How competitive is PWM compared to IB?

Career Opportunities & Internships Investment Banking
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<p>After reading on this website, and others, it seems its next to impossible to get into Investment Banking without being at a target school. Which greatly dashed my hopes of getting a good career in the finance world considering I'm currently at a Community college planning on transferring to a good school, but realistically not a "target" school. After about a day and a half's worth of anxiety and punching myself in the head for not taking school seriously earlier on I realized Private Wealth Management was actually the field that I was more interested in pursuing. </p>

<p>So my question is PWM just as competitive? From reading various sources around the internet it seems that it isn't, but I'm still looking for confirmation on just how realistic it is for me to pursue it. I'm VERY interested in it, along with business and economics in general, but my current knowledge on the Finance world is very minimal. </p>

<p>-I am a Sophomore at a Community College
- Planning on transferring to either UIC or DePaul (just depending on financial situations)
- I will be ending this semester with a 3.15 overall GPA, but a 4.0 semester GPA and if looked at my early semesters grades, compared to more recent grades there is a very obvious change in work ethic an priorities. My GPA has more than doubled this semester.
- I plan on applying for the honors program as soon as my GPA reaches the standards, which I expect to be either at the end of Summer, or fall.
- I got a 29 on my ACT, although I'm not sure how much that counts at this point in my life.</p>

<p>Thanks for the help, this is my first post here and I look forward to utilizing this website.</p>

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<p>pwm is as competitive as ib. I would venture to say perhaps now more than ever and perhaps going to be more difficult to get into, because people are realizing that there are no longer as many opportunities as there used to be coming out of ib but you still have to put in the crazy hours. For pwm the hours are much easier and the salaries at least for the first few years are exactly the same. Unfortunately neither uic nor depaul will allow you entry into pwm or ib front office. Edit - addition - Your gpa needs to be 3.75 or above coming from one of those colleges if you have someone who will help you through a network system. Its great that your work ethic has changed for the better. I would suggest that if you are at all inclined mathematically or towards computers to pursue that degree. You may do well in either pwm or ib as a computer analyst, which is a hot field again now.</p>

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<p>^Do you know anything about pwm or banking? I’ll just assume no based on that answer.</p>

<p>No, it’s not nearly as competitive. No, it doesn’t require nearly as many hours. No, it doesn’t pay nearly as well. </p>

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<p>Pwm is not competitive</p>