Does anyone have experience with London IB recruiting from St. Andrews Uni?
Currently applying to university, and given where I live I will be able to go to St. Andrews for free (big bonus for me), but will also be applying to Durham and Warwick.
How much more of an advantage would going to Durham and Warwick give me when recruiting?
Any help would be appreciated.
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Good to play golf
This.
From experience, I also think that St Andrews (& Durham) >> Warwick in terms of the likeability of people. Warwick has too many LSE-type Hardos who are not particularly pleasant to be around (and who don't tend to succeed in the long-term in finance). For campus recruiting, I'm not too sure of how well St Andrews does, but I'd assume it'd be no problem with the right preparation (and bear in mind when looking at stats, Warwick/ LSE may have more people in IB roles, but everyone there is applying for them -- at somewhere like St Andrews, only a small group will be interested in banking at all). At interviews, most would probably also get on a lot better with someone from St Andrews who plays golf than someone from Warwick who does the Finance Society.
Good luck whatever you chose and don't underestimate the benefit of St. Andrews being free! Being debt free and/or having an extra £40k to invest/ save will certainly be useful buying your first property, having spare cash to go on trips etc.
Thanks for your perspective, some great points. From my limited knowledge, I think you have hit the nail on the head in terms of St. Andrews in recruiting.
I spoke to one of the Economics lecturers at an open day and he said they will consistently write references for people heading in to MS, JPM and GS every year, but not a huge amount of people are interested in an IB career. A quick LinkedIn career search confirms that there are definitely students make it in each year.
The option to leave Uni debt free is also extremely attractive and I feel I would enjoy the St. Andrews experience much more
Edin>>>>St Andrews if you're considering Scottish universities for IB, might be an expense for living costs but at least your education is still free
Good point, do you have any insight to why Edinburgh does better than St. Andrews, despite the fact that St. Andrews consistently ranks much higher (I understand that rankings do not equal banking preferences)?
Rankings dont really say much tbh, I think Strathclyde ranked the highest for business school in Scotland this year or something?
Check linkedin - the alumni that break into IB from Edinburgh is more than every other Scottish university put together (do a Linkedin search with "Investment Banking Analyst" and by each firm, if you don't believe us)
Its the only university which has serious on campus networking for IB in Scotland (Goldman and Citi had 2/3 different networking events last year which I went to even tho I don't go to the uni), PJT also recruit from Glasgow uni and St andrews
their Investment society are pretty top notch with all the committee having top IB positions secured to help you out, having interacted with them
But I think its just the brand name tbh - the alumni numbers speak for themselves - it's not even close when it comes to Scottish unis imo
Honestly, Lse and Warwick, and Oxbridge are THE targets in the UK. Every single firm will target lse/Warwick. St. Andrews will only be targeted by some. And the likeability claim is very subjective. Durham is traditionally for people who have been rejected by oxford. Also, St. Andrews traditionally targets many American students and milks the fact that Prince William went there. If you want to break-in to London finance, you'll have the best chance if you go lse/Warwick. Now St. Andrews doesn't have the prestige that oxford has. Only a small set of kids at oxford are even interested in finance, and that's why it's easy for them to break in on top of being a target. St. Andrews is a semi; however, since you could go for free, you could do your undergrad at St. Andrews and then do your masters at lse/Warwick/Oxbridge if you don't break in. Also, I'd like to add that you don't just have to be just involved at Warwick in the finance society. You could probably play golf at Warwick LOL Also, Warwick is a target and St. Andrews and Durham are both semis.
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