How are these nepo babies in these summer finance internships able to keep up with the work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
All I’m gleaning from this is that introverts need not apply…

Sigh. Family of introverts here.

Introverts make great buy side people though

Lotta Asian introverts that work way better finance jobs than “ib”

Jane street is not “extroverted “

If that’s the route you want, major in math or physics not finance

This was Sam Bankman Fried from MIT...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people assume that kids with very successful parents or legacies are stupid? They have high IQ parents and are raised from birth surrounded by books, private schools, exposure to intellectual conversations at the dinner table, world travel, etc. Strivers think these kids are idiots or getting a 1350 on their SAT.

The strivers have a desperate need to believe they have more merit than the legacies, it’s central to their personal narrative. Unfortunately for the strivers they’ll never actually fit in.

It baffles me. These legacy and nepo kids are often very, very smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"Local elites" still control this country once you get outside the 5-7 largest metro areas. And that's where frat boys thrive - mortgage banking, commercial RE, regional law firms, sales jobs, etc.

It's all about where you play golf, who knew in Sigma Nu, which Big 10 team you supporter, etc. Guys in company branded polo shirts sitting in domestic 1st class on the flight from Chicago to Des Moines.

This is accurate. I played D1 golf at a SEC school and play golf with people in the office where I work. We had a company retreat at a golf country club and I beat everyone in golf, including the CEO. He was so impressed that he invited me to play with him regularly at Congressional CC. I also play regularly with the CFO at Riverbend CC in Great Falls as an invited guest. I recently got promoted to VP position not because I am better than other candidates but because they know me better on a personal level. It is all about networking and relationship. You are kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

I can't even possibly imagine what an enormous asset this is in the corporate networking world. Better than any degree I can imagine (and I say this as someone with two Harvard degrees!)

+1 in an industry of relations and likability, sports can be a huge plus and way to bond. Particularly Golf, squash, tennis, polo, and basketball.

My son in college plays in the weekly staff basketball games. He knows his professors by first name because of it.

[Anonymous]

I used to get assigned interns on Capitol Hill that were there because of nepotism or connections. 3/4 were awful--as in they outright refused to do certain tasks like helping me carry cases of soda from one office to another, or making copies, or something that I as a 25 year senior staffer did daily because we don't have support staff. Then there were the kids who refused to do anything involving math. How do you have no basic math skills? Overall about 25% were impressive, and I was happy to write letters of rec for them. But I would not for the others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s clear that your kid doesn’t understand how to get these jobs. It’s not as simple as applying. It’s also not as simple as “nepo baby.” Unfortunately, career services at even better privates are oftentimes almost useless and don’t help students plan their future and act accordingly.

+1 not speaking about bucknell, but at my DS’s school, certain frats basically control the “best” investment clubs, and kids work for each other’s dad’s firm in summers (so you can’t check linkedin and see family connects). My DS is pre med. We don’t have the connects for IB.

OP here. I find it awful how boys club the finance world continues to be in a country that is all about “equality” and the American dream anyone can achieve if they work hard. It’s a quite socialist mentality how these kdis are born into a certain class where they will be guaranteed admission to a decent school as long as parents have the money and can float through 4 years of undergrad by getting cheat sheets from frat brothers and inevitable summer internships every year. Both husband and I are from a different country and are not used to this whole frat, athlete dominated society of Wall Street who get these high paying jobs from their dad’s friends not from actually working hard. In Ireland where we’re from, you either have the smarts or you don’t to get into these universities and obtain these jobs. For example, a 3.0 kid at a rich kid school like bucknell would never be able to get into the most sought after Irish colleges like trinity and university college Dublin. The kids in the finance majors at the mentioned schools are there for their high Leaving Cert marks(Irish version of a levels).

Send your kid to Ireland and work your connections there! Maybe he can get a great EU job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really frustrates me as DS is very hard working and going into senior year at Bucknell. Many of his classmates with loaded parents with connections on Wall Street have gotten their kids internships for the summer at companies like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, even Goldman Sachs. Kid feels discouraged. He has a 3.8 gpa, good extracurriculars but got shunned away in favor of kids whose dad golfs with the vp of wealth management and has a 3.0 gpa and subpar involvement in college besides frats. It makes me feel like I'm wasting my money on bucknell as these schools only pay off if you have prior family wealth and connections to launch your career in investment banking and finance. Also, how are these kids who barely ut the work in during the school year manage to work these long, long hours in these internships? Are these repo babies given a pass if daddy is there at work today supervising?

This story is just not true. Each of those firms have internship programs and you can’t get one of those jobs through connections of parents. The school maybe but not parents. Those firms got in trouble for doing stuff like you suggest outside the US. When that happened they revamped the programs. No one is getting a job at Goldman because of parent connections. That is the past.

No but Goldman daddy is hiring JP daddy’s kid and vice versa.

Kinda this. We have friends who are adjacent to finance but that's it. Their DC wants to go into IB. He is pretty charismatic and is a strong but not tops student. All his friends who got summer offers have parents in finance. He barely got interviews, pretty much nothing more than that. The parents are really wringing their hands over it. Basically what I hear is that X's dad got Y's kid an internship and vice versa.

We have 1 DC who has zero interest in finance, but is a math major. They would probably have a better shot than an UG in biz/finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s clear that your kid doesn’t understand how to get these jobs. It’s not as simple as applying. It’s also not as simple as “nepo baby.” Unfortunately, career services at even better privates are oftentimes almost useless and don’t help students plan their future and act accordingly.

+1 not speaking about bucknell, but at my DS’s school, certain frats basically control the “best” investment clubs, and kids work for each other’s dad’s firm in summers (so you can’t check linkedin and see family connects). My DS is pre med. We don’t have the connects for IB.

OP here. I find it awful how boys club the finance world continues to be in a country that is all about “equality” and the American dream anyone can achieve if they work hard. It’s a quite socialist mentality how these kdis are born into a certain class where they will be guaranteed admission to a decent school as long as parents have the money and can float through 4 years of undergrad by getting cheat sheets from frat brothers and inevitable summer internships every year. Both husband and I are from a different country and are not used to this whole frat, athlete dominated society of Wall Street who get these high paying jobs from their dad’s friends not from actually working hard. In Ireland where we’re from, you either have the smarts or you don’t to get into these universities and obtain these jobs. For example, a 3.0 kid at a rich kid school like bucknell would never be able to get into the most sought after Irish colleges like trinity and university college Dublin. The kids in the finance majors at the mentioned schools are there for their high Leaving Cert marks(Irish version of a levels).

I am sorry OP. Your kid should go to law school - merit works much better there than in IB.

-fellow immigrant

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s clear that your kid doesn’t understand how to get these jobs. It’s not as simple as applying. It’s also not as simple as “nepo baby.” Unfortunately, career services at even better privates are oftentimes almost useless and don’t help students plan their future and act accordingly.

+1 not speaking about bucknell, but at my DS’s school, certain frats basically control the “best” investment clubs, and kids work for each other’s dad’s firm in summers (so you can’t check linkedin and see family connects). My DS is pre med. We don’t have the connects for IB.

OP here. I find it awful how boys club the finance world continues to be in a country that is all about “equality” and the American dream anyone can achieve if they work hard. It’s a quite socialist mentality how these kdis are born into a certain class where they will be guaranteed admission to a decent school as long as parents have the money and can float through 4 years of undergrad by getting cheat sheets from frat brothers and inevitable summer internships every year. Both husband and I are from a different country and are not used to this whole frat, athlete dominated society of Wall Street who get these high paying jobs from their dad’s friends not from actually working hard. In Ireland where we’re from, you either have the smarts or you don’t to get into these universities and obtain these jobs. For example, a 3.0 kid at a rich kid school like bucknell would never be able to get into the most sought after Irish colleges like trinity and university college Dublin. The kids in the finance majors at the mentioned schools are there for their high Leaving Cert marks(Irish version of a levels).

I am sorry OP. Your kid should go to law school - merit works much better there than in IB.

-fellow immigrant

And use that GPA and finance degree to get a consulting job. Work for 2 years then an MBA or law school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really frustrates me as DS is very hard working and going into senior year at Bucknell. Many of his classmates with loaded parents with connections on Wall Street have gotten their kids internships for the summer at companies like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, even Goldman Sachs. Kid feels discouraged. He has a 3.8 gpa, good extracurriculars but got shunned away in favor of kids whose dad golfs with the vp of wealth management and has a 3.0 gpa and subpar involvement in college besides frats. It makes me feel like I'm wasting my money on bucknell as these schools only pay off if you have prior family wealth and connections to launch your career in investment banking and finance. Also, how are these kids who barely ut the work in during the school year manage to work these long, long hours in these internships? Are these repo babies given a pass if daddy is there at work today supervising?

First of all - an internship does not mean they get a job. They have to prove themselves and be a good fit to get an offer especially in today's climate. So they may or may not get a job offer at end of year.

Advice to you is have your son keep trying and trying but keep door open to other things. He can get to where he wants to go via other avenues. I promise. My son does have an investment banking internship at a prestigious place but an offer is not guaranteed. We will see how it goes. I do know of others that are in IB now that came into it many different paths. Have him try to get into an internship that is considered maybe less competitive. Some have openings I am sure. Good luck. Keep encouraging him and do not feed off his negativity. Be positive and encourage him. This is a lesson to not be bitter in a world that seems unfair. There is room for all. I am sure he is a great kid and he will get something even if it is not on the timeline he anticipated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you are missing the point of how these jobs are hired and what traits make good bankers. I worked in banking on wall at for years and was involved in the analyst (summer and full-time) hiring process. Good resumes and GPAs were a dime a dozen. We tossed more 4.0a than we chose to move to the second round. For the most part anyone can do the actual analyst work. The training is rigorous enough that it can all be learned. What we couldn’t teach were social skills, drive, and stamina. Even the interns can end up on a project with tight deadlines and long, long hours. Do we want the whiney kid who can’t function on little sleep? Or do we want the athlete who in the interview talks about two a day practices and powering through something on little sleep? The teams on these projects are often little so even the intern analyst will have contact with senior people (think CEOs, CFOs, etc at clients where it has taken years to build relationships). You are seeing these kids as just connected frat brothers. In interviews they were generally the ones who were most comfortable and good in any type of situation. Why do you think we often did an interview over a meal? We wanted to see what these candidates would be like in any type of situation. I’d hire the 3.0 who was flexible in any situation over the rigid 4.0 who had spent all of her time studying anyway. On the surface I’m sure some of the groups looked like they had unfair hiring but current hires got input and of course they would vouch for the kid they knew from their lacrosse team if they knew he had the stamina and personality they wanted vs an unknown. Bonuses are dependent on the group revenue. Good junior hires also lighten the load for everyone in the group.

We did hire many first generation immigrants. Who we did not generally hire were the kids where we had not heard their names or anything other than seeing them on a stack of summer intern applications. You would be surprised how (appropriately) aggressive some of these kids were in applying. Personalized emails, letters and calls to everyone on the group they wanted to work in. Sample pitches tailored specifically to an MD in a group. Letters commenting on recent transactions with ideas of add-one to pursue. These kids generally would go to their career center and filter out all of the alums in their specific finance roll they wanted and then send specific emails. They’d look up what their majors were or fraternities or sports. Then send a tailored letter that i, too, am in xyz the same as you. I am going to be in nyc the week of x. Would you have time for an informational interview, etc. These are the kids who know how to pursue a goal and are hired.
I am not saying your child didn’t do all of this, but you sound bitter and don’t seem to have things to back it up. I’d look at how far your child got in the process. Did he make it to the first round of interviews? If not then he didn’t pursue applying hard enough. Did he get a bunch of first rounds and go no further? Ok then he needs to rethink how he interviews. Did he make it past the phone interviews and no offers after in person? Dissect it like that.

We did hire from European universities, although most applied to London over nyc. We had analysts from trinity, ucd, etc. The issue is a lot of them didn’t have the social skills that made them good front office candidates. Most weren’t given full time offers. One went on to be very successful, but he was the exception. Many went on to do more back office, accounting type rolls.

Best response in the thread though other responses regarding connections and golf/poker have something to add, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is Bucknell a target school for the banks you're referring to? (I'm guessing not but I don't know.) If not, then he should look for internships at less brand-name employers and work up from there. The best-known investment banks and consulting firms show a very strong preference for their target schools (they accept applicants from others, but that's why you see a networking bias for applicants from those schools).

I know kids from non-target schools interning (without family connections) in NYC banks this year, but not at the well known banks.

Incidentally, my rising junior has ALREADY submitted applications for summer, 2024 internships. (You may know of the timing, but just in case... successful applications go in FAR earlier than anyone might guess.)

My DS is almost guaranteed an IB internship in ‘24 because his BFF is a frat bro and the frat bro’s dad is holds a senior position at the company.

This does not happen. The connection will get the first round but if they can't cut it they won't go further.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really frustrates me as DS is very hard working and going into senior year at Bucknell. Many of his classmates with loaded parents with connections on Wall Street have gotten their kids internships for the summer at companies like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, even Goldman Sachs. Kid feels discouraged. He has a 3.8 gpa, good extracurriculars but got shunned away in favor of kids whose dad golfs with the vp of wealth management and has a 3.0 gpa and subpar involvement in college besides frats. It makes me feel like I'm wasting my money on bucknell as these schools only pay off if you have prior family wealth and connections to launch your career in investment banking and finance. Also, how are these kids who barely ut the work in during the school year manage to work these long, long hours in these internships? Are these repo babies given a pass if daddy is there at work today supervising?

The problem is your son didn’t understand the point of attending Bucknell…it’s not to get a 3.8 (but that’s great)…it’s to become friends with the rich kids you lament…and get hooked up with a job.

Yep. Networking. Frats are one of the best ways in a campus environment to do it.

Frats are so yesterday. Frats are a huge negative signal these days because of the adverse self selection involved — mediocre, unethical and misogynistic. The 3.9 - 4.0 introverted physics CS guy (or gal) from an Ivy will get hired over the pumped up, non substantive frat guy majoring in finance who has very little to offer, every time. Idiots who indicate frat membership or god forbid frat leadership on their LinkedIn have no clue, imho. It’s bizarre to me that people still believe this about frats. — someone very close to the action on this.

A lot of copium going on here from by someone who doesn't realize that it is the interpersonal skills and willingness to grind which win. The banking itself is pretty straightforward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really frustrates me as DS is very hard working and going into senior year at Bucknell. Many of his classmates with loaded parents with connections on Wall Street have gotten their kids internships for the summer at companies like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, even Goldman Sachs. Kid feels discouraged. He has a 3.8 gpa, good extracurriculars but got shunned away in favor of kids whose dad golfs with the vp of wealth management and has a 3.0 gpa and subpar involvement in college besides frats. It makes me feel like I'm wasting my money on bucknell as these schools only pay off if you have prior family wealth and connections to launch your career in investment banking and finance. Also, how are these kids who barely ut the work in during the school year manage to work these long, long hours in these internships? Are these repo babies given a pass if daddy is there at work today supervising?

3.0 kid from anywhere isn't getting a plum IB spot today. Bucknell isn't a target school so they aren't front office spots with regularity either. Bucknell could be a pipeline to the back office but that isn't working in IB, that is working at an IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS is a D1 athlete and also a talented musician at a well known state school. All the frat bros want to be his friends and convince their father to hire DS for financial consulting internship after DS freshman year. The key here is networking and have something that people want. My DS is dating one of the frat bros’ younger sister whose dad is a CEO of a bank. His future is looking up.

OP is wasting money at Bicknell if your DS can’t network there.

What exactly does he have that the first bros want?

Is he in a frat?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people assume that kids with very successful parents or legacies are stupid? They have high IQ parents and are raised from birth surrounded by books, private schools, exposure to intellectual conversations at the dinner table, world travel, etc. Strivers think these kids are idiots or getting a 1350 on their SAT.

The strivers have a desperate need to believe they have more merit than the legacies, it’s central to their personal narrative. Unfortunately for the strivers they’ll never actually fit in.

It baffles me. These legacy and nepo kids are often very, very smart.

Not in this case. The very, very smart legacy and nepo kids go to HYPSM or at least T20s. They don't end up at Bucknell with a 3.0.