Would the debt have been worth it?
I'm currently attending a pretty non-target school, and the grind has been real. I've been trying to land a summer 2025 position for ~a year now in terms of getting connections and staying up to date on applications, technicals, and such but as of now nothing's really stuck, and I've had lots of MDs/VPs etc. say they can't really do much for me besides offer some guidance - fair enough, they're busy.
Something I can't let go of is if I should have gone to Stern even though they were asking for 110k/year, no aid. I genuinely have no clue how much easier/harder recruiting would have been; I do think it's a pretty out-of-touch statement considering the level of debt I would've taken on (vs. no debt right now) but I'm also just super burnt out and figured I'd kill some time on here before grinding LinkedIn spam connections again.
Thanks fellas
No. $450k of debt is crazy.
If you are going to school for free, can you extend graduation? What happened this cycle that you didn't land? It's not helpful now, but plenty of non-targets do land these roles so something is going wrong if you started on time but haven't gotten anything at all.
Honestly, not sure. Everyone kept telling me I was “doing the right things”/“taking the right steps” but for whatever reason nothing hit. Besides this I submitted a ton of online apps but that’s also the equivalent of sending things into the void. I probably didn’t cold email enough as I focused more on LinkedIn. I attended some in-person events as well but it was a little harder to make time for those as I usually was working when they took place.
How many networking emails did you send? How far did you get (ie got a few first rounds, or got to 5 superdays and didn't convert)
These things can be tricky to diagnose but if you want to try another cycle, worth figure out what happened. Otherwise there are lots of non-IB opportunities still available
I only mention it because you talked about it in original post - don't waste time spamming people on LinkedIn or adding people just to add people. Use it to find their name and send them an email. I almost never respond to LinkedIn + don't like having 200 thousand college people I don't know on my feed so I often don't even accept connections, but I pretty much always will answer an email if I have time
Probably around 200-250 emails.
Honestly I barely made it past resume screens (which I find odd because I have good experiences on there + great formatting according to the resume reviews I’ve done). I did a few first rounds but apparently didn’t shine enough to get through, though most were behavioral anyways - maybe I need to be more concise.
As for LinkedIn, that makes sense. I’ll keep it in mind as I go through recruiting.
You need more emails, set a goal of 30-40 per day. Aim for 5-700 total.
I can definitely relate because I turned down NYU to attend a non-target school since it was cheaper. Granted I got into the Liberal Arts Core and not Stern, but I could have transferred into Stern come junior year. It was going to be 80k for me per year, while going to my non-target state school is much cheaper. However, I do think going to NYU would have opened more doors for me. The unfortunate reality is that you can't go back and change the past.
As someone who took out a massive loan to go to a target school, no, it's not worth it at 110k/year. I had a relatively smaller amount but extremely bad interest rates that accrued. Even after I ended up at a very sought-after job out of school, I still worried about my debt. Interest expenses kept piling up, and every single dollar from my paycheck and bonus went toward my loan. I've lost countless nights worrying about paying off that debt, and you constantly worry about losing your job and being unable to suddenly pay the loan. I was pretty limited in what I could do for fun (mostly cheap/free stuff), too, because I didn't have excess cash lying around, nor did I have parents who could help with the debt.
Keep grinding with the networking; it's a numbers game. Worst case, find an IB adjacent job and try to break in later. You might have to save up for grad school, do your MBA, and then break in - either way, it'll be cheaper than spending 440k on an undergrad degree (and 440k doesn't even account for the interest you will accrue later).
crank out a model projecting future cash flows for the two different investments and you'll see that there's no scenario where going to Stern would have outperformed. plus mba/grad school is always an option
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