Joint MBA/JD program
I am a 2015 undergraduate starting at FTI Consulting in their corporate finance & Restructuring Division. FTI is an industry leader and from what i have heard, finance/restructuring experience here is the closest to banking that management consulting will get. I am taking the 1st level CFA in June and will pass each level the 1st time around. It will need 4 years of work experience before i get the charter so plan on working at FTI for 4 years before I look into a joint MBA/JD graduate program. I will only return to grad school if I get into a T1 program. Post grad school I plan to enter distressed PE at an industry leading firm.
What do I need to do to get into the best grad school program (chicago, penn, harvard)?
Will I need to get some banking experience post grad school before I make the PE transition?
What PE firms should I be targeting for networking opportunities? (Blackstone is a possibility for me)
To the CFA issue, knowledgeable employers understand the four year requirement to actually put the letters after your name and will evaluate your work experience and having passed all three levels separately. There is nothing magic about the letters. It is great to pass the exams and great to have four years experience but the actual charter is largely arbitrary. If you know you will end up in grad school, better to go sooner than later.
To the merits of your plan, you seem credential obsessed. JD, MBA, CFA are all great but if you look at profiles of successful people you will rarely see this level of credentialism.
It's great to be ambitious and you have a great plan here but I don't want you to 1) blow up if you get "off track" for whatever reason or 2) miss a great opportunity because you have such a rigid idea of your future.
It is possible to end up where you want to go with just an undergrad degree. Your current plan involves spending 1000-1500 hours or more preparing for CFA levels I, II, III, GMAT, and LSAT, followed by four years of difficult schooling. I wonder if there is a better use of your time?
At the least, consider matriculating after only two years and going into a three year program like Kellogg, which lets you skip the LSAT.
That is great. Are you aware of any other top joint degrees that require only 1 test?
If your goal is private equity then a good solution for you would be to spend 1-2 years at your current firm, then lateral to a brand name investment bank or consulting firm and recruit for private equity from there. This would all be before the MBA because it is quite difficult to get into private equity post MBA without any pre MBA private equity work experience. A JD and a CFA will not change that.
All those degrees are nice to have but you only really need the MBA to advance in private equity (these days you can actually get direct promote to post MBA if you did well in pre MBA). JD is helpful in distressed private equity but it also adds two years of education (on top of the MBA) and costs a lot. I would rather use those two years to get actual distressed work experience (and earn money at the same time).
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