Transfer Student Seeking Advice

Hi, all,

*Insert generic comment about having lurked on the forums and this being my first post.*

I'll try to keep the background stuff as concise as possible: I'm a rising junior who has just transferred to the Finance program at a state school (a large university in a major metro area, but deep in non-target territory). I graduated HS with a 4.0, around 30 credit hours from my local CC, and a fairly decent SAT score (just shy of 2200)... and then, due to financial reasons, I ended up right back at the very same CC for the next 2 years. Long story short, I finished my associate's while holding down a job in a small IT firm through a family connection. (It also came with a 90 minute commute, huge pain in the ass.)

Ideally, I'd like to try breaking into a boutique/MM IB in the area (or elsewhere), but would this even be possible? It seems as if my background might be a bit too "non-traditional", especially compared to the profiles of other applicants. I assumed that no one would be inclined to speak with a community college student, so I've pretty much neglected networking until now. Couple that with the fact that I'm a fresh transfer with no coursework completed at my current institution and a new 0.0 GPA, and I'm unsure how to proceed with networking. Will I be screwed once anyone at a bank looks over my transcript? It's worth noting that I'll need an extra semester to graduate, so I should have an additional summer to work with.

With that being said, I have a few specific questions for anyone with experience in these matters:

• If you were in my situation, how would you go forward in regards to the whole IB networking/educational background issue?
• What sort of backup plans would you recommend looking into? Given the circumstances, it seems pretty likely that I'll end up empty-handed as far as high finance is concerned.
• Apart from my 40ish-hour work schedule, what would you recommend I do with the remainder of this summer? Buying BIWS seemed like a decent idea (at least it couldn't hurt), but other than that I'm at a loss.

Thanks in advance for any advice.