2029 Fintech Academy - Greenwood Project Scholar Program

Greenwood Project; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 15,000 - 22,000; Part time

Job summary

Greenwood Project's Fintech Academy Scholar Program in Chicago offers a twelve-month training track for freshmen exploring finance tech, with real-work deadlines and a pathway to internships and full-time opportunities.

Participants commit to rolling admissions, a summer internship after junior year, and hands-on AI tool training across operations, risk, and product analysis, guided by a mentor network and firm partners.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled as a freshman at an accredited four-year institution (Class of 2030).
• Minimum 3.2 GPA for standard consideration.
• Interest in operations, risk, product, or technology side of financial services.

Skills

Grit

Resourcefulness

Intellectual curiosity

Analytical thinking

Attention to detail

Collaborative mindset

Adaptability

Continuous improvement mindset

Education

Freshman enrollment at a four-year institution

Job description

2029 Fintech Academy - Greenwood Project Scholar Program

Department: Talent Acquisition - College Program

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.

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.

The Fintech Academy

This academy trains the analytical and operational foundation underneath financial services.

Where this training leads

These are the roles this academy prepares you for. Each one maps directly to what you will study.

• Fintech product and operations analysis. Working alongside product and operations teams to find what is broken, decide what matters most, and make the case for fixing it. This is the role our capstone puts you in.
• Trading operations. Everything that has to happen after a trade is agreed. Confirming it, clearing and settling it, making sure the right money and securities land in the right accounts, and finding the break when they do not. It is one of the largest entry points into a firm.
• Operations more broadly. The rest of the machinery: onboarding clients, moving payments, reconciling accounts, handling corporate actions. When operations fails, it is expensive and public.
• Risk, compliance, and fraud. Figuring out what could go wrong, how likely it is, and how much it would cost. This includes fraud detection and the checks that confirm who a firm is doing business with.

Program Overview

We are recruiting 100 scholars into the Fintech 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 week internship with a partner firm, 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.

Building AI Fluency

Hands on with real tools. You will not just learn concepts. You will build working skill with 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 the operations, risk, and product side of financial technology rather than a general overview.

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

• Computer Science
• Computer Engineering or Software Engineering
• Engineering, any discipline
• Information Systems, Management Information Systems, or Information Science
• Data Science or Data Analytics
• Mathematics or Statistics
• Finance, Economics, or Business Analytics with a quantitative or technical focus
• Operations, Supply Chain, or Industrial Engineering
• Risk Management or Risk Management and Insurance, where your school offers it
• Product and design adjacent fields, including Human Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, or Design

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 operations, risk, product, or the technology side of financial services. 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 intro programming, calculus, statistics, or information systems
• Clubs and activities that back it up: a hackathon, a coding or robotics club, a data or analytics group, a product or startup club, or a technical campus job
• Anything you have built or taught yourself, including a project, a script, an app, a dashboard, or a certificate
• If product management is what you are after, anything where you decided what to build and had to defend the decision counts, including a club project, a small business, or an event you ran
• A clear answer to why this academy and not the Investment Banking or Sales & Relationship Academy

If your major is not on this list

If you have taught yourself to code, or you are the person people come to when something breaks, apply and tell us about it. Self taught is not a disadvantage here. It is often the strongest signal we get.

Soft skills and characteristics

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

• Strong analytical and logical reasoning
• A systematic approach to problems, rather than guessing until something works
• Attention to detail and a commitment to precision
• The ability to explain something technical to someone who is not technical. This is the skill that gets people promoted.
• A collaborative mindset, because this work is always cross functional
• Adaptability, since the tools you learn this year will not be the tools you use in five years
• A continuous improvement mindset, and the instinct to ask why a process works the way it does.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

What Makes a Strong Fintech Academy Candidate?

The strongest candidates take things apart to see how they work. You should be comfortable not knowing the answer, willing to sit with a problem longer than is comfortable, and interested in systems rather than only outcomes.

What this takes

• Twelve months, from the summer after freshman year through your sophomore year, on top of a full course load.
• Roughly 6 to 8 hours per week, with heavier weeks around project deadlines.
• Technical work does not compress well. You cannot cram a project the night before and have it run.
• Managing your class schedule around program commitments and staying organized without being chased.

Eligibility Requirements

• Currently enrolled as a freshman (Class of 2030) at an accredited four year institution
• Minimum 3.2 GPA for standard consideration
• Students with a GPA between 3.0 and 3.19 may apply with a required personal essay
• Students below a 3.0 GPA are not eligible for this cycle
• Your high school transcript, submitted with your application
• Your first semester or first quarter college transcript, submitted with your application or as soon as grades post if you apply in an early round
• A demonstrated commitment to excellence, integrity, character, and collaboration

If your GPA falls between 3.0 and 3.19, the essay is not a formality. Tell us what the number does not capture, and be specific about what you changed.

If you apply in an early round before you have a college GPA, we review your high school record first and confirm eligibility once your first term transcript arrives

What You'll Gain

• Work you can show, not just claim. You will finish the capstone with an analysis you built and can walk someone through in an interview.
• AI capability most candidates do not have. Working with AI tools inside real operations and risk problems, plus the judgment to know when to override what they produce.
• Range. These skills travel. Operations, risk, and product analysis exist at banks, exchanges, payments companies, asset managers, startups, and technology firms, and the foundation is the same in all of them. You do not have to know which one you want yet.
• A real network. One on one coaching, a mentor in the industry, and access to professionals at our partner firms.
• Proof you can learn hard things fast. That is what this year is really for, and what every future employer is trying to find out about you.