Coming from non-traditional background, for MF recruiting

Sorry for just copying and pasting from my post on B-school forum but wanted to hear PE folks thought on my status.

I'm a graduating senior (class of 2020) at Yale/Columbia/Brown and was lucky enough to land a SA, then FT offer at a good IB (GS/MS/Evercore/PJT).

I came from a very non-traditional background, which are

I dropped out of high school and took GED
Served in the military for 4-5 years
Had my own business for about a year while attending community college
Then I got admitted to one of those colleges through a program, designed for the non-traditional students
I finished rigorous course work at the college, graduating with summa cum laude, and got 780+ in GMAT in my senior year.

I wanna try IB+MF then B-school path and now I start to worry that my background might work against me. I didn't take SAT in my high school days, and from what I read on this WSO site, I feel like SAT still plays a role especially getting into MF, and might be a little less for B-school. I'm also in my mid 20's, 4-5 years behind the regular, and I wanted to hear WSO people's opinion on what my realistic chances of getting into MF after IB, and ultimately to top B-school like HBS, GSB.

Thank you.

 
Most Helpful

Think about it like this: both megafunds and business schools really like hiring veterans and they often ignore some things that they would usually ding people for (no IBD analyst stint, less of a namebrand school, limited business experience).

You come with the military experience AND the traditional background (top IBD analyst, ivy league school, summa). You will definitely be a unique candidate (in a good way), especially for on-cycle recruiting. You may be one of like two or three people with that background that are in on-cycle, probably less.

If you are normal, you are going to significantly outperform screeners. If I was a headhunter, I'd be sprinting to my clients to give them your CV for on-track recruiting. No SAT taken can definitely be explained in a sentence. "I never took the SAT because I entered the military right out of highschool, I took the GMAT last year and got a 780"

Once you get the interviews - its all on you, make sure you can crush your modeling tests.

 

If you're at an Ivy and headed to a strong IB, there's really nothing nontraditional about your background from a skillset/recruiting standpoint. You would be starting at a higher age, which isn't in itself that uncommon. As for your military and startup experience, I can't see any downside to it at all. And the SAT can be taken at any age, if you really think it's important, though I'd put my energy elsewhere.

 

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