Which university offer should I choose if I want to break into IB/PE?
1) Bayes-banking and international finance 2) Exeter, 3) QMUL, 4) Bristol, 5)Birmingham -Business management 6) Reading- Real Estate (Finance) 7) KCL - management and modern language Unfortunately I can not apply to any target school, but I still want a higher probability to break into these kind of high level finance role.
KCL
Hi, thank you for your reply!
Isn’t the modern language is kinda useless? May I ask the reason about it?
No one cares about your course in London: it's more the Uni you study.
Yes, STEM would be even better but as long as you're at a half-decent Uni then you're good (plus you're in London and next to LSE for convenience if you wanted to attend their networking events).
Would recommend Bristol but KCL being in London and a walk from Goldman Sachs' offices in Farringdon helps their case.
In London it doesnt matter what your uni course is. I know a few people who did Classics/Fine art/History who got into IB.
So, are KCL and Bristol definitely better than Bayes? I saw some people say it's a good school for investment banking. Or is it only good for mid-office and back-office roles?
Uni name is more important. Go to KCL/Bristol, grind hard to get into/lead the finance societies, and you will have a powerful CV by the time you are applying to internships in your 2nd year.
echo that
heard a girl that studies Korean/ Russian at oxbridge got into BB
KCL and Bristol, both are semi-targets
So, are KCL and Bristol definitely better than Bayes? I saw some people say it's a good school for investment banking. Or is it only good for mid-office and back-office roles?
Bayes is not as strong as a semi-target as Bristol or Kings.
If you’re looking purely for recruitment for IB, it’s between Kings and Bristol. I would say they are quite similar, but Bristol has had a growing presence in the city for quite some time now. For IB, your university course does not matter as much as for other roles such as quantitative finance.
What course did you pick for Bristol? If the course is more rigorous u e.g a STEM, Economics etc it’ll put you in a better place to recruit for other roles too outside of IB if you decide you want to go for something else.
If the course you will study at Bristol is more rigorous, I’d go for Bristol (disregarding any other considerations for where you want to study apart from a purely recruitment standpoint).
Hi, It is business management as well.
Tbh, is it a big deal for getting a job in IB(FO) / PE?
The course in KCL will have to do a year study aboard which is Bristol don’t require. However their conditions are higher than that.
When would this be? and is the study abroad mandatory?
A bit unrelated to your comment, but I think this may be important for you to also consider. A lot of people will extend their courses to 4 years so they have more recruitment cycles to apply for internships. Let's take spring weeks as an example. If you don't know what a spring week is, it's simply when UK Banks host a one week insight for first year students on a 3 year course, or second year students on a 4 year course. The reason why spring weeks are so desirable is because they act as a pipeline programme into many bank's summer internship programme. Some students will extend their course to a 4 year course, when originally their course is a 3 year course so they have a second go at spring weeks.
Yes, it is mandatory.
It would be the third years.
Bit of a awkward timeframe tbh. What months do you start and finish the year abroad?
There's a lot to consider. A few examples (but not inclusive); if you go through the recruitment cycle for IB summer internships, it'll take place between as early as July until around December / January of your penultimate year (since you have to do a year abroad you will be recruiting during your third year). This will impact your ability to interview and do assessment centres as you'll be in a different timezone and would have to either fly in to do a assessment centre or do it virtually (depends on how the bank does it). On the bright side, it means you have first year to beef up your CV before applying to spring weeks and then second year to beef up your CV again for summer internships.
Keep in mind also about the other factors outside of recruitment between the two universities.
In this case, you can't really go wrong with either then. Just a few things to consider: At KCL you'll find networking easier, can attend events hosted by banks easier and speaker events from other London universities. At Bristol, cost of living is lower, if you like a smaller city lifestyle then Bristol is a smaller city... If you can, it'll be a good idea for you to speak to people from both universities that are interested in recruiting for IB.
For IB your course doesn't matter much, it's more about you as a person and whether or not you fit into the bank / culture.
I have friends that study completely unrelated courses to finance that land EB/BB internships.
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