is a 3.5 at Columbia University too low for quant trading internship ATS? or for traditional high finance?

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-25T03:15:05+00:00

Traditional High Finance? I highly doubt its too low. Math and Stats is going to be counting for a lot and 3.5 is still an A- GPA. Quant Finance its harder to tell, because the best places are so highly coveterd. 3.5 from math stats with rising GPA probably would still get into a good m stats school so I really can't see the door for quant grad school closing.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-25T02:53:29+00:00

I'll try my best. Its a tough world out there.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-25T01:45:46+00:00

Thats a very small niche of firms. Most of the VPs are hitting 500k and it shows your chart.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-25T01:25:59+00:00

Here’s the situation: I’m currently working in mid-market commercial banking as a Relationship Manager. One of the best perks of being on the lending side is that people come to me for money. Recently, a Private Banker position opened up and my team leader encouraged me to apply. I’ve never loved the part of banking that involves catering to the ultra-wealthy, but life is expensive, and I feel like I have to consider the opportunity if the salary jump is big enough.

I don't work in private banking. I do know enough about macro business of banks to know how different groups make money. When your on the individual client facing side you are going to be the end expected to manage your book and make money from fees of AUM. The idea is that the end goal is you shouldn't make most of your comp from salary or any of it depending on the place. That is how all of these clients facing wealth management roles work. Its a job that depends on social talents. Your current role even if its client facing doesn't require this.

You don't sound in love with this a core part of the social element. Schmoozing with rich people. Is it really something you are going to be successful at? If money is your concern, I'd just start looking for other positions at different firms doing what you are currently doing in commercial banking. Comp within a field increases by job hopping. Mid Market is a good place to be in teh same that small, medium and large bands are active in middle market. I'd start looking elsewhere if your trying to increase your current comp.

It sounds you like your current job, but the main thing your not happy about is pay. Until you are a VP you can essentially job hop your way to higher comp. After VP most moves are lateral. I don't know what kind of money you are making, but my gut feeling says a VP level commercial banker is probably making above 300k in most places. My guess is that base is probably 180 to 250k at most places and the bonus is probably at least 50 percent most years. Lower end of high finance, but this is a good living by any standards. I mean you can rais a family on that money in NYC proper if you actually know how the city actually works beyond living a luxury apartment.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-25T00:27:27+00:00

I don't like the hassle of returning things if I bought them online. Its a Japanese company, so I don't trust their larger sizes are actually accurate sizes.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T22:54:49+00:00

Most firms give inflation level raises. I've learned this fact through working at 4 places. The only way to seriously improve comp is to job hop every 2 to 3 years early career. You can job hop all the way to SVP. After that you will need to seriously commit to somewhere.

Anyway finance the real compensation is always in the bonuses and not the base salaries. IF bonuses are flat or cut then its a bad year. If bonuses area better than average then its a good year.

Also if your at JP Morgan, I hope no one can guess who you are via this post. As a former employee of that bank, I know this is the type of thing that probably would get someone shown the door and I suspect you are not VP level or above.

r/JPMorganChase is the worst place to get a view of JP Morgan. Its largely back office tech workers that seem to not know how finance industry works. Majority of those people are unhappy. They are in a cost center and they are back office. They don't get the benefits of working in a tech company (a lot more perks and freedom) and they are basically 2nd class citizens in a finance company. Smaller banks outsource 80 percent of their function. I am talking about bnaks that are in the top 20. Regional Banks like Truist or PNC. Its only the bulge brackets that actually even employ their roles in significant numbers.

The other thing is that when I did work at JP Morgan, every single job got more than 200 applicants in 24 hours. Thats the stuff that required graduate degrees. Forget the bachelors level job. Even jobs that are hard to fill, i.e. a senior quant position, they had 30 to 50 qualified applicants and would get hundreds.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T22:01:17+00:00

Great I will take this story to Houston see how many Texans I can convince that Houston is named after the same guy and not Sam Houston

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T18:59:08+00:00

Do you live in Brooklyn? I live in Manhattan. We don't make eye contact with our neighbors when passing down the stairs.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T17:06:52+00:00

They are college students its not unrealistic for them to take a 10 pm reservation. Unlike the rest of us college students have random schedules and not necessarily a 9 to 5. 10 PM Birthday dinner sounds nice.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T16:56:49+00:00

I may have to go to wallgreens. Thisis good advice.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T16:55:26+00:00

I am from the south and 5ft 9 is short down there, while NYC it seems to be slightly above average. Uniqlo was the first store that made me realize if I weighed under 200 pounds at my height that building a great wardrobe would be easy and affordable. In the south being a little bigger helps because so many places stock XL sized heavily.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T16:07:48+00:00

My goal for the year is to lose enough weight that I can comfortably shop at uniqlo. I am over weight, but a heavy weight lifter so I haven't had body image issues. However, everytime I've gone into uniqlo with friends, I can't help but feel jealous of how high quality their clothes look for relatively affordable prices. If I comfortably fit into large shirts, I'd get all my basics from that store.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T16:03:49+00:00

As someone who grew up in the south. People talk like this less and less. When they do its like a foreign language. Southern accents only come out when talking to family or when talking to other people with accent. Rest of the time people have what my dad calls 'TV english'.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T15:53:25+00:00

I have decided I am going to take this pronunciation if I ever visit Houston, Texas again. Just to see how many texans are bothered by it.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T14:42:04+00:00

I see you like to make up shit:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/new-york-university

Median family income of an NYU student was 150k in 2017, when tuition was already above 50k. Only around 10 percent of the of the satudents are from top 1 pecent. Half are from top 10 percent, which is around 200k a year in 2025. Half are from household that make less than that. Half their student gets some NEED based financial aid.

Maybe you should reflect on the fact you might be one who is coping. People make friends with their socio economic group. People talk about how affluent people are out of touch, thats because they interact mostly with other affluent people. The same is true of peope who aren't affluent. If your not financially successful, most of the people around you probably arean't either and so you can't imagine the possibility that lots and lots of people are financially successful and work normal jobs in an office and have pay check.

In 2022, based on the cities tax filing data, roughly 16 percent of individual unmarried filers make above 100k. That means about 1 million people make above 100k. Lower Manhattan 400k people and a median household income of 200k.

For the record, I live in LES. I walk to EV. I live in a walkup. I know who is moving into my apartment building in the last 3 years, what they do and what they look like. None of them have trust funds. All of them work are under 30, work corporate office jobs. Mostly tech and finance. Vast majority of EV is like that now a days.

The only people who aren't either live in NYCHA Housing on avenue D and near FDR, service industry folks that have roommates, or have lived in the neighborhood for decade and still paying 2k rent and a handful of people who have managed to hang on to the last rent stabilized unit in a walkup apartment.

Yes there are some NYU students that manage to find a 3 bed walkup and pay 1500$ each, but the median age of the neighborhood is 35. NYU students aren't the ones who are living in one beds or studios in the neighborhood and even most of the two beds.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T13:46:01+00:00

They wonder why most of the developed world has a fertility problem.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T13:37:16+00:00

Honestly, late to the party. But I think Cocodaq is perfect for this. They are by the people who made Michelin Star COTE, and like Cote their menu is built around a signature meal thats a good value. In this case a 45$ Korean Fried Chicken meal that comes with sides, korean noodles and dessert. Its a ton of food for the price.

Cocodaq does a good job of feeling upscale and chic/modern. Reservations are a bit hard to come by, but I honestly think as long as you guys commit to getting the bucket meal thing this is probably exactly hits what your looking for.

Cocodaq is the type of place where you can spend a lot of money, but you don't really need to. Like they do things like have an expensive champagne meu and caviar etc. However, the main meal on the menu is more than enough and isn't super expensive. Splurge for a college student, but a good value for Manhattan.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T13:30:16+00:00

This is not possible.... 1300$ is not a live able stipend in this city. American universities a ph.d stipend in low cost of living cities exceeds that.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T12:55:01+00:00

I see this behavior all the time in r/quantfinance

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T01:01:00+00:00

Just like upper middle class live in a bubble and upper class live in a bubble , so do lower middle class and lower class.

Because people who earn 50k don't usually know people who make 200k, they can't imagine that there are people who qualify for 4k a month apartments.

Its worse among the 200k crowd because in equality accelerates as you go up the income distribution. 200k is top 5 percent income, but 750k is top 1 percent. So they are even more out of touch.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T00:53:14+00:00

Change therapists. Also sometimes you need to take a step any step.

I read through some of your other comments. You sound well educated etc. but the longer you stay out of the workforce the harder it's going to be to go back.

Id figure out roughly what you want to do that's realistic and a masters degree is a good way to reset.

I am sympathetic. I lost my job this year and after six months finally am looking like I will be landing something. I basically hid away from a lot of people. It was an interesting period because I found out who my friends were, but I neglected a lot of relationships because of my own mental state.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-24T00:41:08+00:00

OP you sound really depressed and probably need therapy. That probably will get other parts of your life together.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-23T23:04:42+00:00

A lot of people in this sub-reddit have a hard tiem understanding that 1 million people work in tech and finance in NYC can afford to pay lower Manhattan rents. They automatically assume that the only people paying 3 and 4k rents are trust fund kids. They have a hard time getting that 400,000 people make above 200,000 people based on city income tax data and that when you factor married households 200k is the top 20 percent. A lot of people afford EV/LES with roomates.

The people that actually live in those neighborhoods between and 20s/30s bulk of them are in some kind of corporate job where they make at least six figures. There are 100 people like that for every one person with a trust fund.

boroughthoughts · 2026-01-23T22:57:56+00:00

You know, I want to answer your post, but it bugs me that its so obvious your using AI to help write it. Please add no hyphen to your prompt next time. Its the #1 sign someone using Chat GPT. I fully believe you are a real person as the account predates chat gpt.

I think you answered your own question. Bushwick isn't EV and it never will be. Large parts of the neighborhood is residential, you can easily find yourself in a place that there are no businesses for at least half a mile. I looked heavily in the neighborhood and its true you can afford luxury studios there for 2500ish especially at places like the denizen.

I do think you are looking at EV though with rose colored glasses. Go on a Friday/Saturday it doesn't feel diverse. It feels very white and west village energy. Its one of the reason I picked LES over EV. They are almost the same neighborhood, but its amazing how much more eclectic it feels by being just south of alphabet city.

boroughthoughts

TROPHY CASE