University for International Student Looking to Break into Investment Banking
I'm currently a grade 11 international student with the dream of working in IB. I would say I have a pretty decent shot into being accepted to a target university. However, I am still a little uncertain on which universities to apply (especially EA or ED). My current list in the US would be Penn, Yale, and Michigan. Probably Michigan would be a little easier to get admitted to, but they offer very limited financial aid to international students. Yale, on the other hand, is need-blind and offers full financial aid but is the most competitive as far as admissions are concerned. Lastly Penn is considered the best for these jobs, but they are need-aware for international students albeit committing to meet full financial need.
Could you give me some advice on which university to focus on-considering cost, applying ED or RD, chances of being admitted, and future job prospects?
Also, which international universities are also target schools (preferably in the UK, Asia, or Canada)?
Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, Imperial and Warwick are defacto targets for London; Oxbridge and LSE are also considered targets for APAC. Just worth mentioning that UK recruiting is very random (more is out of your control as BB/EBs don't really let you network a CV push/referral much) and so going to one of the aforementioned schools doesn't guarantee anything.
Got it. Thanks for your recommendations and super fast reply.
I'm in my final year of high school as an international student who has just gone through the process which you are about to embark on, so although I can't give you any advice on breaking into IB, my insight of the application process might still be of help.
Firstly, I'd like to point out the obvious. College admissions, especially in the US, are getting increasingly more difficult, not only for international students but even for kids born in the states. Therefore, you will need to keep your expectations low for US apps. The fact that your requesting aid will make it infinetly more difficult.
Nevertheless, there is still hope. When creating your US uni list the most important thing is to check what schools offer aid to internationals. Off the top of my head no UCs meet these criteria, neither do the majority of state schools including Michigan. LACs are known to be generous when it comes to giving aid to internationals as they value their presence/diversity on campus. So far, my only US acceptance has come from a LAC. Despite being great schools academically, chances are that they have little to no OCR which will make recruiting difficult.
In the UK your chances are definetly better. Whereas US applications are completely unpredictable, in the UK you will have a good idea if you meet a programs/schools requirments or not. I'd highly reccomend applying to Cambridge before October 15th (I believe that this is their deadline), so make sure that your personal statements is finished by then. This shouldn't be too hard if you start in time.
All in all, have the UK as your backup plan and then shotgun to as many US schools as possible. Look into need-blind schools for ED, e.g darthmouth, yale, amherst?! etc. You can keep the need-aware schools for regular decision and early access.
Let me know if you need anyother help.
Thank you very much for your help.
Are LAC good for IB or finance in general and can you show me your stats so I have a better idea on my acceptance?
No worries! Take what I say with a grain of salt as I have yet to even step foot on a US campus.
From what I've gathered online browsings sites like WSO, top tier LAC's are said to have a great academic reputation throughout the US, even in banking. Schools like Amherst and Williams for example have students which could be deemed as ivy league caliber; this is if you deem the schools acceptence rates as appropriate metrics (e.g Amherst only accepted 12% of applicants last cycle). These schools have huge endownments and, oftentimes, a strong undergraduate focus meaning you will get a top tier education with incredibly dedicated staff. Nevertheless, students attending LAC:s, except for maybe the top 5, typically do not want to pursue banking. Therefore, OCR may be lacking (once again, definitely not the case for all schools). From what I've heard, the alumni networks at LAC:s are great so if you do happen to find someone who has pursued a similar career path as you then chances are that they'll be happy to chat. You should look into this a bit further but from what I've gathered attending an LAC by no means ruin you chances for IB. If your planning on wokring in your home country after UG then that might be a different story as LAC:s are typically lesser known outside the states.
Regarding my stats, I went test optional and did not attend a well known international curriculum (e.g IB /A - Leves etc). Nevertheless, I got good grades (almost the highest possible) and focused a lot on my essays. My EC:s were definetly spiked in Finance/Econ; I had a finance related internship, I founded and was CFO of a small company, and was part of econ clubs etc etc.
I'd reccomend looking into A2C on reddit to get an idea of how other succesfull intl applicants look like.
Also keep in mind the Visa difficulties for Internationals in the US...
Do you mean the H-1B Visa?
If so, could you enlighten me about its process?
Thanks for your reply btw.
High level, there are four steps
Please note that there are more applicants than spots open for the H1b, it is oversubscribed and there is a lottery/selection process.
Great, thanks for the tips. I really like studying at the university, actually, because the socialization and new acquaintances, knowledge, and new skills that you can get are priceless. I recently read on https://samplius.com/free-essay-examples/reflection-on-my-personality-traits-and-personal-experiences/ about corporate culture and its role in our lives.
it became clearer to me now. thank you!
Don't overestimate your chances of getting into an ivy league or other top program (including Ross), it has become insanely competitive. Obviously depends on your demographics, stats, and softs but still. Go look at some result threads on r/collegeresults or college confidential if you want to see how crazy it has become.
As for LACs, Amherst and Williams are ivy tier and have great recruiting but there are others that have great recruiting as well. Middlebury and CMC come to mind mainly.
I can comment on international target unis (outside USA)/their application processes since I went through the application process earlier this year and had to make a tough choice between two excellent unis in Canada. In terms of Canadian unis, the Ivey School of Business at Western University seems to emerge as a clear target. Alumni have consistently landed EVR (NY, Menlo and TOR offices mostly), Point72, HL RX, Jefferies, BAML, MS, JPM, GS and all of the Canadian big 6. You'd even see a few odd PJT (RSSG among others), Silverlake, Greenhill, and PWP sometimes. But keep in mind that Ivey is a 2 year programme, so you'd have to do the first 2 years at Western in a different course (the closest you can get to taking business is BMOS) and maintain an 80% average to be officially admitted into Ivey in the 3rd year. However, after talking to a few Ivey students over zoom/linkedin, I got to know that clubs like Western Investment Club and Western Capital Markets are more than helpful in bridging that 2 year gap and that they're an excellent resource for students to learn about the capital markets and get hands-on investment experience. I'll attach the links to both of those clubs for you to peruse at your leisure, but do note the placements of their executive teams and their investment strategies. It would be an incomplete answer if I didn't mention UBC Portfolio Management Foundation which takes ~7 people an year and lands people into top groups like GS TMT and BX RE/PE. They have two compulsory internships and have strong ties with CIBC, so much so that a CIBC internship is almost guaranteed purely on the back of the PMF brand. Even the whole of UBC is decent for finance recruiting since they land consistently into Scotia/BMO/RBC's M&A groups and you'd also see some CPPIB and a few occasional GS and MS every few years, but they land almost only in Canada with very few people (excluding PMF students) breaking into the US every year (prolly has something to do with the massive number of international students that attend UBC.
See, the thing with Canada though is that you need to be in a business programme/engineering course for Quant to have any chance of breaking into highly selective finance fields. Queen's Commerce is another course whose placements rival Ivey's and is a 4 year, traditional business programme unlike Ivey's 2 year programme. On a more personal note, I still prefer Ivey over QC because it's the largest publisher of business cases after HBS and their HBA programme is 100% case based, with opportunities to consult pro-bono for a local company professionally as a part of the programme. Ivey alumni and current students tell me that they also have this thing called the 48 hour reports which are stressful assignments designed to simulate a sweatshop-like climate, conducted twice/more times each year. Hope another Ivey alumni/student could add more colour to this.
But yeah, IB presence in Toronto isn't as robust as somewhere like NY or LDN, and since you're an intl student (like me), your chances of working in the US are minimal to put it bluntly. However, the UK has started the granting of these new types of work visas which let you work in the UK for an extended period of time, but the only condition is that the uni you graduate from should be in the Top 50 of at least 2 of any of the 3 official uni ranking sites, so that's another door opened for intl students like us.
I was in your position recently and I understand the troubles/concerns that you might have about this, but I just wanna say good luck as you take this next step towards admissions/recruiting!
PS (The WIC and WCM site links):
https://www.westerninvestmentclub.ca/
https://www.westerncapitalmarkets.com/
I'm at another canadian uni and I feel like the Ivey placements are a little exaggerated. Obviously its a good school and I agree that there are alumni at many banks but a lot of the places you mentioned like Jefferies/HL/JPM don't consistently take students from Ivey (maybe 0-1 per year). I've also never heard of Ivey students at places like PWP and forget PJT RSSG if you're coming from Ivey. Not trying to shit on the school but I think that due to visa restrictions the placements aren't as good as they were a few years ago. Just something that I think incoming student should be aware of.
Rising int’l junior at big non-target state school who just finished IB recruiting. Can’t provide insights on going into target schools. But def have some insights on IB recruiting, and visa, work authorization issues.
Mostly importantly, no matter where you go, networking is extremely important. Being at a target school, the only one hung that can help you is the On-Campus Recruitment. The alum base is overrated imo, especially for int’ls since they might not respond to you due to different cultural backgrounds. Start early and focus more on BBs, you will have the best shots there on average. Same networking skills and principles apply for int’l students.
And as for visa issues, do NOT use your CPT before your major junior year internship at a reputable bank, save it for your most important internship . Try to do different internships under the table if you can, bc if you use CPT beforehand, you’ll need OPT to do your internship and you will have to get H1B before starting FT.
Get a STEM degree if you can. It will give you 3yrs to work FT on student visa guaranteed if have no luck with H1B. (Enough to finish analyst program).
I’m an international student at a US university interested in IB too. What are your stats? At this point college applications are a crapshoot for all international students, leaving aside the fact that you’re asking for fin aid. What is your demographic background and region? I would highly recommend applying to some safeties as well and also considering the UK given how the admissions process is less random and uncertain there (high stats = admitted usually). I have researched quite a bit on the visa process in the US as well so if you have any questions, do feel free to reach out. Was in the same boat as you 1-2 years back.
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