<p>I am a business economics student graduating from a UC. I have completed my degree in 3 years and have signed a contract manage a department at a distribution center after graduation. I have a 3.5 GPA, am graduating with honors, and have been very involved in clubs/leadership opportunities at my university.</p>
<p>I wish to pursue a career one day in Investment Banking and would like to apply to Stanfords’ MBA program in two years. In the next two years I plan to take my GMAT exam and study for the CFA. </p>
<p>I don’t feel as if my distribution center job is competitive enough to apply to Stanford. What other jobs should I look into? Should I apply to finance internships while working full time at the DC? (I have a type A personality and don’t mind working 90 hours a week)</p>
<p>Any advice or suggestions would be helpful!!</p>
<p>What is the opportunity to grow into more responsible positions in this job? Will you be managing many people initially? Why did you accept this job? Which level UC are you graduating from?</p>
<p>Honestly, unless you have wild success in a job very quickly, expect to need to work longer than 2 years to get into Stanford or a peer program.</p>
<p>First six months is the “probation period” if they like you after 6 months they will promote you to another position name but basically the same position. I’ve never seen anyone promoted higher than that in less than 2 years, so very unlikely to be promoted after that. </p>
<p>I will be managing a team of about thirty and I accepted the job because it will help me save up money for an MBA. Graduating from UC Riverside. Thanks for the prompt response!</p>
<p>Any suggestions on which companies to apply to instead?</p>
<p>What exactly is the job at the distribution center? Starting out managing 30 people is good, but are they all doing the same job? Are you managing budgets too?</p>
<p>In this economy your best bet may well be to do this job for a year and then leverage it. For B schools your job can really be anything, but clearly they are looking for people with jobs that stretched and challenged them and gave them something to bring to the party.</p>
<p>30 years ago when I went to Wharton and My husband Stanford, a very large part of the classes were investment bankers or management consultants. Today there’s a wide variety. I was with a group at Stanford GSB recently that included MD’s, non profit execs, people who had started businesses, people with all different roles in tech companies and so on. Lots and lots of these people had experience in several countries, that’s a big plus now.</p>
<p>The point is to have been a star wherever you were, to have been promoted fast and given lots of responsibility. You need to get yourself to a place where that can happen.</p>
<p>You should also be considering other schools as you move forward. If you grew up in CA, went to school in CA and worked only in CA as is often seen in CA, Stanford will be less interested.</p>
<p>Be less concerned with saving money for B school than in getting a job that will get you in. If you are accepted to a top program the loans will be there and so will the jobs to help you easily pay them off.</p>
<p>From your career goal and description of yourself. I think you would benefit from exploring other more finance heavy schools. Stanford is known for entrepreneur and venture capital, not finance. From my impression, Stanford tends to attract/gather more non-traditional students. I think Stanford’s school culture may not be a good “fit” for you. Plus, Stanford is the most selective b-school by far, so getting in Stanford is like winning a lottery.
If you are trying to apply for elite programs, I think Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Chicago, Columbia, and Stern would be a better choice for i-banking. Plus, the acceptance rate at some of these schools are 3 times higher than that of Stanford. If you are looking for a safety, McCombs is a great school that’s strong in finance.</p>
<p>^Huh? I really have to scratch my head at some of the posts here.</p>
<p>As someone who has hired MBA’s for a BB ibank for 25 years, I can assure you that Stanford is a great choice for future bankers. If you want to be a quant, sure, Chicago might interest you, but for banking, most of the schools on the above list won’t get you the attention Stanford will. MCCombs? Not even remotely in the same league.</p>
<p>hmom, I don’t think liu02 was saying that Stanford would not give their alums one of the best shots at getting into investment banking. I think he/she was mostly referring to the fact that Stanford does seem to be the more distinct, nontraditional MBA program. And yes, I’d say (even though I have no experience in this field) that even I keep hearing about stanford mostly for the fact that it offers great opportunities in Venture Capital, Entrepreneaurship, etc. Of course that doesn’t mean you can’t get into investment banking or consulting from Stanford, it’s just that the culture isn’t so banking-based as others, and I can totally buy that give what I’ve heard about Stanford, and the fact that it’s location tends toward this, versus the big East Coast/Chicago schools.</p>
<p>Furthermore, he said that Stanford is basically a crapshoot, and that it’s damn near impossible to suggest a “traditional” path to get in there, since it seems somewhat random. That’s also why he suggested other top schools since those are more realistic.</p>
<p>Cream, because of it’s small size size, Stanford has traditionally been a bit harder to get into. And because of it’s proximity to Silicon Valley, many students get turned on to the VC community and the tech community because they are so involved and have much interaction with the students.</p>
<p>However, Stanford offers strong finance and a large percent of graduates have always and continue to head to WS and to PE of all sorts. It’s network in key finance jobs is as strong as any school is relative to it’s size.</p>
<p>And it’s really no more of a crap shoot that Harvard and Wharton.</p>
<p>cream, you’ve reflected my sentiment in a more elegant fashion.</p>
<p>hmom5, I was by no means trying to discredit Stanford. It’s an ultra-elite school and the students are prepared for anything that lays ahead of them. I was simply suggesting that it would be more realist to look at some other options.</p>
<p>I would have to say that Stanford is much difficult to get into than Harvard and Wharton, mostly because of its class size. Even though, H/S/W tend to attract the same caliber of applicants, but Stanford is much more selective. If you look at the acceptance rates (according to BW)
Stanford - 8%
Harvard - 12%
Wharton - 16%
8 vs 12% may not seem like a lot, but you stand a 50% better chance in getting in HBS than Stanford.</p>
<p>What you have to consider is that much of the pools at all three are the same people. And there are many in the pool not qualified for any of them. So yes, some end up getting into H and W but not S, but in my experience most highly qualified get into all three.</p>
<p>But I do get your point. For a 3.5 from UC Riverside, there will be many hoops to jump through. A top GMAT score will be a must and great work experience.</p>
<p>I appreciate all of your insightful answers. I will keep in mind the schools that you have suggested when I do apply to an MBA program. However, I have a few questions:</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t I take the CFA exam? A professor here told me that the exam was the key in finding a decent job in IB.</p>
<p>The main reason why I want to go into IB is because I feel that the workload fits my personality. I love desk jobs, I’m very analytical, the happiest I’ve ever been was when I worked 80 hours a week. That being said, do you have any suggestions of what type of IB I should look into?</p>
<p>Wow, just wow, that a professor told you that. It could not be further from the truth and you need to start doing a lot of research. Kids here can tell you the names of the ibanking forums. Old folks like me don’t know, but it seems they would be helpful for you.</p>
<p>It sounds like your prof was assuming you’d never get a front office job. But the fact is a top MBA will give you access to jobs an undergrad degree from a non target school won’t.</p>
<p>The last thing ibanking is is a desk job. While you pay your dues there will be number crunching certainly, but again, you need some insight into the jobs at an ibank.</p>
<p>I have known many that have gotten into Wharton and not Harvard or Stanford, but none that have gotten into Stanford or Harvard, but not Wharton.</p>
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<p>You need to learn the different functions within an investment bank. A CFA would be helpful in equity research or asset management and maybe certain elements of sales and trading, but isn’t much sought after in traditional corporate finance.</p>