3/2 MBA Top 25 to Investment Banking
I am a current freshman in college in the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Kelley has a 3/2 MBA program I plan on doing which is 3 years of undergrad and 2 years of grad for an MBA that can be focused in financial analysis (https://kelley.iu.edu/programs/3-2-mba/academics/…) and a BS in accounting or finance. Kelley is a top 20-22 MBA school and right around that for undergrad investment banking rankings as well. What will IB recruitment look like for someone in that program and what kind of path to IB can someone expect from that. Kelley also has a pretty nice Investment Banking Workshop you can apply to join (https://kelley.iu.edu/programs/undergrad/academic…).
Don’t waste your MBA as an undergrad. Not sure how Kelley works but I work with a ton of Kelley guys at my bank who have bachelors degrees. If they wanted to they could go get an MBA to pivot elsewhere. By doing undergrad and MBA all at once you’re taking one tool out of your toolbox unnecessarily early.
Bad idea, getting your MBA immediately after doing undergrad is almost always the wrong choice. There's a ton of reasons, but I'll try to keep it succinct.
1. An IU Kelley MBA will have a weak brand. Undergrad B-School is good, but the MBA isn't a top program. If you have success in your career, you'd be able to leverage your MBA experience to build on top of your IU Kelley Undergrad branding. If it ends up being relevant for you, an M7/T10 school would give you more credibility as a business professional, especially if you aspire to a high level corporate role.
2. MBAs are a great opportunity to both advance in your career as well as pivot. Let's say you get into banking but end up hating it. Maybe you just burn out and need a couple of years off. Maybe you decide you want/need to move to the west coast and want to build a brand up there. MBAs are great for folks that need to leverage it for a reason. For you, you have no reason, so you burn your re-do so to speak.
3. You just don't have enough experience to take advantage of the MBA. MBAs are about networking and exploring. The classes, while generally educational, don't really track towards how things are done in the real world and frankly don't matter. If you have no work experience, you won't be able to contribute much to the class environment, you'll likely be in a different life place than your peers, and thus won't get the actual benefit of an MBA, which is making friends and connections. Having done an MBA and having had a few classmates who are the direct to MBA cohort, they're nice kids, but myself and most others think of them in that way, kids. The age gap is usually 22 to late 20s and sometimes even early 30s. Even a few years in the real world teaches you a lot and helps you connect better to folks.
4. Getting an MBA immediately doesn't help you advance in your career any faster. It's not like you can do this 5 year program and end up as an Associate at a bank, you'd have no experience and would start as an analyst like everyone else. You're in the exact same position except you're a year older. Plus, assuming you're thinking about the traditional IB+PE track, it messes up PE firms that will want to 2 and out you and send you back to B-School.
I'm sure there's a bunch more, but that's just what comes to mind. Really doesn't make any sense in my opinion. Focus on being in the banking workshop, getting good grades, and having fun. Get a job in IB to start and then figure out your career from there.
A big part of strong MBA admissions is about what you bring to the table. Work experience, life experience, etc. So having 3-6 yrs of impactful work with multiple promotions from leading companies is attractive because YOU can bring YOUR experience to CONTRIBUTE tot he group. With the 3/2 plans, you don't have anything to contribute so very unlikely to get into a strong MBA program. If you don't go top a strong program, not much of a reason to go. If you want to do a 5th yr, do a quant based MSF program (financial engineering or something like that). That would make you very competitive for a quant oriented role at a major shop.
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