Incoming Stanford undergrad freshmen looking for guidance
I was matched into Stanford through a first-gen low-income scholarship program that essentially locked me into my top-ranked school. I've done my research and seen that Stanford has little finance culture among undergrads. However, I've always wanted to go into IB/PE, and also considered quant. I'm unsure of what to major in, and was wondering if computer science with a minor in management science & engineering sounds fine? Stanford doesn't have a traditional business major, and I am very uninterested in economics. If anyone could give me some ideas, I'd appreciate it. I'm very clueless in this field as I originally planned to be premed until finding out how long med school was. Would strongly appreciate any help!
just make sure you have a 3.7+ GPA, relevant internship experiences and extracurriculars; you should be fine to land IB at anywhere from stf
right now ec wise, im looking into the finance club @ stanford, as well as two student managed investment funds, and plan to join club lacrosse and a fraternity for fun and the added benefits of the connections that come with that. internships wise, are there any you would recommend? i thought most internships were for juniors/seniors.
You can major in anything at Stanford (have met so many English, history, etc majors from target schools) but comp sci / engineering tends to be a very difficult degree with a lower GPA. You get zero credit for that for finance recruiting, and if anything, people will question why you're not doing engineering as a career - so unless that's a particularly strong interest, I wouldn't do that. It's okay to go in undecided right now and see what you like.
Ideally you have an internship freshman summer or soph fall to get something on your resume
IB recruiting for junior summer is pretty much during your soph spring / you have to network soph fall, so don't let yourself get too far down the road time-wise
Is IB really that stupid where an easy BS major is seen the same as a hard engineering major?
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Yep - it would make logical sense that a double major or very hard major would be "best", but GPA is #1 most important thing for IB, so should plan your major accordingly. At a school that offers finance that should be your major, but at Ivies or Stanford you should pick the easiest or most interesting major
IB is not that difficult and they can really teach it to anyone
They dont issue grades
Thanks for that, it's really beneficial. Just one question: What type of internship am i looking for freshmen summer or soph fall? As in, when I'm searching for it to apply, what are the characteristics I should be looking for.
For freshman year anything in finance (corporate finance at a local company back home, interning at a private wealth firm that isn't Northwestern Mutual) will do. Ideally soph fall you can find a smaller IB or PE firm that will let you come in part-time around classes. Look at where upperclassmen headed to IB did early internships and start there.
These people are acting like Stanford is not the best school on earth lol. You can intern anywhere in silicon valley, sf, menlo, or nyc. I know a girl from Stanford who did my junior summer internship after her freshman summer. You may as well study Econ and get a 4.0, I'm sure you'll land wherever you want. You are actually in a better position than many of the kids at Wharton who are fighting it out from day 1 for finance jobs. Just start reaching out to alumni and sharing your story as soon as possible. P.S. Feel free to say that you don't really have guidance in this career bc you are first gen and low-income. People know kids like you will work harder than your billionaire classmates.
No offense but if you're going to stanford, why do you want to do IB/PE? If you play your cards right you have access to unicorn opportunities like working on a billionaire's startup idea, joining elite VC firms, joining elite AI companies, MBB consulting, etc. There is literally no reason to waste those opportunities just so you can grind excel models next to an IU Kelley grad at Bank of America.
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