I am a hs senior interested in investment banking, but I don’t know if I have the stats for it. I have a 25 ACT and 3.8 gpa and I have been accepted into the following schools:
University of Iowa (gen-Ed)
DePaul (no “direct admission”)
Marquette (Business)
Loyola U Chicago (Business)
Kansas (Business)
University of Minnesota (Waitlisted)
I realize these are all non-target schools, but I was wondering if any of these would give me an advantage to make it into IB. I think it would be too difficult to transfer into Carlson at Minnesota (if I even get accepted) and I’m pretty sure I’d have to be in the top 10% of all business students at any of these universities. Does anyone know which school may give me an advantage? And which one would be the wise choice? Are there any better schools I could still apply to? I also have to keep in mind that Marquette may cost a little too much.
Where do you think you want to go into investment banking? Because if you want to be in IB in NYC, then you HAVE to go to a target school. The easiest school (out of all the ones I'm thinking one) is probably The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. And even that is not easy by any means but compared to other schools like HYP it's easier.But if you want to be in IB for smaller banks then I would suggest the University of Minnesota (if you get accepted) or DePaul (good connections into Chicago). However, if you are serious about investment banking, then I would suggest that you pick any of the schools that have posted (probably the one that gives you the most financial aid) and then you transfer out to a target school. But you'll have to be at the top of your game.
I think IB in NYC would be unrealistic for me so I was thinking about doing it in Chicago. I liked Iowa the most (and the cheapest) and I know Depaul has the connections but iowa is ranked pretty high. It’s also nationally recognized and not too far from Chicago. I’d be okay with going to smaller banks for IB because there’s no way I could get accepted or afford a target or semi-target school. Do you know how hard it is to get into IB at smaller banks? Hopefully I could get into it after going to Iowa (I’m guessing Loyola and Kansas would be longshots?
@nmag23 If you want to do IB in chicago then definitely go to depaul. Depaul has connections especially their college of business. I’m not sure what you mean when you say Iowa is ranked higher since you want go into IB. At this level you definitely want the connections. Depaul itself is a really good school. Getting into smaller IB banks (called boutique banks) won’t be that hard as long you have good internships and a stellar GPA.
By the way, it is possible to transfer into a target school if you kept up your GPA along with other things (extracirculars). And I know you are worried about the costs but if you get a job in an IB bank in NYC. You really wont have to worry about the costs
@Mastodon97 thanks for the advice- I realize depaul would be really good because of the city connections. Unfortunately, I really didn’t like depaul when I visited…the campus was just not for me. I am leaning towards Iowa, and I think I’d have to transfer anyway to get a good shot at IB. Do you know any target and semi-target schools I could transfer to (preferably reasonable ones) ?
@nmag23 It depends on what you mean by “reasonable ones”. I don’t know what GPA you are planning to get. During college, if you get a near-4.0 GPA (or even better a 4.0 GPA) than you can look at the colleges near the top of the list that I linked in my earlier post. Colleges like Georgetown, Penn, NYU, Cornell, and Boston College are all realistic schools to transfer to, and they are pretty transfer-friendly. Some of the colleges on that list are not very transfer friendly like Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst so I would steer clear of those. But remember that you will have to get a top notch GPA and have great extracurriculars. And you will definitely have to retake your ACT’s as your current ones aren’t good enough for the colleges I have listed.
Also if you don’t mind can you tell me what you didn’t like about the DePaul campus? Was it the Lincoln Park campus or the Loop? I’m curious because a couple of my friends go there and they are all really happy with it.
Hope this helps
@Mastodon97 realistically id shoot for 3.6 (or higher if possible). I’d probably look to transfer to a semi-target, like IU or U of Minnesota unless it’s not transfer friendly. At Depaul I wasn’t a fan of the Lincoln park campus and mainly just the overall feel. I like the traditional college feel which is why I like iowa and some of the other big 10 schools
Yeah I’ve heard a lot about it, my cousin went there and worked on wall street so I guess I have 1 connection if that helps at all haha. It looks like you have to go to IU and take their classes in order to get in…I don’t think transferring would work well
then you HAVE to go to a target school.( not true again… it helps but isn’t the end all connections you make will ultimately get your foot in the door)
The easiest school (out of all the ones I’m thinking one) is probably The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania( are you kidding whartons B program is near impossible to transfer into)
And even that is not easy by any means but compared to other schools like HYP it’s easier.But if you want to be in IB for smaller banks then I would suggest the ( harvard takes a handful of students , yale is more or less the same and Princetion does not take transfers …)
Your best shot is grad school for IB
Georgetown, Penn, NYU, Cornell, and Boston College ( all of those schools for the b program have single digit transfer acceptance you again didn’t do your research all 5 schools combined admit maybe 8% directly to the b programs
I never planned on even trying to transfer to any school remotely close to these…they are way too hard. I’m probably just gonna focus on getting a finance degree instead of trying to scrape my way into IB…if my test scores were higher this would be much different but it is what it is. Thanks for the insight guys and I have decided to go to University of Iowa
