<p>I know this thread is very old, but it still appears if you search “investment banking” and “Cal Poly” on Google, so I am going to go ahead and update it with the most current information. As it stands right now, the Orfalea College of Business does have one club that is tailored exclusively to investment banking. It is called the Cal Poly Investment Banking Society, or CPIBS for short. The clubs website can be checked out here: <a href=“http://www.calpolyibs.com”>www.calpolyibs.com</a>. The club has spent the last four years compiling study materials and developing an intensive training program that prepares students for investment banking interviews, summer internships and full-time positions as analysts. Last I heard, the club still boasted a 100% success rate with members who have completed the training program, i.e. every student who has completed the training program since the clubs inception in 2010 has successfully gone to work as a full-time financial analyst at an investment bank post-graduation. Not only that, but the banks that CPIBS members have been able to land fall largely under the ‘Bulge-Bracket’ category (e.g. J.P. Morgan, Citi, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, etc.).</p>
<p>I know from personal experience that the CPIBS training program works VERY WELL. It overprepairs you for the interview process to the point that you’re able to blow them out of the water (which is absolutely necessary when you’re coming from a non-target school and competing almost exclusively against candidates from the Ivy Leagues or Stanford/USC/Berkeley/UCLA), and teaches you more than you need to know to survive the 10 week internship and land a full-time offer. The program even works for students who maybe heard about investment banking a little late in the game. While it is recommended that you join the club during your freshman or sophomore years (due to the fact that the CPIBS training program calls for approximately 9 months of study), those who join at the beginning of the junior year can still participate in the program. Instead of interviewing for an internship in January of their junior year, they instead defer until the end of their junior summer (summer after your junior year) when full-time interviews begin at banks around the country. </p>
<p>It should be noted that this route to a full-time offer is much more difficult than getting a summer internship. Most bulge-bracket and middle-market banks fill around 90%-100% of their open analyst positions with people form their internship classes. So, right off the bat, you will have less banks to choose from and less positions over which to compete. Not only that, you can also expect your interview to be a little tougher. When you spend as much time around your co-workers as a banker has to, compatibility with your office mates becomes an exceedingly important issue. They will only have 30-45 minutes to figure out if they like you enough to commit to spending 80-100 hours working with you every week. That said, CPIBS has had many member who traveled down this path and every single one has successfully gotten a full-time offer. </p>
<p>The materials CPIBS has gathered and the training program it developed around them aren’t just given away to anyone who walks in the door. New members are given a ‘Preliminary Packet’ of information that introduces them to investment banking (the work, the industry and major players, the structure of different groups, the current banking environment, etc.). After a month, they’re expected to have finished the Preliminary Packet. Then, quite often, new members will be treated to dinner by a few of the executive board members. During dinner, board members will gauge new members’ interest in investment banking and the club via a brief, informal interview. At worst, new members will be asked a few questions about the materials in the preliminary packet to make sure they read them all, and then asked about their feelings towards banking, the club and the program. If they are still interested in joining, they will be sent the full packet of training materials and officially become members of CPIBS.</p>
<p>The club has always been rather obscure, and typically doesn’t follow the standard weekly meeting format. On top of that, they don’t advertise much, and the club is somewhat “hush-hush” by nature (Why? See previous paragraph). However, you can send an email directly to the clubs private address via the ‘Contact’ tab on the website, and current executive board members and all active regular members are all listed on the ‘Membership’ tab of their website. Emailing any one of them would likely get you an invite to the next meeting. Beyond that, Dr. Gorman of the Finance Department is the clubs faculty advisor. If all else fails, visit him during one of his office hours and he’ll put you in touch with the right people. </p>
<p>I hope this was helpful. </p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Gov</p>