2029 Investment Banking Academy - Greenwood Project Scholar Program

2029 Investment Banking Academy - Greenwood Project Scholar Program

Department: Programs

Employment Type: Programme

Location: Chicago,IL

Description

About The Greenwood Project

At Greenwood Project, we open doors in financial services for undergraduate freshmen. We give our scholars three things: social capital, the network that comes from knowing people inside the industry. Academic and technical capital, the training the work actually requires. And aspirational capital, the belief that the seat belongs to you.

This is not a workshop series. Scholars commit to twelve months of training, deliver real work on real deadlines, and finish knowing whether this industry is for them. Many go on to internships and full time offers at our partner firms. All of them leave with a network they did not have before.

The Investment Banking Academy

This academy trains investment banking. Over twelve months you will prepare yourself for investment banking internships and learn technical skillsets and behavioral skillsets that set you apart.

The training travels, which is the part worth understanding. Private equity, sales and trading, and equity research all recruit on the same technical foundation, and many people reach those seats by starting in investment banking. But the programming here is investment banking, and you should want that.

What this academy trains

• Investment banking. The twelve months are built around financial modeling, valuation, and deal analysis.

Where that training can take you

• Private equity. Buying companies, improving them, and selling them. Most people get there after investment banking, not instead of it.
• Sales and trading. Buying and selling investments for clients in live markets.
• Equity research. Studying public companies and forming a view on whether their stock is worth owning.
• Investment management and buy side roles. Deciding where a fund's money should go at asset managers, pension funds, and university endowments.
• Private credit. Lending to companies outside of the traditional banking system.

Program Overview

We are recruiting 125 scholars into the Investment Banking Academy for the 2029 cohort. Across all three Greenwood academies we will select 325.

You are eligible if you are currently a freshman graduating in 2030. We call this the 2029 cohort because Summer 2029 is the internship you are working toward.

When What happens

• October 2026 to June 2027 Rolling admissions. Decisions every month. November is the priority round.
• July 2027 Academy begins.
• July 2027 to June 2028 Twelve months of training, from the summer after freshman year through your sophomore year.
• Fall 2028 Junior year internship recruiting season. Greenwood supports you through interviews.
• Summer 2029 The goal: a 10-12 week internship the summer after your junior year.
• Spring 2030 You graduate.

How rolling admissions works

We review applications and make decisions every month from October 2026 through June 2027. You will hear back within 4 weeks of the round your application lands in. Seats fill as we go, so the earliest rounds have the most of them open. Apply early.

You get one application

You submit one application for this cohort. Not one per academy, and not one per round. Our Talent & Recruitment team may move you to a different academy than the one you selected if your answers point somewhere else, so you do not need to get that choice perfect.

Every application gets one of three outcomes:

• Accepted. You are in.
• Deferred. We want to see more before we decide, usually your next term of grades. Your application carries forward automatically and you do not need to submit anything new. You will hear from us about two weeks before the next round of decisions, and again every month until we decide. You will not sit in silence.
• Declined. Final for this cycle. Because this program only admits freshmen, we cannot reconsider you in a later round.

Deferral is the reason you can apply in an early round without taking a risk. If we are not ready to decide, we hold your application. We will not turn you away for applying before your first semester was finished.

Deadlines in this process are real. Once you apply, we will ask you for things on a schedule: transcripts, forms, sometimes an interview time. If you miss those deadlines, your application is declined rather than delayed. We hold this line because the program itself runs on deadlines, and how you handle ours tells us how you will handle those.

Please read this carefully. Internship placements are not guaranteed. Greenwood trains you and advocates for you. Those firms make their own hiring decisions. What we guarantee is the preparation, the network, and honest feedback. The offer is something you earn.

What You'll Do

• Build financial models in Excel. Not read about them. Build them, on deadline, and get told where they are wrong.
• Learn the three standard ways professionals value a company: discounted cash flow, which estimates value from the cash a business will generate, comparable companies, which looks at what similar businesses are worth today, and precedent transactions, which looks at what buyers actually paid in past deals.
• Train on financial statement analysis, accounting fundamentals, portfolio construction, and investment strategy.
• Pitch an investment idea and hold your position when someone challenges your assumptions.
• Work with a mentor who does this for a living, and meet professionals at our partner firms.
• Meet every deadline. Do the reading. This is what separates scholars who get offers from scholars who do not.

Building AI Fluency

Every scholar here learns to work alongside AI, because the job you are training for has already changed.  What firms pay for now is the judgment to direct an AI tool and the technical depth to catch it when it is wrong. 

Hands on with real tools. You will not just learn concepts. You will build working skill with the software and AI tools used on the job. Each Greenwood academy trains a different technical toolset, chosen to match the roles that academy actually feeds, so what you build here is specific to deal, modeling, and valuation work rather than a general overview of finance technology.

The standard we hold you to: you will never present work you cannot defend. If AI produced it and you cannot explain it, it is not your work yet.

What We're Looking For - Ideal Degree Backgrounds

Your major does not decide which academy fits you. Your interest does. Plenty of freshmen have not declared yet, and some schools do not allow it until sophomore year. Neither works against you. Major titles also vary from school to school, so if yours is named differently but covers the same ground, it counts. Tell us what it is called where you are.

Fields of study that line up with this academy

• Finance
• Accounting
• Economics
• Mathematics or Applied Mathematics
• Statistics
• Business Administration, Management, or General Business
• Business Analytics or Data Analytics
• International Business

If you have not declared a major yet

You can apply as undeclared. What we need to see is that you are seriously pointed toward investment banking, and not just generally curious about finance. Undeclared is not a weaker application. An undeclared student who can show us the following is stronger than a declared student who cannot.

• Courses you have taken or registered for next term, such as accounting, economics, calculus, or statistics
• Clubs and activities that back it up: an investment club, a stock pitch or case competition, a student managed fund
• Anything you have taught yourself, including certificates, self directed reading, or a model you built for fun
• A clear answer to why this academy and not the Sales & Relationship or Fintech Academy

If your major is not on this list

Apply, and use your written responses to tell us why. We have placed scholars from outside these fields. We have never placed a scholar who was not willing to do the technical work.

Technical skills you will build

You are not expected to arrive with any of these. You are expected to want them.

• Financial modeling and Excel proficiency
• Financial statement analysis and accounting fundamentals
• Valuation methods, including discounted cash flow, comparable companies, and precedent transactions
• A working understanding of capital markets
• Quantitative analysis, and reading data without being misled by it
• Research and the ability to turn a lot of information into a clear point of view
• Working with AI tools and verifying their output

Soft skills and characteristics

Greenwood selects scholars who show grit, resourcefulness, and intellectual curiosity, along with:

• Strong analytical and critical thinking
• Clear written and verbal communication, specifically the ability to present an investment idea
• Attention to detail and a commitment to getting the number right
• The ability to take in complex information and form your own judgment
• A collaborative mindset, paired with the willingness to defend your view professionally
• Time management, and the discipline to meet a deadline you did not set

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

What Makes a Strong Investment Academy Candidate

The strongest candidates are curious about how businesses make money and disciplined enough to do rigorous analysis when nobody is watching. You should be comfortable with numbers, interested in why a company is worth what the market says it is worth, and willing to form an opinion you can be wrong about.

What this takes

• Twelve months, from the summer after freshman year through your sophomore year, on top of a full course load.
• Roughly 10 hours per week, with heavier weeks around project deadlines.
• Managing your class schedule around program commitments and staying organized without being chased.
• Taking direct feedback on work that is not good enough yet. Scholars who use it move fast. Scholars who take it personally struggle.

Eligibility Requirements

• Currently enrolled as a freshman (Class of 2030) at an accredited four year institution
• Minimum 3.5 GPA. This academy holds a higher academic standard than our other two, because the technical work demands it and because the firms recruiting from it screen on it.
• Your high school transcript, submitted with your application
• Your first semester or first quarter college transcript
• Your second semester or second quarter transcript, submitted when those grades post
• A demonstrated commitment to excellence, integrity, character, and collaboration

How transcript timing works

• Rolling admissions means many students apply before their first term is final, so we check grades twice.
• If you apply by the November priority round, you may not have college grades yet. Submit your high school transcript with your application, then send your first term grades as soon as they post.
• If you apply in December or later, submit your first semester or first quarter transcript with your application.
• Everyone submits second term grades when they post. The first transcript confirms you met the 3.5 standard. The second confirms you held it.

If your grades slip after you are accepted

Acceptance is real, and it is conditional on finishing your freshman year at or above a 3.5 in high school. A strong fall followed by a hard spring is common, so we want to tell you now exactly what happens if that is you.

You do not lose your spot automatically. You move into a probationary period. You stay accepted, we check in with you, and we look at how the full year finished before anyone makes a decision. The purpose of probation is to give you room to explain what happened and to show us the direction you are heading, not to push you out.

Removal is possible if the picture does not improve. We also maintain a waitlist, so a seat that does open goes to another student rather than sitting empty. We would rather you understand that before you apply than have it land on you later.

What You'll Gain

• A technical foundation. The modeling, valuation, and accounting toolkit investment professionals use daily, built before your peers have taken a finance elective.
• AI capability most candidates do not have. You will be able to use AI tools in an interview and explain your reasoning. That is a differentiator now and it will be table stakes in three years.
• A real network. One on one coaching, a mentor in the industry, and access to professionals at our partner firms.
• A competitive edge. You enter junior year recruiting already knowing the technical material and already known by the firms.
• Peers who are serious. A cohort that cares about this as much as you do, which matters more than most people expect.