I’m glad to be here. Basically, my situation consists of the following: I’m a student at Baruch college in NYC and I’m a rising sophomore. While I have nothing against the school, I am looking for a front office job (Preferably in IB). I have a 4.0 average and decent EC’s. I was planning to switch schools in the fall semester, but due to some health concerns and personal reasons I felt like I had to be close to my Long Island home. I am now looking to switch to a school in the Spring semester, which limits my options.
I am planning to apply to Cornell economics (Dyson isn’t opened for Spring admissions) and UVA Economics (However, I may be looking to enter McIntire after my first semester).
While these are my main two options, I am still looking for some other backup options. My options include:
Davidson College
Boston College
University of Texas- Austin (Not McCombs)
Georgia Institute of Technology
Northeastern
Boston University
Babson
How do these schools rank in regards to being IB targets (Preferably in NYC). What would be the best option amongst these schools? Note that my main concern in regards to these schools is the education (I’m happy with the locations of all these schools and heard great things socially) Any help would really be appreciated!
In terms of your stated goals, you’re fine where you are. You’re literally two or three subway stops away from every kind of internship you can think of. IMO, none of the colleges you list are “target” schools in the traditional sense. They’re very good places for a variety of reasons, but all would require you to be pretty pro-active in terms of seeking internship opportunities so far away from NYC.
In terms of recruiting for IB front office gigs, UT is probably the strongest option on your list of “other” schools. UT places IB analysts both in NYC and in Houston, which is where tons of banks have their Energy/O&G groups based. However, while plenty of banks would come calling for OCR, you would be competing for interview slots with the McCombs kids, and that might make things a bit tougher for you (though a high GPA in Econ would certainly help).
BC supposedly has a solid pipeline to Wall Street, but I’ve read that its grads tend to get hired more for middle/back office positions than for front office. However, if you have a sterling resume at BC, front office should still be a possibility for you.
Davidson is a great school, but I’ve read mixed things about how it places into banking. It certainly doesn’t have the strong connections to Wall Street that comparable Northeastern LACs like Williams and Middlebury do, but some sources maintain that it places well in Charlotte (BoA, WF) and Atlanta (SunTrust, etc.). For NYC, I would think it was a weaker choice than UT or BC–even though it would be considered the better “academic” school.
I vote for Baruch. Wall Street does recruit from Baruch and as the earlier person said, you have all of the networking you need available at your fingertips.
I’ve looked into “Wall Street IB” target schools and echo the sentiment that you are best staying where you are and aggressively networking. None of the schools you’ve listed are targets. You could post on Wall Street Oasis forum for a more definitive answer.