Potential Career Path In REPE (Straight Out Of UG)
What's up WSO, I'm going to try to keep this as detailed and anonymous as possible ...
For some background, I am currently a junior at top-20, elite but generally non-target for IB/PE, American university that does not have an undergraduate business school. I have a 3.9 GPA as an economics major, but broadly have very strong modeling skills from multiple buy-side internships at prominent firms. Though I have no experience in real estate, I landed an offer for a summer internship at a top REPE shop (think Blackstone / Starwood / Brookfield / Lone Star) in their Portfolio Management group (mainly think fund-level modeling, data aggregation, producing all external materials, etc.).
Starting as an analyst, what does a typical career path look like at one of these firms? At least from my understanding, there is a lot of switching back and forth between groups (Asset Management, Acquisitions, Portfolio Management) and among these top shops. All of them kind of have a reputation for being a sweatshop, so I'm not sure if it's feasible to last more than 7 years if you're not on VP track, and I would definitely be open to getting an MBA and pivoting to non-RE private equity.
Additionally, I have considered applying for a Deferred MBA program, as I imagine I would be a strong candidate and it would give me options to pivot if I didn't like the REPE gig. Any thoughts on that?
Don't do a MBA program without a couple years of hands-on, actual work experience.
Sorry my bad for not clarifying ... you apply to these deferred MBA programs during your senior year, but you don't actually start the MBA for 2 to 4 years (so you can gain that work experience)
Broadly speaking, if you land an analyst role at one of the big name shops like you reference, you (in theory) have pretty much as wide a set of career paths as you want. It really comes down to what you like to do and are good at, that will take time to figure out. Some people better "pure quants", some are "deal junkies", some like the architecture/urban/city part of real estate and want to stay close to the asset. So until you get some time in the business, I don't think you really can tell what's to do.
As you have noted, getting promoted at those big shops will often require a grad degree in all reality, that is also a potential "reset" point to do whatever. So just work like hell in the internship and hope for a return FT offer, that is what you can control now!
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