Hello to all,
I am an international student who is willing to study Finance in the United States. I have made a research and realized that in order to have a good job after college is to attend an Ivy League College in the first place. The problem is that the cost are a bit high and my SAT scores ( I am also going to do the ACT in the near future) may not meet what other students got. My first SAT test score was 1800, which is considered a bit high one in the country I am living in, Qatar, but I may redo it in October or I may do SAT II subject tests. In addition to that, extracurricular activities are limited to me for two reasons and I willing to discuss only one because the other is a bit personal, because my school does not provide them and I cannot change it into another great school because of the large fees required.My question is, if I get the undergraduate degree from a normal business school and then get the MBA from an Ivy League School, will I have a good chance of working in Wall Street. Thanks you very much!
By the way, my GPA is 4 and I am the best student in my class. I get "A"s on all subjects. Also I really love to know new stuff about everything. For the EC activities, I once attended a course about entrepreneurship when I was previously in Saudi Arabia.
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Yes an Ivy can make it easier to get a job on Wall Street, but it is not strictly necessary. However, you need to know that unless you have a green card by the time you finish your education in the US, it will be almost impossible for you to find permanent work here. Once the OPT you are eligible for with a student visa expires, you will have to leave. Currently, that is 12 months for a business major. You would also only get 12 months for an MBA. Details here: http://www.uscis.gov/archive/archive-news/questions-and-answers-extension-optional-practical-training-program-qualified-students
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You do not have to study business as an undergraduate in order to later get your MBA. You can have any undergraduate major. You can complete your undergraduate studies anywhere in the world and still apply to an MBA here.
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Admission to the better MBA programs will require at least two years (preferably more) of increasingly responsible full-time professional experience, excellent scores on the GMAT, excellent letters undergraduate grades, excellent letters of recommendation from your undergraduate professors and your professional supervisors, and of course excellent essays of your own in the application. You can work anywhere in the world and still apply to an MBA here.
Thank you very much happymomof for your quick reply. As you said the Ivy just increase the chances, but can it do that when I only get MBA degree from there? Thanks!
The MBA would be much more useful for your goals. The networking you will make in that MBA program will make it more likely that you will be hired by a firm that can place you at least temporarily in Wall Street, and for the longer term in a higher level finance position somewhere in the world.
It’ll be hard to get onto to Wall Street with just an MBA and no work experience.
Finance is a global industry and people move between markets as the opportunities present themselves. There is nothing special about Wall Street as opposed to the financial centers in London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo or Dubai. Get a solid degree in Finance (with a strong quantitative background) in your home country. Work for several years in any major financial market - and then, assuming you’ve demonstrated the promise your current academics suggest you possess, apply for an MBA at a top business school. (And the best business schools in the US are not necessarily Ivy - Stanford and Univ of Chicago have outstanding Schools of Business for example.)
Thank you all for your replies! I know that Wall Street is not the only great place on Earth when dealing with Finance, but working in Wall Street is something very special for me because it is the place where I dreamed to work in since I was a kid.
qpqpqp, work experience is of course very important, but what I meant was related to the undergraduate degree or MBA as the main point. I know that work experience is very important.
Thank you all again for your help. Wall Street is one of the most competitive places on earth, and working there is one of the goals that I set and hope to achieve. As you all know, these years are very critical, and all of the choices have to be taken carefully, so you did me a really good favor!
Dreams of children are not based on reasoning or should really have any importance. Children do not understand other opportunities, importance of costs, tradeoffs, other routes to success etc. Also that is sort of a poor dream for a child, children often have beautiful thoughts and have dreams of higher things than the mundane and grinding of business dealings.
Also, the very top US schools, like Ivy League, look for students of academic promise and intellectual depth, the sort of student that pursues interests on their own, not just expects a school to provide it. For international students these are usually extraordinary students with national level accomplishments.
If you want to study business as an undergraduate you can look at this list for more affordable options. But college here is very expensive without aid.
http://www.bloomberg.com/bschools/rankings#5
And in answer to your basic question, yes, if you get an MBA from a top US business school, you can get a job in finance on Wall Street. Spouse and I both worked on Wall Street (me for 5 years, spouse for 2) before getting our MBAs, back in the 80s. It was good training and fun to live in NYC but neither of us were remotely tempted to go back after we got our MBAs. It turns out there are so many more interesting things you can do with an MBA from a top school. One thing that gave us that freedom NOT to go to Wall street was that we weren’t drowning in debt. Life is long and presents lots of choices that you can’t foresee or evaluate properly now so don’t box yourself in with undergrad debt. And I agree that ‘working on Wall Street’ is a rather shallow and silly dream - having been there and done that.
By the way, I have pursued many of my interests on my own. I launched a website when I was in grade eight and published videos about computer tutoring using advanced softwares. I did not renew the website because in grade nine there was no time for extracurricular activities. However, I joined a soccer club too from outside the school.
When kids dream, they do dream of good things. Once they get older, and that does not mean they become in high school, they recognize that the only thing that works in this world is “work”. There onwards they start to plan their futures. That can be practiced as soon as grade six. Grade six, to me, is still for kids. Having dreams is like planning a road and it is the only thing that can motivate you to give your best while doing anything. Unfortunately, nowadays, money is the main thing that leads to happiness, in addition of course to family. But how can you raise a family without money? That is the sad truth of this world. And Wall Street is the place where money never sleeps!
To be certain, I mean working and dealing with money.
You have to realize the top MBA programs are just as hard to get into as the Ivy league colleges. The competition will be the same.