<p>I'm a senior at high school finalizing all my application details.</p>
<p>I'm in need of some help. </p>
<p>I planned to major in Business Administration for all the schools I applied to. </p>
<p>I know what I want to do, I want to enter into a career in Investment Banking and Hedge Funds.</p>
<p>Is BA the best major for my preferred career path?</p>
<p>Thanks Alot</p>
<p>The absolute best college you can get into should be the strategy, you do not need to be a business major. Not many top colleges HF's hire from even have business majors. For HF's, develop strong quant skills, they like math and engineering majors.</p>
<p>Investment Banking AND Hedge Funds?</p>
<p>two different paths... 'Fo 'Sho.</p>
<p>Any other opinions? </p>
<p>So i shouldn't lean towards B.A?</p>
<p>Your question is too open-ended. It really depends on where you will be attending school.</p>
<p>Hopefully Villanova</p>
<p>If I dont get in there, Penn State</p>
<p>Then I think your strategy needs to be to transfer after 2 years because unless you have strong connections, it will be difficult to score an IB job (usually needed to move to HF) from. I'm afraid that in the climate we'll see in the next decade, Wall Street will stay at a reduced size, this will make going to a target school even more important and schools that had been on the fringe of being a target will no longer be recruited.</p>
<p>Hmm, I agree, where would you suggest attempting to transfer?</p>
<p>I'm obviously not Wharton or Yale material, but is there somewhere else that would be more targeted that I could transfer to?</p>
<p>Emory.</p>
<p>UChicago.</p>
<p>USC.</p>
<p>UVA.</p>
<p>UMich.</p>
<p>UCLA.</p>
<p>All will at least get your foot in the door for a front-office banking job (i.e., the jobs will at least be posted), if you:</p>
<p>1) Have a 3.8+, preferably 4.0
2) Have it in a technical major. Business Administration is not a technical major. Something that requires "smart" people. A form of engineering or natural sciences. Math. Accounting or Finance. etc.
3) A summer internship in a finance-related field, especially for the summer after your junior year but ideally for the summer after your sophomore year as well. They're somewhat hard to get but they will be a key sign that you have a chance to make it into the industry. If you can't get a financial internship after your sophomore year, and you tried hard starting in November (most summer recruiting happens in January, so you need to be ahead of the game with research, planning, interview practice, studying interview stuff from Vault, etc), then you may need to re-evaluate.</p>
<p>Disagree with the above list on the whole. Depending on your college success I'd look at Cornell on the low end and then other ivies and top LACs.</p>
<p>well, sure, if you want a realistic chance of joining a BB M&A group or a portfolio group for a hedge fund, you'd want to go to a very-top school. However, our hero here says he has no realistic chance of going to such a school.</p>
<p>But Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan etc still make a handful of analyst offers to the best people coming out of the USCs of the world, unless I'm very mistaken. Certainly UMich and UVA. Is he going to join DE Shaw, Stephen A Cohen or Blackstone right away? Probably not, but he's got a shot at M&A if he truly plays his cards right from here forward. Would you disagree, hmom5?</p>
<p>I don't disagree. I think this time next year we'll all have a better picture but this year offers are going to stars at very top schools and I think for the near term it will be harder for most. If he were at the top at a USC level school for two years he could transfer to a target. That would in the end probably be his best shot for HF work. </p>
<p>Until HF's get regulated, they will be chased by all the ibanking stars as they are being right now. The HF's get to cherry pick from the very top. Greenwich is the new Wall Street.</p>