I’m 19, but I’ve already finish my undergrad finance degree and I have a pretty good GPA. I also will be starting a Masters in Finance online at Harvard, it’s for individuals with jobs so I’ll be able to be full time throughout the degree. I also have decent work experience between my own E-commerce businesses, product development, and working with clients at a luxury architecture firm. What are your thoughts?
| +106 | At what point should you give up? | 57 | 9h | |
| +37 | Recruiting while unemployed | 16 | 1d | |
| +37 | I am lost on the next step - Need Advice | 8 | 3d | |
| +25 | SF vs NY IB Stint | 10 | 2d | |
| +22 | Incoming freshmen at bocconi - SA 2025 recruiting | 15 | 1d | |
| +19 | NYC Consumer PE/Growth Funds with decent comp but amazing WLB? | 6 | 1d | |
| +19 | Trying to break into IB | 7 | 8h | |
| +18 | Job Switch Advice | 3 | 17h | |
| +17 | Career Path Advice Needed | 5 | 6d | |
| +16 | SHIFTING FROM LAW TO FINANCE | 10 | 16h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
Three points:
I’m getting my masters from extension. I just want to get into PE eventually, so I want to get some good IB experience.
Why didn't you considered to be recruited while being in the undergrad?
If you hurry, you can get your MBA done before you’re 21. Good luck!
Won’t most top MBA programs require you to have relevant work experience though?
You have 0 chance bro, plugging Harvard the way you are only confirms your stupidity
Sounds like you're in an extremely rare and unique situation. What was your undergrad?
Well I went to FAU High School, which is basically a fully dual enrolled program, so my bachelors came from Florida Atlantic University, that’s why I’m trying to get either an Master’s in Finance of MBA from a top school, or start working to build my resume in either IB or PE
1. NEVER get your MBA right out of undergrad. You need work experience to get into a top program and it only makes sense to go to M7, especially HBS, Wharton, GSB, Booth/Kellogg for the midwest.
2. I would get a 1 year MSF or masters in Accountancy at a top program, then recruit for IB out of that. Your age will not be a problem. The issue here is lack of IB internship experience which you generally need. However, given your extraordinary and bizarre circumstance, this might not be a huge concern as long as you're at a top MSF program.
they arent gonna ask your age in an interview
You need to get a degree from a decent school or network your ass off. Cause a bachelors from Florida Atlantic at 19 y/o won’t get you into IB and definitely not PE. A MFin from Harvard Extension also won’t help cause it isn’t actually Harvard, it’s fake Harvard for suckers like you. Get a decent finance masters from either a target or at least a semi-target and then recruit. Or better yet: skip IB. You seem to have all the relevant experience/tools/time to not need IB.
I am completely stunned by all the hate on this thread.
Dudes the OP is young, he may not be well informed and that's why he is seeking for advice. Don't be f**king a**holes with him.
I've read his posts 3 times and he is definitely not flexing at all
You went to a shit undergrad and are now doing a bullshit masters degree, so you can try to make up for that by working a few years then applying to an MBA. From there you can recruit for MBA associate positions in IB. Also, you seem like a very strange and unlikable person, so definitely recommend some behavioral prep before interviewing.
But overall, no I dont think you can get an analyst position, at least from a reputable bank, from your current position. Youre the type of person we try to screen out. But start grinding and you can eventually break in to the industry. Good luck
"very strange and unlikable person"
lmao relax, he's 19.
Same Energy
OP was given advice and said he wasn’t taking it because was the person was an intern. Also, he’s completely full of himself and apparently did so little research that he thought Harvard’s Extension program was equivalent to an actual MSF. It’s hard to feel for the kid when he’s asking for advice on something that is frankly, not attainable … and then won’t listen to people that tell him exactly that
The intern you are referring to was just saying OP is stupid, don't think it is "valuable advice"
First of all, everyone is being an asshole bullying this kid. No one on this forum realizes how much of a fucking bubble they live in. I grew up in the middle of nowhere midwest. I was the first kid ever from my school to go to HYP and I'm likely also the first ever from my high school to have ended up working on Wall Street. Nobody at my HS knew what Dartmouth was, nobody cared about how MS is better than BAML. Blackstone was unheard of. Nobody even knew what private equity meant. The vast majority of people spend their lives not knowing about IB or MBB or prestigious business jobs. This kid likely comes from that sort of an environment. Because he wasn't born to a wealthy family in greenwich, raised as a hardo, and sent to Exeter with the proper of knowledge of target schools and IB-PE-MBA in 9th grade doesn't mean he should be bullied, because that does no one any good. I'm sure he is thinking we are all just crazy people right now, as most people would. You guys don't understand how many dumbass takes I read on this forum that would make my high school friends think I'm delusional for believing in.
Anyways, now talking to you, the kid, let me lay out why this forum has problems with your post, as clearly as possible. I want to try to explain clearly and in a non-antagonizing manner why your plan to break into IB has some significant problems.
1. Finance is a very prestige-oriented industry. There are ~15 "Target Schools" which send kids into high finance roles in IB/PE/whatever. To have a solid shot at landing these roles, you need to go to these schools. There are many "non-target students" who break into high finance from universities that are not among the 15 I just referenced. However, that is very rare. I know the kind of high school program you went to. That degree is worthless to you if you want to break into high finance. Nobody will take it seriously because you did it alongside high school, and secondly the school you got that degree from is not very much respected. If you want to break into finance with a real degree, you need to attend a target school and do quite well, or attend a state flagship and be among the top top students of your class. I promise if you attend the University of Florida, do that special B.S./M.S. finance dual degree in 4 years they have, you will get a job in high finance. However, let me reemphasize, your current FAU high school degree is worthless in "high finance".
2. Harvard Extension School is seen as a joke. Nobody respects it and the "degree" (I think it's not even considered a degree, only a certificate) is practically meaningless to any legitimate firm, both within high finance and even in most financial careers. Harvard Extension School does not open up additional doors for you at all. You do not get access to the Harvard network or the "stamp of approval" that being a harvard student gets you, because nobody, including harvard, considers you to be an actual harvard student. It's mostly a scam to get money from people.
3. Firms in high finance are extremely picky on work experiences. If you are a college student, sure you could use your E-commerce businesses, product development, and client service work to show off your hustle, people skills, and whatnot to land an IB internship between your junior and senior years of college, but you are not a college student. No IB will take that as relevant experience and hire you based on just that. There is a giant line of Big 4 candidates who are real college grads and talented individuals with relevant work experience to IB who will precede you anywhere you go.
If you want to work in IB I recommend you do 3 things.
1. Attend a real 4 year college, ideally a target school. However, if your standardized test scores and grades are not good enough, you can attend your state school (University of Florida), and either transfer after your first year or be one of the best students in your grade there.
2. Stop the Harvard Masters in Finance. It is a waste of time and money.
3. This is predicated on you enrolling in a 4 year college, because that is the only way this will happen. Start reaching out to local boutique investment banks and investment firms for INTERNSHIPS. You need to market yourself as a college student because otherwise they will not want to hire a 19 year old intern who they see as someone with no future.
I just shit on the people of WSO at the beginning of the post, but I want to reiterate that they are some of the most-informed people (almost to a fault) about education and careers in the world. And I think one thing that everyone would tell you here, is that if you want to have a successful business career, do goal #1 which I just listed: GO TO COLLEGE. If you can afford it, go to the best school you can go to: A target school or University of Florida. If you are poor and you did well in high school, you will get very generous financial aid to the University of Florida. If you did not do so well, go to a community college and transfer after 1 or 2 years. There are so many scholarship options for community college students, you will get a full ride to UF or a target school if you do well in CC for 2 years. Either way, getting a 4 year COLLEGE education (not just the degree) is essential. Please kid, for your own good, trust us on this.
Wrote this after pulling an all-nighter. You're welcome and sorry for any weird sentence structure or grammatical mistakes.
Thank you for the helpful info, I definitely don't want to do HES now, but do you think I could apply and get into a m7 MBA school like HBS for next year? I just feel that going back and redoing my bachelors will erase all my hard work that I've put in to get ahead, I'd rather continue my education to the next level. I have a great GPA, I've been working in product development with fairly complex manufacturing seriously for 3-4 years now and have lots of experience in terms of sourcing and manufacturing. Also I own a handful of patents that I created myself. I've published relevant research in peer reviewed journals, got my real estate license at 18 and began my own company to invest in rental properties and management, I also worked at a luxury architecture firm working and interfacing with clients. All our customers were building homes between $2m-$30m. During that time I really learned how to work with different groups of people to bring everyone together and accomplish a goal in a timely and cost effective manner (ex. Coordinating with contractors, engineers, clients, head architect). By the way all these IBs think they are tough guys, try to go tell the whole construction team they read the architectural plans wrong and they need to rip apart a whole part of the house and start again 😂. And by the way for all the salty people, I'm just saying all this stuff to see if it would give me a chance to get into an MBA program at my age and my qualifications.
Yes, I think an MBA is potentially another great option for you that I should have mentioned. I'm a bit confused on what your main job is right now. I'm going to continue this post with the assumption that you are in product development for a manufacturing firm. I think that if you can show how you made an impact, be a top performer, get good recommendations, maybe even lateral to a really recognizable manufacturing firm, you are in a great place. One of my friends did product development or something similar at GE and went to HBS. However, I have three points I wanna make here.
1. (I am an HBS/GSB grad). Getting into these business schools is a crapshoot. I think you can definitely get into a M7/T15 MBA if you do well. However, I can't promise HBS/GSB, and I wouldn't continue down your career path expecting to get into HBS and HBS alone. You can get into a top MBA, but please don't bank on HBS.
2. The way ad-coms will view your profile is that they will look for "after-college experience". While you may have 4 years of product development experience, in your case, adcoms will see it as 1 year of full-time work experience after college. In addition to this, you generally don't get these 4 year IB-PE business school admissions like you do in finance. Most people who go to business school from a background such as yours have been working for about ~6-8 years. I think, on minimum, you should expect to work for about 6 years before you will be a compelling MBA candidate, especially because it's well known that adcoms prefer older candidates and you are already disadvantaged on that front. TLDR: Have 6 years of post-college full-time work experience before MBA.
3. You seem to have a very diverse range of experiences. Luxury architecture construction work, real estate firm, product development. I think what Adcoms are looking for which you may be lacking is specialized, deep-impact work in one field. If product development is your main job, you need to go all in, make sure you're a top performer, get promoted quickly, perhaps lateral to a better firm, etc etc. An MBA is a professional business degree. It's meant to advance your career. Undergrad is different because it's more about pursuing your passions. The side achievements are nice and all, but you need to be really successful in your main "job" to land a top MBA. Or at least be really successful in one specific thing.
And of course, you can break into IB after your MBA. Any T15 MBA will enable you to break into IB honestly.
Why are you even trying to do IB/PE then? These are jobs for smart people who need guardrails and structure to succeed. Hourly rates of pay are shit and moving up is a long non-guaranteed process that costs you damn near everything else in life.
If you're already into real estate and you're able to raise small amounts of money maybe look into real estate private equity or real estate syndication.
I know a guy named David Toupin who started doing that at 20 and now at 25 he's got over $100M in Real Estate AUM and he's making amazing fee $$. I'll link his stuff below and maybe pursue that path.
Links:
https://www.obsidiancapitalco.com/
https://www.instagram.com/realestatejedi
Dude why are you even trying to go IB? You're too competent for it, and you're going to be a lot more successful doing what you're doing right now.
Jesus had to scroll this far down to see some real advice. Why is every thread drowned by bullshit from know it all prospects and interns?
Who else has the time to just hang around WSO for whenever new threads hit?
Yeah man if you know your shit. Even if it's a shit school or not but you still know your shit. You will get the job man. Lol I am Gen Z too and I run 2 family funds trading commodites lol. Good luck brotha. Ignore the hate. And yeah extension schools are cool but it's like a keep it for yourself thing. Get an MBA at the actual school and say you can't come on campus or something haha.
People are being major jerks on this thread. HES is a fine program that yes, offers real degrees it just probably isn’t the best fit for you for two key reasons:
Here’s my advice: get another bachelor’s degree while you’re still young, or think about doing a post-bac at school with on-campus recruiting from banks you’d want to work for. It will be easier to recruit this way, and also, will grow your network with people your own age who might have similar interests to you which you will carry with you in any career. Join some clubs, take some non-finance classes, and enjoy yourself as much as possible while you pursue recruitment. You have ample time for an MBA or a masters if that’s what you decide on later in your career.
How to you get your MBA at a top school once you begin working? Do you take leave at your work? Do you do it alongside your each other? Do you leave your job altogether?
You leave your job and commit full time to an MBA.
Between school workload and recruiting, you won't have time to do anything else.
Good question. Actually, MBAs are different than other graduate degrees in that they actually prefer for students to come from the workforce after gaining experience on the job so it’s actually more common to do that than go directly from undergrad. People do take a break from work to get the degree; in fact, some firms even sponsor their employees while they do so with an agreement that they will come back after graduating. An executive MBA (or EMBA) is a different kind of program designed for people who work while getting the degree, but this is usually for people who are much further along the career track. A good forum to learn more about MBAs is called Poets & Quants if you’re unfamiliar with the process!
I’ve been in IB since 19 months so yes
Did you even do five minutes of research on the industry before you posted this? And yet you're surprised people are clowning you? Get a grip
Exercitationem nesciunt soluta dolore nulla consequatur illo sapiente. Fuga itaque laborum aspernatur aut. Tempore nemo ea consequatur provident aut quis magnam. Velit aperiam soluta neque impedit. Sed sit aliquid omnis vel ipsam. Accusantium quae modi quia. Placeat consequatur ea tempore.
Nisi reiciendis ipsa voluptas corrupti blanditiis dolore debitis. Quidem odit provident tempora dolore provident possimus. Accusamus a cumque veniam.
Soluta officia velit fugit. Molestiae adipisci tempore soluta vero perspiciatis. Dolore qui quos tenetur facilis fuga quos eum. Impedit est possimus qui quasi sapiente et.
Ex sit impedit voluptas aut delectus. Iusto est corporis illo facilis aut. Eius ut veritatis commodi iure voluptatem error.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Earum dicta molestias qui molestiae est aut totam. Cupiditate possimus expedita delectus in. Harum nihil dicta voluptatum ea aliquid consequuntur et.