I am a sophomore at PSU and am interested in IB. Anyone have any thoughts whether Nittany lion fund or leveraged lion capital is a better path to land a job on Wall Street?
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NLF is definitely more prestigious than LLC. Part of this is due to NLF being around for over 15 years and receiving national attention. LLC is pretty new and started in 2017, though they have landed several students on Wall Street jobs (some of them were also in the Fund tho too). I’d say the other part that will continue to make NLF more prestigious IMO, is that NLF manages real investors money, and millions of it. They have to not only be smart about investing but also write detailed reports to wealthy investors. LLC uses paper money and only deals with bonds/loans.
Some of my friends are in LLC and say that only like 20 kids come out to their PSFIA meetings. When I joined PSIA there were over 350 kids in a lecture hall for the meetings. I couldn’t get into the Fund with a 3.9 GPA but I know a kid in LLC who had a 3.4 and wasn’t a finance major.
With the NLF being around longer it also has a larger network of alumni. I’ve heard the network the NLF has helped a lot of kids. LLC is only three years old so the alumni network is much smaller. LLC will probably build this network but the organization is much newer and that will take time.
The fund is more geared towards IB and places well into IB. You can still get into IB from LLC but there a lot of kids who pursue S&T and other careers.
The NLF is significantly more time consuming to get in to and be in. Recruiters know that and that’s why they prefer NLF students.To get in you essentially have to treat PSIA as a class and study for the interviews and you have to spend your free time networking/mocking with current fund managers. You have to good relationships with the current fund managers to even get in. You also have to have a high gpa combined with leadership experience. Once you’re actually in it’s a 35-40 hour time commitment the first semester. That’s a significant amount of time to spend on an extracurricular activity and that’s in addition to doing well in classes and being involved in other activities and maintaining leadership roles in those activities. The culture of the fund is said to be very realistic to wall street and there’s a lot of emphasis on perfection and performance and you will get yelled at and criticized if you don’t perform at NLF standards. It’s no easy feat and recruiters know it.
Recruiters don't care about NLF lmao
Both are solid in terms of breaking into investment banking from Penn State, however the Fund has an obvious edge compared to LLC. The Fund, as others have mentioned, is much more well established and LLC lends slightly more to S&T rather than IB. But, I would caveat all of these comparisons with the fact that these two programs will drain (almost) all of your free time and, from personal experience, banks love unique candidates. I come from Penn State and did not participate in the Fund, LLC, or WS Bootcamp and I was able to get three offers at BB firms through distinguishing myself in majors/minors other than finance and leadership in other orgs. In my experience, banks will give you a second look if you distinguish yourself in ways other than these orgs.
This is definitely true too. These organizations are time-consuming and it's difficult to stay on top of other things. While they set up apart from candidates from other schools and show you're interested in finance, your resume will look very similar to a lot of other Penn State students who've taken part in these organizations. People in both these organizations have worked to differentiate themselves, but a recruitment complaint in recent years is that every Penn State resume looks identical. The biggest advantage to these organizations is honestly the networking potential with older students and alumni. It is also an opportunity to meet people with similar interests and you can make friends in these orgs too.
NLF by far. They've been around for a lot longer and have a much larger alumni network that is extremely willing to recruit new members into their banks. Particularly strong pipeline for BofA and other BBs as well as a few EBs now. Started placing a few kids straight to buyside now too. It's harder to get into and is a lot more work than LLC, but that's why their placement is better. Considering you manage $11 million of real capital from over 70 investors (no endowment money), there's a significant responsibility that comes from this that LLC doesn't have (paper portfolio doesn't mean much), and recruiters recognize this.
Join AMG
AMG >>> LLC. AMG guys will be grinding in the trading room till late on Friday - never saw the LLC guys doing that lol
Everyone covered it above but NLF > LLC with the aim to lock down a leadership role in one or the other.
Which one is easier to get into if you're in a frat? I'm in a business fraternity and was wondering what my shots are at the fund or LLC.
IDK if either are "Easy" especially if the defense it "I'm in a frat take me in"
NLF generally harder given the prior placements and general pedigree of the fund managers.
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