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I’ll skip the clever intros here: Delaying your graduation to improve your chances of winning a certain job after university is usually a bad idea.
If you’re doing it specifically to target investment banking roles, it only makes sense in a few scenarios.
Delaying your graduation will not help with many common problems, such as a very low GPA, no return offer from an internship, or attendance at a non-target school.
If you have one of these problems, you’d be better off with some combination of:
- Getting a Master’s in Finance degree from a top school.
- Aiming for finance-related roles after graduation or even off-cycle internships and then using lateral hiring to get in.
- Considering a top MBA if nothing else works.
Also, the accelerated internship recruiting timeline has made it more difficult to get great results from delaying your graduation, at least in the U.S.
It’s no longer possible to use it as a “call option” in case you perform poorly in your summer internship, which reduces its expected value.
Let’s start with some quick definitions and the short version of why a delayed graduation is rarely a good idea:
- The TL;DR of Why “Delay Your Graduation” Rarely Works
- Why Delay Your Graduation? Can You Do an Internship After Graduation?
- Case #1: Delay Your Graduation to Aim for Investment Banking Internships
- Case #2: Delay Your Graduation to Fix Broader Problems Without Necessarily Targeting IB Roles
- When to Do a Master’s in Finance or MBA Instead of Delaying Your Graduation
- Should You Delay Your Graduation? Final Thoughts
The TL;DR of Why “Delay Your Graduation” Rarely Works
- “Delay Your Graduation” could mean that you add another semester or two of classes, that you complete a Master’s degree, or that you do an MBA. We’ll focus on the first case here because Master’s and MBA degrees are quite different.
- The benefits of a delayed graduation are that you get more time to complete internships, network, prepare for interviews, and potentially boost your GPA.
- The drawbacks are that you or your family will spend a lot of extra money to do this, and it may not improve your chances that much.
- This strategy makes sense if you have a specific, fixable problem that prevented you from winning IB offers the first time around, and you’re confident you can get better results by going through recruiting once again.
- It could also make sense if you’re trying to fix broader issues, such as no real internship experience, transferring universities at an awkward time, or the inability to stay in the U.S. after graduation as an international student. But a delayed graduation may not help that much with winning direct IB roles in these cases.
- Because of the accelerated recruiting timeline, delaying your graduation is not viable if you fail to get a return offer from a 3rd year internship. If you do this and “revert” from Year 4 to Year 3 of university, summer internship recruiting will already be done or mostly done.
- These points mostly apply to the U.S.; I am not sure if delaying your graduation in other regions is even feasible, as the university system differs in other countries.
That’s the short version. Now for the details:
Why Delay Your Graduation? Can You Do an Internship After Graduation?
The short answer is that it’s typically easier to win a summer internship in university, perform well, and convert it into a full-time offer than to graduate and search for full-time offers.
Yes, you can do an internship after graduation, but it’s more common in regions like Europe where many firms offer off-cycle internships.
Also, for investment banking, you pretty much need an IB internship or highly relevant full-time experience post-graduation to have any chance at a full-time offer.
Many students, therefore, consider delaying their graduation to boost their chances of getting into these competitive fields.
But there are only a few cases where it makes sense to do so:
Case #1: Delay Your Graduation to Aim for Investment Banking Internships
If you’re delaying your graduation specifically to aim for IB internships:
- You must do it at the start of Year 3 (your junior year).
- You should have already gone through IB recruiting in the previous year…
- …but failed to win offers because of bad luck or a specific problem you can fix quickly.
For example:
- You won interviews at 5 – 10 banks but didn’t prepare well enough for the technical questions, so you didn’t get past the first rounds.
- You started too late, which limited your networking and resulted in only ~2 first-round interviews.
- You made it to ~5 Superday interviews but won no offers due to a lack of cultural fit, bad interviewers, or your fit/behavioral answers.
- Your GPA was slightly too low – maybe in the 3.3 – 3.4 range – but it’s already higher now, and you could further boost it to 3.7+ by the time interviews begin.
What does not count as a specific problem you can fix in a short time frame?
- A Very Low GPA: If your GPA is below 3.0, you will probably not be able to boost it to a 3.5 or higher within 1 – 2 semesters.
- A Late Career Change: If you decided on IB in Year 3 of university, delaying your graduation won’t help unless you can somehow get a highly relevant internship and network and prepare extensively within a few months.
- A Non-Target School: There is no way to “fix” this one unless you transfer universities.
Case #2: Delay Your Graduation to Fix Broader Problems Without Necessarily Targeting IB Roles
In some cases, delaying your graduation could be useful for fixing other problems.
In these cases, you may not be competitive for investment banking right out of university, but delaying your graduation could still make it easier to get in eventually.
The three best examples here are:
1) You Have Absolutely No Real Internship Experience – For example, if you changed your career plans (e.g., pre-med to business) after 2 full academic years, and all you have is lab experience, it could make sense to delay your graduation.
In this case, you are unlikely to win an IB role, but you could get something relevant in a less competitive field (e.g., corporate finance at a normal company) and then move in from there.
2) You Transferred Universities and Need More Time to Prepare and Network – The accelerated recruiting timeline has made it difficult to use university transfers effectively.
But if you transfer after your first year and delay graduation at your new university, you could effectively “start over” as a Year 1 student and get extra time for networking, the internship search, and interview prep.
3) You’re an International Student and Cannot Stay in the U.S. After Graduation – If you have a non-STEM major as an international student, you’re in an awkward position and should consider switching to anything that qualifies as STEM.
By doing so, you could take advantage of the 3-year OPT program that lets you stay in the U.S. and work after graduation – which makes it much easier for banks to hire you.
If this means you need to add a second major or turn a minor into a major, do it.
When to Do a Master’s in Finance or MBA Instead of Delaying Your Graduation
Completing a Master’s degree could also count as “delaying your graduation” because you’ll now be in school for another year (or possibly 2 years).
However, you typically do a Master’s in Finance degree when you want a higher-ranked university on your resume or to compensate for issues like a non-target university or low GPA.
It also takes significantly more effort because you must apply for these programs separately, prepare for standardized tests, etc., so it’s not just a matter of paying tuition for 1 – 2 more semesters.
Therefore, the Master’s route is more appropriate if you need to improve many aspects of your profile instead of just fixing one specific problem.
The MBA option is even more different because it’s for true career changers with significant full-time work experience.
It is also the most expensive and time-consuming way to get into IB.
So, if you’re currently in university, you should do everything possible to avoid it.
It’s cheaper and less time-consuming to work in a finance-related role after graduation and network your way in.
Should You Delay Your Graduation? Final Thoughts
Even before the recruiting timeline moved up to ridiculously early start dates, delaying your graduation just to improve your chances of winning IB roles was rarely a great idea.
But it’s even more of a stretch now, and I can’t see that many students benefiting.
You might be hesitant to delay your graduation because of the extra costs, the need to explain the delay in interviews, or because of a possible market crash or recession.
These concerns are valid, but they mostly fall into the categories of “Can’t do anything about it” or “Should not be hard to justify with a bit of creativity.”
The bigger problem is that in most cases, delaying your graduation won’t provide enough benefits to justify the extra time, money, and risk.
It makes sense to fix very specific problems, but if you’re doing it because you’re in “panic mode” and need more time, you should probably reconsider.
And if you have any questions about whether delaying your graduation makes sense, comment away.
About the Author
Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street. In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.
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Current sophomore who internally transferred to the business school of a top target. (Was at the school before, but not the business school). I feel behind in networking and am wondering if it’s worth delaying my graduation by a semester to get an extra masters degree in STEM (from the same school) to give me the chance to recruit strongly for SA 28 internships. I could also continue with networking for SA 27, but am not sure if I will be able to land EBs/BBs at this point. Would you say it’s too late?
Hi Brian,
Thank you for the write-up I found it really helpful. I’m currently a rising senior and considering the possibility of delaying graduation by a semester. My situation is a bit unique: while I’m classed as a senior, I’m technically a junior in terms of credits and would need to credit overload my final two semesters to graduate on time.
My junior-year internship experience isn’t as strong as I’d like for full-time investment banking recruiting, and I’m wondering if taking an extra semester — and possibly taking on additional loans — could be a strategic move. I’ve noticed some banks are still opening roles, and I’d like to put myself in the best position possible.
In your view, does delaying graduation still make sense in today’s recruiting environment, or would you advise against it?
Thanks again for your insight — I really appreciate it.
I’m not quite sure I understand your timing here, but if you can delay graduation by a semester and get a chance at summer 2027 internships (i.e., for processes that begin in early 2026 at the large banks), then yes, it’s probably worth it, assuming you came close to winning an IB offer at a large firm last time around.
If you’re doing it to stay in school just so you can roll the dice on summer 2026 internships at smaller firms that might still be recruiting right now, I think it’s much riskier and depends heavily on your previous internship experience, school status (target/semi-target/non-target), and so on. It also depends a bit on why you did not win an IB internship in the previous recruiting cycle and what you’ve done to improve since then.
Hey Brian! Just a quick question from another Brian here. I’m transferring to northeastern from my community college and will be matriculated as a sophomore at NEU in the fall. Seeing as it’s a non-target, I was thinking of transferring to a true target at the end of my sophomore year at NEU after leveraging my NEU spot for an internship at a boutique bank. Hypothetically, if this works and I land a top target, would I be able to be competitive for BBs assuming I delay graduation by a year and achieve a 4.0 GPA my first semester in the a target school?
I suppose you could do that, but it seems like a very indirect / time-consuming / expensive route to transfer twice. It’s already quite a pain to transfer once, and to make this work, you would have to delay graduation (as you mentioned), which makes tuition at the target school even more expensive.
So, I think this one really depends on how committed you are to investment banking. If it’s 10 / 10 importance for you, sure, maybe this makes sense. But if it’s more of a 7 / 10 priority, and you could see yourself working in a different finance field or eventually moving into IB from something else (corporate banking, corporate finance, etc.), I’m not sure I would recommend this approach.
Hi Brian,
Thank you for sharing. So I delayed my graduation and ended up getting an offer, and I put “June 2027” as my graduation date on my resume for my application. However, after talking it out with my school it seems that I have to graduate by December 2026 (can only delay my grad date for one more semester). It’s still within the eligibility period for the internship program for my bank. Would this mismatch come up as a problem in the background checks?
Probably not because even if you graduate in Dec 2026, you’ll still be starting the full-time role the year after that. If it does somehow come up, just say your plans changed or your school limited the dates to which you could delay graduation.
Thanks for sharing. What if you’re at community college and transfer into a top target school coming in as a junior. How long would you have to delay graduation to recruit considering you have no internships coming in?
Probably by at least a year and possibly more than that – because recruiting for junior-year summer internships now takes place during sophomore year. It used to start in roughly the middle of the year, but it has been moving up (yes, it’s nonsensical). But if you’re starting as a junior in the fall this year, I don’t think you’ll be competitive for IB roles at all – you could go for alternatives such as corporate banking, independent valuation firms, etc., though, if delaying graduation is not an option.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for sharing! I have one question. If I delay graduation by a semester to reapply for IB internships, would it be bad to apply to the same companies 2 years in a row?
Thanks!
In theory, yes, but in reality, you basically have to do this if you’re applying to IB roles because everyone applies to the same large banks. I wouldn’t worry about this point.
Thanks for sharing. Suppose you’re at a non-target and considering delaying graduation to gun for a better offer, such as MM bank to top BB, with the hopes of using your upcoming MM internship to boost your odds at landing a BB/EB interview. Would this make sense?
Thanks!
It might make sense, but I think it depends on why you did not get an EB/BB internship in the first place. If it’s because you had bad luck in interviews or you couldn’t answer specific questions well, then sure, prepare for those questions or try again and hope for better interviewers this time around.
If it was more an issue of not getting enough interviews in the first place, that’s riskier because some of the same factors will work against you this time (cannot do anything about the non-target school). Yes, the MM IB internship will help and should get you better results, but it won’t be a 100% offset if the main issue was your university name or not having enough alumni to network with.