream position for me would be working in a private equity firm either focused in aerospace/defense companies or a botique firm focused in aerospace/defense (I'm currently a "civilian track" ROTC at my school...no scholarship but no commitment to join the army after i graduate).

I currently love the school I go to but breaking in from that school to i-baking doesn't seem like a realistic goal (there are about 10-15 kids a year who make it but my school is SEC-football big so odds aren't in my favor).

I'm putting together a list of schools to apply to and I wanted to get advice about which schools are good "feeder" schools. Here's a list of what I've got so far:

"Reach Schools": Wharton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth
"Mid-Range Schools": UVA (Would apply to A&S, apply to McIntire after my first year), Tufts, Boston College, Stern
"Safety Schools": Indiana

Focused my attention on the northeast and/or good business schools. I definitely need more "safety schools".

Thoughts?

11 Comments
 
matayo

SAT scores are also important
you should consider umich as well

I know Ross is a well-reputed school (and I like football, it's was one of the big reasons I chose the school I currently go to). Do all of the major banks recruit there? I'm a VA resident and I know for a fact UVA doesn't do OCI with most of the major players in NYC. I'm worried it might be a similar situation with UMich.

 
Best Response
TransferCandidate matayo:

SAT scores are also important
you should consider umich as well

I know Ross is a well-reputed school (and I like football, it's was one of the big reasons I chose the school I currently go to). Do all of the major banks recruit there? I'm a VA resident and I know for a fact UVA doesn't do OCI with most of the major players in NYC. I'm worried it might be a similar situation with UMich.

Ross gets good recruiting in NY, Umich as a whole does not. Pretty sure Ross only takes a couple transfers a year so it'd be a big reach for you.

For NY positions most of the BB recruit there in on campus recruiting, I know that both GS/MS do. A couple of them only recruit for Chicago though, like JPM. As for elite boutiques, Blackstone/centerview/Evercore/Moelis/allen & company/raine group/etc all recruit there on campus.

Also places like Rothschild, Jefferies, HLHZ recruit.

There is zero point to transferring to Indiana as a sophomore. Indiana is a good feeder school into IB but only if you are in their investment banking workshop which you need to get into freshman year.

A great school to look into that feeds into IB very well is Georgetown. Brown also seems to do decently well, less competition since it seems not as many kids from Brown are as interested in IB compared to the other ivies.

 

look up the u.s. news top business schools. Those are the rankings people go by. More importantly, network! Get in touch with people who work in IB and ask them to get your resume passed on to someone. That's how you're going to have a lot of luck.

 

If you think Wharton will be a reach for you, just apply to Penn, or to the engineering school at Penn. You'll still get recruited by BBs. I transferred to Penn this semester (didn't even know what Wharton was when I applied). Now I have a SA offer from a BB in NYC for this summer, and there are many Wharton kids who don't yet. You can PM me if you want.

 

Not sure if I want to leave my major & study valuation on the side or just switch to finance...I feel like being an aerospace major would give me an edge in the long-run since I'll have more technical knowledge than someone who majored in finance. If ended up going somewhere who didn't have aerospace, I'd probably just major in mechanical engineering instead.

 

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