Building A Reputation For A Non-Target School

Hey Monkeys,

Got a question I've been thinking about recently as I get towards the end of my SA role. First, some background: I'm a rising senior at a liberal arts non-target school where banking is all but non-existent (10-15 alumni). I was fortunate enough to get to know a guy last fall who had just gotten a FT offer at a MM. Anyways, if not for him and his mentoring, I wouldn't have had a chance to get a SA offer at the regional boutique I'm at now. Because of this, I'm going through the FT recruitment process and have a fighting chance to get an offer from a few MM and regional banks.

This brings me to my question: how can you begin building a program for your school to consistently place students in investment banking? I want to help the younger students who are hungry get into IB just as I was helped. Additionally, want to make sure that the expectations at my school are raised. My school has "regional respect" in the South (top 200 nationally according to Forbes, so not laughable), but IB/PE are not emphasized by faculty and career resources. The majority of business school students don't even know what investment banking is until senior year, when it's already too late. The talent for MM and regional banks is there, but the resources, pipelines, and expectations are not. How do you change a culture like that? Any success stories? I appreciate the input.

3 Comments
 

I was a founding member of the CBA student advisory board in undergad. We didn't do shit tbh. We had meetings about meetings and plaid dress up a bunch. I were you, I'd drop all that garbage and just work out, read books, hit up tinder, and experiment starting businesses instead.

heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 
Most Helpful

Your best bet is to pay forward what your mentor did for you. You could go so far as to proactively make connections with career counselors and finance professors at your school and ask them to put you forward as a resource for any business/finance minded underclassmen.

Beyond that, working to change the culture of an old institution will probably yield low returns on effort. Not every school wants to be an IB factory, and that's ok. Frankly, once you're out there working full time, you probably won't care about this nearly as much.

 

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