From a technical perspective, I'd say either Finance or Accounting(Considering IB is pretty much just corporate finance and accounting). If you just want your resume to look good I'd put either of the choices you provided. Truthfully, I'd think a degree in mathematics is useless for IB considering modeling isn't exactly what you're gonna learn in that curriculum. The only thing the math degree would really do would be the differentiation of your resume and the respect of a STEM major which would help you get the job.

 
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So to answer your question on why it's useful, I'm a math major minoring in accounting and have done most of my finance learning on my own. Might be unpopular here, but finance as a degree isn't that hard. Even if you go to a target, a math degree at your typical state school will still be way more difficult. Almost anyone that can get a 3.3+ GPA in a math program can easily do very well in a finance program. So while it might not be "useful", it shows you can easily do the work. After all, anyone can learn to model, it's not rocket science. Couple that with good social skills and you're a very competitive candidate.

 

What year are you by the way? I'm at a non-target and should be landing an internship in the coming winter, and I am also interested in M&A, so I was curious as to when you started interning because I'm going into my sophomore year.

 

This depends partly on where you go to school, but if you are at any Ivy / Top LAC you can really differentiate yourself by adding on some sort of humanities major. E.g. history, political science, philosophy, etc. With a math major, convincing interviewers / recruiters of your technical proficiency won't be an issue, but at the end of the day banking is a people oriented business and I'd prefer to work with someone I thinking is interesting than with another finance major (provided they know their technicals of course). If you look around also you'll see a lot of guys in PE that did something just like this.

 

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