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Was in the same position as you a year ago. My school places really well into Deloitte, EY, and PwC and it is basically an in as long as you have 3.5+ and are somewhat normal. So I figured I would just do that. However, similarly to you, I really wanted to do IB but my school doesn't place as well into IB as it does for accounting. I made up my mind currently going for IB because of a few reasons 1) I would much rather do IB than accounting 2) if I don't get any IB job, I can just get my masters in accounting which I would have needed anyway for the 150 credits. I think you gotta decide what you really wanna do. Would you rather do accounting at Big 4 just because of the name? Or is it because you would actually enjoy doing the work? Decide based on what would make you happy, not what company name looks best. Best of luck.

 

Bro you have a shot just got for it. You’re an incoming freshman and you have plenty of time. I came from a non target that places like 5-7 kids in IB a year(on a good year). Get any finance related internship your freshman/sophomore year. Leverage that for IB your sophomore/junior year and network up the ass. You’re going to be kicking your ass for not pursuing this since it’s your “dream” job. Fucking go for it.

 

Listen to this dude. If you get good work experience, have a good GPA, and network as much as possible, you will definitely get interviews and opportunities. Don't let this site convince you otherwise. If you want something, go full throttle at it.

 

As others have mentioned, you have a lot of time. This is the biggest thing you need as a non-target. Get a couple of finance internships, take leadership positions on campus, and network your ass off (but do this closer to the recruiting time, too early and it'll be tough to maintain the relationship). I would also look into transferring into another semi-target/target. 

 

Don't count yourself out from IB, especially BBs. Do a search on LinkedIn for investment banking analysts who went to DePaul, you'll find 20+ many at BBs. Most have Chicago offices which you should be aggressively targeting. Going to a well known Chicago school makes you at minimum a semi-target there.

Few steps on your path 
- GPA is king from a non-target, aim for 3.7-3.8+ if you can. Easy A classes > harder, more "impressive" classes, no one sees what classes you took.
- Networking is extremely important. Get all of those IB analysts from DePaul on the phone and ask them what they were involved in at DePaul (join those orgs), what their recruiting looked like, etc - in a year or two you'll need to make those calls to get in the interview pipeline, so make some connections now
- SA recruiting is very early. You'd be shooting for SA 2023 - keep an eye on WSO next spring to see how quickly SA 2022 moves along, it starts in ~Feb of your sophomore year and you need to have a network by then. Biggest mistake you can make is waiting until junior fall to do anything 

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