Princeton Undergrad Econ to IB

Hi WSO,

I just recently decided to attend Princeton and am planning to do an Econ major in college. My career interest now is to enter IB after graduation. I heard Princeton isn't much of a target school for banks on Wall Street (not top ten on WSO list and worse than peers like HYW) and it's therefore really difficult to get into an EB/BB from Princeton. What are the things that I need to do the most in order to have a shot at 1st-tier I-Banks? From what I know it seems I have to keep a good college gpa and network as hard as I can.

Any advice will be helpful, thanks!!!

9 Comments
 
Funniest

Honestly you should give up. I wouldn’t let my maids kid go to Princeton.

 
"Prospect in _none" I just worse than peers like HYW

Litterally never seen the acronym HYW, and yale is always being shit on lol. Fuck out of here you insecure highschooler trying to humblebrag, or just a shitty troll.

Array
 

The issue here is more one of self-selection than princeton not being a target. It's not that Princeton kids can't break into banking, it's just most don't want to. As Princeton has no professional schools, that means no business program. Therefore kids looking to go into banking may be less attracted to princeton and would rather go to a school like Penn which has Wharton.

That being said no qualified candidate who wants to do banking will have trouble getting interviews out of Princeton. Same as uchicago, MIT, or any other top tier school without a business/finance major

 
Most Helpful

Kids at P who want to go into "finance" or something business-related tend to gravitate towards MBB consulting or, especially those who study Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE), trend heavily towards quant roles, because that's precisely what ORFE leads towards. P is unique out of HYP in that there's actually academic coursework focused on finance, so when kids enter interested in finance they all take that coursework, and then duh a much higher % of kids from P compared to HY will go into quant roles. P places extremely will (similar to HY) for kids interested in IB, it's just that Princeton 1) is smaller than both H and Y and 2) a higher % trend towards quant roles. Those who want IB get IB.

 

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