I Graduated With A 3.2 GPA And Became The 3rd Ever Wall Street Investment Banker From My School. Here’s My Story.

Preface

Before getting into it, I just want to say that this is going to be long. Like, really long. I typed it out in Word first and it’s 9 pages and over 3,400 words. But my path was unique; I want to put it out there. Some parts are going to be vague or have slight details altered for obvious reasons, but the story is exactly how it played out in real life. I didn’t change any of the core events.

I’ve already finished writing this, and I have two reasons as to why I wanted to:

• One is simply for entertainment. I think it’s a pretty good come-from-behind story, and I had a fun time recollecting in my head how all this played out. I’m not looking for pity or praise, simply just wanted to share my journey as I think (and hope) it makes for a good read.
• The other is to encourage the youth, that no matter what you’re going through in life, there is ALWAYS hope. YOU REALLY CAN do anything in life if you put the work in. There is no difference between you and me. I’m also going to have a section at the end for where I messed up and what I would have done differently. Hopefully some of you will find that useful.

Also, since some people care, I didn’t use any AI to help me with this at all. I like to think I’m a decent writer, and I wanted my words to be authentic. I edited it five or six times, so I hope it flows well. Anyways – let’s get into it

About Me

I went to a mega-non-target. 70%+ acceptance rate. 1200 SAT. I graduated college with a 3.2 cumulative GPA. Straight white male, Non-DEI/Nepo/Anything. No prior connections at all. Two people in my school’s history have become investment bankers at reputable banks on Wall Street. I am the third. My bank was one that people outside of finance would know. It’s on that (stupid) top 50 prestige list somewhere in the top 40. My group was non-M&A (ECM, DCM, PCM, RX, etc), and the entire story is based in the United States.

High School

My parents were non-finance, both in the education sector. Plain middle class (and yes, middle – I paid for my own 2012 Toyota). Sophomore year I just so happened to stumble upon finance via YouTube. Went down the endless rabbit holes of both personal finance and different careers in the industry. Junior year I found IB. From that second, I was hooked. Never had great grades in HS because I just wasn't that smart. I’m still not that smart to be honest, average at best. Senior year, decided to commit to school over a thousand miles away in a brand new state to try something different. Knew it would be an uphill battle to get into banking. But I was determined.

Freshman Year

First night of college I met some of my best friends to date, and found out one of them was graduating a year early – I’ve always been the type to want to be the best at anything (ironically, except school, as you’ll read), and so I decided to do that too. Went in with 0 credits. Sat down in the lobby of my dorm for eight straight hours mapping out what classes to take, which semester to take them, and what prerequisites were needed for all. The spreadsheet was sick. I wish I still had it.

First semester I fucked up. Really, really fucked up – but I didn’t know it at the time. I ended the fall with a 3.0 cumulative GPA. Took a winter course to get ahead with credits and earned an A. 3.2 GPA heading into spring. Knew from prior research that the best way for non-targets to break into the industry was with internships and networking. So, that was at the top of my mind this semester. Was in the process for a bunch of different M&A Broker/Search Fund/Tiny PE internships. Ended up landing a search fund that summer. It was only 20 hours a week (which ended up being more like 5-10), and completely remote. Perfect. Made Dean’s List that semester too after taking 20 credits. 3.52 cumulative GPA heading into the summer. Because I knew that networking was the real key to getting in, I was preparing for a long summer. For any kids reading, this upcoming part of the story is the exact reason I made it.

Freshman Summer

Before I get into my networking stuff, just note that I took 4 asynchronous classes this summer, resulting in a cumulative GPA heading into sophomore year of 3.33. If you couldn’t tell yet, the GPA issue will be a theme. My school did not have finance courses until junior year, so I couldn't even try Major GPA on my resume.

I was fortunate enough to be working a remote internship that didn’t have an insane time commitment (and, just to throw out there, an amazing boss), which allowed me to do this. So, that summer, I sent 300 emails per week for 11 weeks straight. And no, I am not exaggerating that number. Roughly 3,100 emails. Why not 3,300? Because some would respond sooner than others, eliminating the need to send an additional follow-up. My email response rate was just over 17%. All of these, except the two alumni (who were not the reason I got in (but of course am still thankful for)), were completely cold. Here’s what I did:

• Mondays were my follow-up days. I would follow up two total times after the initial email was sent. So, assuming a no-response, I would email the same person three total times over three weeks. If they didn’t respond after three emails, I stopped reaching out to them. I never sent more than three emails, as I felt it was the magic number before I’d become annoying instead of persistent.
• Tuesdays were my initial-email days. I was fortunate enough to stumble across this Excel VBA video, which allowed me to send 50 emails from the push of a button. That helped. The follow-ups were all by hand, though. 100 emails on Mondays and 200 on Tuesdays (200 because some would be the first follow-up and some would be the second, resulting in twice as many emails as Monday). The result?
• Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays were my call days. I had placeholders blocked off in my calendar these days specifically for anticipated calls – usually from 9:00am to 4:00pm-ish. I did anywhere between 2 and 11 calls each of these three days. Yes, one day I had 11 different calls with 8 different banks.
• I targeted mostly MDs in my outreach, with the occasional VP mixed in. That meant most of these calls were on Zoom/Teams, meaning I was wearing a Shirt/Tie/Jacket for 7ish hours three days a week. The entire summer. Honestly, I loved it. I made just over 250 calls that summer, with 50ish definite referrals (or so, I thought).
• You might be wondering how I found these emails and names. Well, I hired a guy on Fiverr to do it for me. $100 for 1,000 rows. I shit you not. I put 20-50 rows for each of the banks on that prestige list and told him to find me their name, title, and email for each row. Had it back to me three days later. If you’re financially able to, I would recommend you to do this too. Saved me probably 10-20 hours of work.

So now, it’s the end of summer, I’ve made some unbelievable connections (and definitely a couple bad ones too, haha), and I’m gearing up for recruiting to start sophomore year. My plan was to follow up once before recruiting, and then during recruiting whenever that bank opened applications. It would be three months apart for each, so around November and then February I’d follow up. The bulk of recruiting really happened in Feb/Mar/Apr when I was in college.

Sophomore Year

It was go time. I knew that most stuff would open in the spring, so I wasn’t too concerned with studying technicals or interview prepping yet. There was one thing on my mind, though – I needed a 3.5 GPA if I was going to even have a chance. So, that was the goal – a 4.0 would’ve brought me to a 3.55. Perfect.

But then, life happens: cheated on by girlfriend of 4 years one week into fall semester. Wrecked me. The semester came and went, and I’m stuck at a 3.4 GPA going into spring/recruiting (including another winter class with an A) with no Major GPA option to fall back on. To make things even worse, 80% of my so-called “definite referrals” did not respond to my follow-up/KIT emails. Didn’t see that coming (not shaming them, obviously). They were busy with, you know, actually banking. I should have known. I mean, there were some positives to come out of the fall semester, though; I landed an M&A internship at a business brokerage for the spring semester (during recruiting) in the same area as my school, and a summer internship at a boutique investment bank for the upcoming summer in my home state. They were perfect; one to learn about M&A/talk about in interviews, and one to fall back on for a return offer post-grad in case recruiting doesn’t work out. Awesome.

Quick pause: you might be wondering why I was even going through recruiting if I planned on graduating in three years, so here’s where my head was at:

• IF I get in, I can graduate normally in four years and chill out the rest of college since I’ve accumulated so many credits and money virtually won’t matter anymore (to an extent, of course)
• IF I don’t get in, I’ll graduate in three years and full-time recruit after my internship this upcoming summer

Back to the story.

Spring semester came and it was March. Pretty much all banks have opened their apps, and things are well underway. I’ve applied to each one, done all the HireVues, and have been interview prepping pretty much everyday. And by each one, I literally mean every single bank in the prestige list and probably 50 boutiques on top of that. I go to class every day with the thrill of getting invited to just ONE super day, just the chance of even having a shot. Every single time a Gmail notification pops up on my phone my heart feels it a bit.

All of a sudden it’s April. I see my friends from other schools getting offers. I’m left with a few rejection emails, but I’m hopeful. It’s hard to sleep sometimes; I knew the clock was ticking.

May 1^st. May 1^st was when I knew. Not only had I struck out in recruiting, but it was going to be one hell of an uphill battle from here. I went back to my dorm after class one day and took a long, long look in the mirror. It was time to commit to graduating in three years. And, it was time to lock the fuck in that summer.

Sophomore Summer

Just as a reminder, this really was my last summer before graduating, but for an easier read, I’ll call it my sophomore summer. Anyway, I got a return offer from my internship in the spring for this summer, but it wasn’t really an investment bank (business brokers are a bit different), so I politely declined. Plus, I had this boutique investment bank offer anyway, so I never really had the intention of returning to the internship in the spring. It’s now late June. First day of my real, 60h/week investment banking internship. God, I felt so fucking cool having that as my LinkedIn title. But still, I knew the end goal. The summer came and went, I received excellent halfway & final performance reviews, and was starting to get ready for full-time recruiting.

But then, the last week of my internship, my MD told me that they simply cannot give return offers to any of our interns because the team was too small and they wouldn't know where they’d be a whole year out. Looking back I should’ve known this was coming or at least had a backup plan, but at the time, I was absolutely devastated. Completely blindsided. My MD still offered to give me a glowing letter of recommendation, so I wasn’t hopeless; but man, I was mentally lost. This was the second lowest point of my journey.

I had about 30 minutes of being pissed/sad/angry/betrayed before I remembered the end goal. Full-time recruiting was kicking off right now. There was no time to pout. This was my last chance (or so I thought). FT recruiting came and went. My GPA stood at 3.41. Not enough to round to 3.5. I networked a little bit more. I think I did 30ish calls in August and 20 in September. I also reached back out to everyone I’ve already talked to, throwing anything at the wall hoping something would stick. Crickets. I’m devastated. 3 internships with nothing to show for it.

Junior (Senior) Year

It’s the day before I fly home for Thanksgiving. I’m set to graduate in May of that year. And I’m bawling my eyes out at 2am in my favorite study spot on campus. I’d just received a rejection email from the only super day I had for full-time recruiting. I’d non-stop prepped for two weeks. Skipped exams to mock. Took technical flashcards with me anywhere I went. All for nothing. And that night, right as I got the email, it just hit me. Everything I’d worked for since I was 17, destroyed. No hope left. All processes were wrapped up, normal jobs were starting to open for eventual graduates, and I was distraught. This was easily the lowest point of this journey.

Another pause: you might be wondering here, why not an MSF or MBA, or even extend graduation? The first half was money, which was essentially all dried up from undergrad (and again, I was very middle class) – but if you couldn’t tell already, I absolutely hated school. I loved the school I went to, don’t get me wrong, but I just hated the classroom. Could not make myself study, pay attention, or anything. Now, is this my fault? 100%, entirely it is my fault. And to be honest with you, my ego would not allow me to extend graduation after committing to 3 years. Had things not worked out, that would’ve been the biggest what-if of my life so far. And again, my stubbornness was 100% my fault. I shouldn’t have be like this. But hey, we all have our flaws. Lol. Anyways.

It's now spring semester. I’m set to graduate in May. I’ve picked up another boutique investment banking internship for this semester with a super small deal team at a mid-size general financial services firm near my college. I knew from the first two weeks they weren’t busy enough to hire another analyst, but I was told I could intern post-grad until I found something else full-time. At least I’d have something. Banking on Wall St. was an afterthought by this point. I just wanted to be employed after school.

Then, one day in late March, I got a Gmail notification. I didn’t think anything of it. My FaceID shows the notification preview. It’s my best contact from all that networking two years ago. We kept in touch every two months. I hadn’t heard from him recently, but he’d been a great mentor to me and we'd call now and then, so I thought nothing of it. Then, my eyes slide down to the body of the notification. It reads: 

“I want you to intern for us this summer. You have an interview next week.”

I will never, ever forget this feeling or where I was when I read that message. I write back immediately, expressing my interest and excitement. I knew I was graduating, but hey, I should still technically be a junior, right? Wasn’t even 21 yet. IB SA at a top 40 firm? From my school? Fuck it.

Four weeks and a few interviews later, my phone rings during the last week of my internship. And from that moment on, it was all worth it. Everything I'd worked for had paid off. That beautiful, beautiful call. Welcome to Wall Street.

Junior (Senior/Post-Grad) Summer

I’d just graduated four weeks ago. The internship was starting soon, and I’ve settled into where I’ll be living for the next 12 weeks. I walked outside and was immediately greeted by the World Trade Center. It was mesmerizing.

The internship went well. I got my return offer for next summer as a full-time analyst. Investment Banking Analyst at [Top 40 Firm]. The third ever from my school. With a 3.2 cumulative GPA. Tears hit my face again the last night. I had made it in life. At 21 years old, I had made it. That letter had more money on it than my parents made combined. But, you want to hear the kicker of this story? I declined it.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved banking. I still love banking. Working 70-80 hour weeks were thrilling, the people I worked with were amazing, and of course I loved the title; but I hated New York. Like, really hated it. And just as importantly, I wanted M&A. So, you read that correctly – after all this, I declined my return offer. Packed up NYC and moved to a brand new city. And, to be quite honest with you, I love it. I’m so much happier here. At a boutique bank now, with similar hours and CoL-adjusted similar pay, and I am so happy.

Now, I promised to leave some advice earlier for the younger crowd, so here it is. I’m not going to get too into the details of how to study technicals or what to say on networking calls, but these are some things I would’ve done differently.

Advice for You

First and foremost, it doesn’t matter if you’re at a target, non-target, etc. There will always be someone smarter. There will always be someone with a stronger family connection. I did not care. And for your sake, I still do not care. Outwork them. Network harder. Prep harder. Want it more.I graduated with a 3.2 cumulative GPA, as a Non-Anything kid, and became the third ever NYC investment banker from my school. It doesn’t matter who you are; you are miles ahead of where I was on paper. Seriously. I believe in you. Okay, the actual things I would change:

• GPA
  • It matters. So much. So, so much. I never knew this because my parents were the “just get the degree” type. But guys, 3.7 minimum. Really 3.8. Take easy classes until your second semester sophomore year, recruiting will be over by then anyway. Your battle will be so much harder if you have a 3.5, or god forbid, lower. Keep the GPA high.
• Networking
  • I, along with most kids, thought “I mean MDs are the highest so they have to have the most pull, right?” Generally, no. This varies from bank to bank, but almost all the processes I did get into, and all the ones I heard from my intern friends in NYC, were run by associates or VPs. Target them. My best connection who got me in was a VP. If I were to go back, I’d split it 50/50 outreach between associates/VPs. Also, keep all connections close. Never, EVER be rude, obnoxious, etc. If someone’s tearing you up, take it on the chin and be respectful. It sucks; I got ripped to shreds three times. But you never know who you’ll run into down the road – it’s a small world.
• Networking Excel Tracker
  • Make one. And make it as detailed as possible. When reaching out initially, try to find absolutely anything you have in common. Obviously school, but assuming these are cold emails, hometown, birthday, first or last name, similar sports. From the call, remember dates, hobbies, names of friends, anniversaries, anything that you can mention on the next call or email. Write all of that down and use it to your advantage when you’re following up months later. Always have something to bring up in the next conversation. Hell, I used to keep their LinkedIn up on the monitor behind me while speaking with them. And, make sure to keep this file around. It’ll be nice to look back at – I still snoop around mine from time to time.

Well, that’s it guys. If you actually read all of this, I love you for it, and I hope you enjoyed. This story is entirely true and these events did really happen. And again, just for those that care, I did not use any AI to write this; it was straight from the heart.

DM me if you want to chat. I don’t really mind giving away who I am as long as I get to know you first. I’m not on here too much anymore, but I’ll check from time to time how the post is doing and if I have any messages.

Well, that’s enough from me. Again, really appreciate if you read all the way through. It took me a while to write this, but I loved doing it. I know recruiting is just around the corner, so good luck out there!