UIUC Fall ’25 Intl Math→Math + CS (Business LLC) – IB Strategy?
Hi all, I’m an incoming international student at UIUC this Fall 2025, majoring in Math with plans to transfer to Math + CS, and I’m part of the Business LLC. My ultimate goal is an investment banking analyst role.
Would you recommend:
- Trying to Transfer to a “target” school ?
- Grinding it out at UIUC—earning top grades, getting involved in clubs and other activities?
- Or another approach altogether?
What worked best for you when you were in my shoes? Thanks in advance!
Should be doing finance + accounting, finance + math, or finance + DS/CS instead. I think for Investment Banking roles, it's nicer to have a finance or accounting background, but more preferably finance.
Don't stress a lot about clubs. I feel like clubs are a good starter program that give you access to two things:
1. alumni in those clubs and their emails that placed well in IB SA/FT roles
2. prep for how modeling/accounting/basic valuation techs would be during an interview by doing stock pitches or even financial valuations of companies in those clubs.
Apart from that, even if you are not in a financial related club, having a passion club on your resume pulls attention. Also, make sure to make your interests section super unique on the resume. Don't just list basic stuff like gym, running, hiking, etc. List unique identifiers like japanese pottery or something unique that catches their attention.
Lastly, networking. Don't have to explain this. but send out emails for coffee chats.
Got it! This really helps. What about summer internships though? I keep hearing from YouTube videos that recruiting for those starts super early—even like a year in advance. Should I already be applying or networking for sophomore/junior summer now?
And your thoughts on transferring ?
if you are an incoming freshman, I would say study up technicals early so you would just brush up on those later. IB recruiting for SA is 2 years in advance. So, during your sophomore year, you would be recruiting for a junior year internship. It's never too early to start networking but I would say around your freshman year summer (to sophomore year), you should start sending out emails to a list of individuals (both school alumni and other individuals) at different BBs/EBs/MMs/etc. banks that you want to apply to.
In terms of transferring, I would say you could transfer to a more target school like Wharton/Yale/Harvard or even transfer to other decent targets like Cornell. However, I think UIUC is a solid school and people still place well as long as you network and study up your technicals.
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