Does major matter? (at UVA, Columbia, Brown, etc.)

I'm currently a student looking to apply for transfer into a better school after a less-than-stellar academic career in high school, despite a very good SAT score. I've heard that in investment banking recruiting, major is less important than where you go to school and I wanted to find out to what extent this is true at say, UVA, Brown, or Georgetown, compared to a school like Columbia or Harvard. Based purely on my interests, I'd like to study architecture, but don't know how much this would affect my ability to go after an internship or job in finance. Obviously a student attending Harvard with a non Econ major likely has a better chance than a non Econ/Finance major at UVA/McIntire but is it still within reach for a non STEM or Econ/Finance major from a non HYPWC target school to get a bid in IB?
I greatly appreciate any help on the matter.

 
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I've seen it go both ways. I have a friend on the street who was an art / English major, also a handful of history majors. A lot of kids in banking are econ/business/cs, but there still are people who come from untraditional backgrounds. Main thing is to just find out who the spin the story of why not pursue architecture instead of IB.

 

What banks are known for giving less attention to major? UVA's CAS (econ) is actually easier to get into than their Architecture school and their business school, McIntire (finance). As far as transferring into McIntire vs the Architecture school, they're probably equivalent as McIntire is competitive to get into but there's less slots and infrastructure for transfer at the Architecture school. The reason for not majoring in econ/finance is solely because I'm more interested in studying design/architecture than econ/finance. I've been strongly considering a double major because it'd allow me to be safe while pursuing my interests.

 

Why not do a double major in architecture and econ/finance. Also Brown has the open curriculum so this would be easy there.

I'd say it matters a lot less at HYPWC what your major is than at UVA where you have such intense competition that you have to be at the top of your class and a finance major to get looks. Michael Lewis was an art history major. It's all about how you spin your major architecture might be a good idea if you want to work in REPE, even though they're not directly correlated they are in the same general realm.

 

I'ver been strongly considering a double major to allow me to pursue both interests and still be recruitable for finance. That's also been something immensely attractive about Brown, assuming I'm able to transfer there. I've also heard Columbia's econ program is strangely easy to combine with a visual arts/architecture major although I admittedly know a lot less about their double major students, especially given their strong core. I didn't know that about Michael Lewis so that's certainly helpful to see someone can do it, albeit after going to Princeton.

 

Yeah man there are literally tons of people I've met on the street who did a liberal arts major not related to finance at all and still broke in. But they all went to targets and were very impressive in their own right. It's definitely possible, so study what you think you will enjoy and just do lots on internships/clubs related to finance and you should be fine

 

Why do people who clearly know almost nothing about UVA keep spreading misinformation?

It does not matter if you are COMM or Econ because all recruiting happens before COMM starts. Anyone that says otherwise knows nothing about UVA.

 

So I understand that you don't actually start studying at McIntire (Commerce) until the beginning of your Junior year and that's obviously after most recruiting starts for BB et EB, I just don't know if that means your major has literally no effect your ability to secure a job or internship, especially in the summer between junior/senior year and in trying to secure a full time offer, because by those points, your school at UVA would be decided.

 

Lets put it this way. Say you're on a networking call with a UVA alum and they ask whether you got into COMM or not and you have to say 'no.' How do you think that would affect the alum's judgement of your candidacy.

 

It does not negatively affect you. I personally know multiple people that didn't get into COMM that have jobs people salivate over on this website

 

So do I. But are those exceptions or the norm? I'm speaking from the position of someone who interviews UVA students. It's pretty easy to distinguish people who applied and didn't get in and those who genuinely had an interest in a different major.

 

It's the norm. The only reason that you see more of a COMM lean is because those kids generally have higher GPAs/test scores and better extracurriculars (which is why they get into COMM).

If someone has the stats and extracurriculars in place, it has nothing to do with their major. Kids make COMM, COMM doesn't make the kid.

 

You can speak in anecdotes all you want, but I am an actual COMM student at UVA. I think I would know what I'm talking about, and have the most up-to-date info on the subject.

Recruiting even 5 years ago was a different landscape than it is today.

 

LMAO brah!

It's not like I know nearly every kid that got banking offers in my class, and networked with alums that ran our school's recruiting across a ton of the banks that get discussed on this website.

But please, tell me more about how my info is wrong

 

How many times can you edit your comment my man

It’s not that deep champ, I’m just saying that in somewhat recent conversations I’ve had with UVA alum and people who recruit with UVA and having attended a school structured similarly to UVA there is a clear preference to the business school over Econ. Idk why you seem offended and I promise no offense is intended and I don’t really care about this topic, but what you say is pretty starkly contrasted with what I’ve heard and seen. just take a breather

 

Are the condescending comments really necessary? Like I get it, this is an anonymous website, but we both know you'd never say that to me in person.

 
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Alright, play dumb and pretend the "champ", "my man", and "take a breather" weren't condescending and add nothing of value to what was said.

 

They're both schools I'm applying to transfer to and both have good placement in IB, but not at the same level as HYPWC.

 

Not to get in the ivy league circle jerk but Brown is a lower tier ivy and UVA is a top public school. Can't imagine their recruitment is too different from each other. Wouldn't be surprised if UVA is a target school for more banks (not necessarily BB) than Brown due to Brown's liberal arts nature and UVA's larger alunmi network.

 

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