If it's the best choice you got, then you don't really have a choice.  Don't worry too much about "semitarget" label.  At the end of the day, just go to the best school you got into.  

 
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I’m going to be perfectly honest. I’m from right outside of Philly and have a lot of friends majoring in finance at PSU and have a few in the NLF. I would not recommend going there if you are dead set on IB. Breaking into the Nittany Lion Fund is extremely difficult and there are a lot kids who get in solely on connection (ex: friends, siblings, same frat, same business frat, same high school, other orgs) making it difficult for an outsider to get in. Almost all the kids in the fund fall under one of these categories. The fund is also heavily pushing diversity pipelines. In the feeder org PSIA there are women only meetings. Additionally, the fund has not had the best job placement this year as COVID and other orgs improving their recruiting have hurt their placement. You can even take a quick look and see that there are multiple juniors without internships and a few internships not on Wall Street. At the end of the day, if you can maximize all your resources at PSU it’s a great school and the NLF is a good program but realize that it won’t get you an IB job unless you work for it.

 

I am an Asian male, would that fall under the category of diverse since Penn state is primarily white? Are all student-managed investment funds hard to break into without connections?  

 

Nah you are not diversity, it’s what banks deem to be diversity. Unfortunately that does not include asian males

 

As a former Fund Manager for the Nittany Lion Fund, I’d like to give more clarity to the above statement.

Connections don’t matter. I came to Penn State not knowing a single person in finance or other clubs. Studied hard in school to get a high GPA and joined PSIA sophomore year. Started studying the technical concepts early and often and was able to get into the Fund by the end of my sophomore year. Yes, I didn’t know anyone. But in the end, if you demonstrate you are highly interested and really take the time to understand the fundamentals of finance, there will be a place for you no doubt. Yes, it’s super competitive but achievable.

However, I will admit that diversity will continue to be pushed. Every single bank on Wall Street is pushing diversity super hard so as a result, the Fund will try and emulate that as well to boost their own likeliness. This will be a problem for any nondiversity candidate for the rest of their life and it will only become larger.

Also, just to clarify, every single junior has landed a front office SA position at a Wall Street firm. Most are doing IB, with some going into S&T and also ER. Most placed into bulge brackets and middle market firms, with a few going to elite boutiques.

In conclusion, PSU NLF is still a great program and you’re almost guaranteed to get a high paying job out of college if you get in. Although you're not guaranteed to land a gig at Goldman Sachs by being in the Fund, you will certainly get a job that's still better than 99% of the other jobs in finance out of college. That said, if you’re extremely focused on BB or EB banks, I would highly recommend getting a sophomore year internship in a finance role in addition to the Fund in order to add more teeth as it is only getting more competitive for the top of the top Wall Street banks. It also helps to be diversity all else equal of course.

 

This was high effort, so here is some free advice you didn't ask for. By the end of your first year, you will have naturally grown out of most of the things I say below, but my recommendation is that you accelerate this process. Otherwise, you will be jealous of others and unhappy with yourself until then.

-Move away from prestige, and start thinking about how to develop skills to be good at your job. The GS / MS / JPM and the caliber stuff you wrote reflects a lack of maturity and understanding, and you will cringe that you said this when looking back one day. A job at PJ Solomon consumer is a lot more attractive than Citi FIG for most aspects that real professionals care about, which includes exits. Target school kids know this. The average fund kid doesn't, and will not take the time to explore this opportunity. 

-The non-diverse kids you've seen get EB jobs didn't get them through prestige. There's no way to do so, since they went up against 3.8 kids from your ivy's and uchicago's of the world that spent their sophomore summers at Apollo. Those fund kids got those offers because they started doing the job before getting the job (and I don't mean an internship here), and were able to demonstrate genuine interest and an advanced understanding during their networking calls and interviews. Ask them how they got their offers; you should look to move your career forward the same way. 

-The 22 class is more of a mean reversion that anything, with the prior two years being anomalies. Penn State doesn't have the alumni network to pull through 60 kids a year. 30 is closer to what its designed to handle, though this is growing. For now, there are still kids that need to get interviews based on the strength of their candidacy rather than hoping an alumnus will push them through. How to do the former needs to be taught better.  

-Lastly, remove your industry tag. Just my advice.

 

I know it's been 2 years but curious about your comments on MS Finance at Penn State. Would it be as helpful as the undergrad program to break into IB? Thanks!

 

I don’t go to PSU but have a close friend there. Leveraged Lion Capital is another organization you can try for to land some good roles.

Getting into the Nittany Lion Fund is difficult. Personally, I go to a top public and have not had success at any of the top 5+ finance orgs despite being a traditionally good candidate. I have noticed a push towards diversity, which makes it more difficult for Asian males. Also, a lot of times you have to hit it off with the interviewers since they will be spending a lot of time with you, and that can make it difficult as well.

But you don’t need to get into either of these to get a good gig. I would say you can do decently well by aggressively pursuing networking and outside opportunities like finance programs and internships. Don’t have your heart set on IB necessarily, but it’s not unrealistic to end up in a great role.

 

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