Am I crazy for my undergrad choice?
Hi everyone,
I hope you have had a nice weekend so far. I am a senior in high school, and the time has come for me to decide which college to attend this fall. The school I am learning toward the most is Colby College, a liberal arts college in Maine. It is extremely hard to get into and very prestigious, yet I am getting questioned heavily by multiple people around me, claiming it isn't the right choice. Other schools I got into include Northeastern, UMD, UMiami, and Villanova (waitlisted at UVA, NYU Stern, USC, and Cornell).
I am choosing to attend Colby because I believe it will be the best school for me to support my aspirations of working in high finance. People around me claim UMD will be no different, but I don't pay them much mind since these people aren't very well educated in the finance job market. Regardless though, if so many people object my choice, maybe I am actually wrong.
The other day I was sitting at the lunch table and I was being berated by some of my peers for my choice. It is so frustrating. I am not going to explain to my friends my step-by-step plan of networking hard and landing an IB offer, so I just take their words. They say nobody has heard of Colby; I want to say nobody gives a flying fuck about UMD unless you are from Maryland.
I have big aspirations in life. I want to be successful. If I believe Colby will help me on that path (more so than UMD), isn't it the correct choice?
Thank you for your time
Transfer the hell out. It will be an uphill battle. Northeastern and Villanova seemed to have been better choices.
Northeastern is definitely still an option, but is it not always an uphill battle?
A lot of people transfer out of Northeastern after freshman year to places like Cornell, USC, etc (just from a lot of people I know personally). I'm not too familiar with the transfer prospects from Colby but if you don't get into any of your waitlists, I think transferring to a target/semi-target after freshman year is also a solid plan.
should’ve waited for nyu, cornell, or usc
seen number of cornell offers on linkedin and west coast banks are pretty much dominated by usc
nyu also places lights out, was it second to penn?
all would’ve been better choices than colby, have a friend there and their investment banking club is super new with few upperclassmen to guide you and even fewer alum network at each bank
I can still wait on my waitlists, I am not binded to Colby.
Obviously all those schools are better choices, but they aren't choices I have. Are you sure Colby places that bad? Just from checking four Colby Investment Banking Club members, one was at Evercore, one at Citi, one at Guggenheim, one at BofA. Can it really be that bad?
that’s a total of 4 members with decent placements what happened to the rest
no top BB, no other EB, not even MM? and obviously no buyside firms, now go look at the placements for usc/stern/etc.
can you imagine the number of emails those colby students had to send
if you don’t have an alum at a bank, no one is truly pulling you, you have to send emails to a team filled completely with wharton and harvard kids do you think they’ll gaf about a colby student when there’s 100+ hypsm kids in their emails
write the letter or continued interest, visit your waitlist campuses and fight for an acceptance, going to a non target would be the hardest part of recruitment
going to a target, i’ve gotten interviews from places i’ve never networked for, offers from places that didn’t grill me nearly as hard as friends at other schools, and people would actually respond to my email and have my resume looked at simple due to the school
it will be so hard breaking into IB from colby
NESCAC is a great experience. NESCAC dudes also like other NESCAC guys. Enjoy Colby, youll be fine. Insane some other dude said Northeastern > Colby
Thanks for the kind words. It sucks people are uneducated on the strength of NESCAC. David Solomon from Hamilton College, Jamie Dimon from Tufts, Ted Pick from Middlebury, Jes Staley from Bowdoin.
Went to a NESCAC, and all of my peers who pursued finance have done very well. Also, NESCAC guys generally look out for NESCACs because its a shared expierience. New England is king. Also idk if you can but try to play a sport
If money isn’t an issue, then go wherever you want, but don’t think Colby is some crazy prestigious school that is going to make you more successful, because it will have next to no impact on your career. Most people have no clue what that school is and do they even have a finance major?
If NESCAC is your vibe great, but if you’re only choosing it for “prestige” or because it’ll make you “successful” I would think again.
It isn't that I think Colby is Harvard and will get me into anywhere; it's more so that out of the options I was ACCEPTED into, I feel it is the best.
Maryland has more alumni than Colby at essentially every bank you listed.
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Colby is so much better than Villanova lmao
Kinda just seems like you wanna go to Colby based on your replies which is totally fine if that’s the case. You’ll have more alums at some of the other schools listed but it won’t be impossible or as hard to break in out of Colby as it would be out of a random state school.
Providing an honest opinion here. I am an upperclassman at Colby and am very happy with my placement. Yes, I had to work harder than NYU, UVA, USC, Cornell and other target schools kids. If you want to do high finance try to get off those waitlists. However, people underestimate the NESCAC network. It's large, super tight, and intimate - I had a very strong response rate and if you aren't a bot, you can 100% get NESCAC people to advocate for you in their bank's process. I got all my interviews through NESCAC and colby alums.
Why doesn’t Colby place “well”?
1)because career services isn’t great. Colby students don’t even know that the recruitment process is happening. Career services also does nothing to prepare us for technicals.
2)before the investment banking club, no clubs existed to help kids prepare. There are 2 finance clubs (outside of the investment banking club) but they don’t help with technical prep which is where Colby kids get killed in interviews.
3)It’s a liberal arts school so we don’t have rigorous corp fi and accounting classes freshman year. Students are also encouraged to explore and don’t come in necessarily knowing what they want to do with their lives.
On the colby investment banking club - this was its first year and this was the best placement ever. There is a lot of positive momentum. Pretty sure all of the placement came out of there. The 4 offers mentioned in this thread were for the leadership (juniors/seniors). ~75% of the first cohort (sophomores) placed. All the club did was point smart kids in the right direction.
On another note, If you got to Colby, you will pretty much be able to transfer wherever you want if you decide to transfer. I've seen kids go to uchicago, dartmouth, multiple northwestern, multiple vanderbilt, Georgetown, brown, cornell, and others. Yes, these aren't all crazy targets but all place better than colby. If you do well here freshman year you will have opportunities to transfer.
Also be mindful that kids usually transfer because of the social scene and how small it is. So make sure you’re ok with that. There is no night life in Waterville.
LMK if you want to PM. Happy to chat.
Thank you so much for the insight; it is very nice to hear from an actual Colby student. I am glad you have been satisfied with the recruiting process there. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could send me a PM. Thanks.
I don't really understand the comments lol Colby is a solid school and certainly better than most of the others you got into. Northeastern is garbage, the only other one I'd consider seriously might be Villanova. Sure it would've been nice if you got into Cornell or UVA but a waitlist means nothing. Among these options you really can't go wrong with Colby, I've seen loads of alums on the street.
Thank you, this was my thought process as well. Out of all my options, Colby stands out the most and seems like a no-brainer. It's nice to hear about the Colby alums on the street.
Colby and Villanova are similar in that they will give you a solid chance, but not a guarantee, that you will get a banking role. Both have solid alumni networks but there are no banks building their recruiting strategy around either school. That's basically where your recruiting analysis should end with respect to these schools. If you are motivated from day one, you will find a way to be competitive for banking jobs.
What's more important is that Colby and Villanova are very different schools in basically every other way. I am a NESCAC grad (loved my experience) and could not imagine enjoying Villanova or Northeastern on a cultural / academic basis. That said, the NESCAC is not for everyone. Try to make it to the accepted students weekends and see what resonates.
Go to Colby 100%. Great school, alum will all respond and be super helpful for recruiting, and very easy to transfer if that’s something you end up being interested in. If finances aren’t a consideration, Colby is a no-brainer against your other options.
Exactly what I was thinking too, thank you for the response.
Current upperclassman at Amherst/Williams/Midd. If you enjoy the nescac environment, go there. That's all it comes down to. The athlete advantage is very real, both in terms of recruiting and having a better social life on campus. Other nescac ppl will be happy to help as long as you're not a herb
never heard of it. I'll be very very surprised if you get an IB job out of college.
Colby is 100% a decent option, but I would definitely not characterize it as "very prestigious". There are a lot of parts of the country where people never heard of the school, and I don't really think the Colby name opens any doors or say gets you an interview just because of the school brand that a decent state school couldn't.
The single-digit admit rate is extremely misleading since they yield-protect like crazy.
Not trying to totally shit on the school, but want you to be realistic about how it is perceived, and if you are dead set on finance it wouldn't be too hard to transfer somewhere with better placement.
there is no waitlist at usc. did you get spring admission? if so, you should absolutely go--that one semester does not make a difference for IB recruitment
Plenty of IB / PE opportunities at Northeastern via co-op + 2-3 times to try to get a FT offer.
Ignore the mouth-breathers that suggest Northeastern over Colby lol. Go to Northeastern ONLY IF you want to live in the city (overrated, you will live in the city for the rest of your life.)
Currently a student at another similar NESCAC who just went through recruiting and chose my school over a lot of traditional finance targets because of the culture and academic. Would say that Colby will definitely get you opportunities if you leverage the NESCAC alums on the street (who were all very helpful) and stay on top of the recruiting process knowing you might not have the hand holding you would get at a big finance feeder.
We've had 90% placement rates the past few years and think Colby would be mostly similar, a lot of info on WSO is out of date and underrates NESCACs.
I would take any of the waitlist options if you get in, but if not, i’d also go to Colby.
Push hard on your waitlists, if they pan out go to the best you get into: if not, transfer the fuck out, because Colby isn’t worth Jack shit (no offense).
Currently a student at Colby, might encourage you to transfer to a target school if you want be placed easier (but really can't say much more easier, more headcounts with more people recruiting). I’ve seen kids who aren’t athletes transferring to schools like NYU, Emory Goizueta, UChicago for better recruiting opportunities. If you’re on financial aid and ain’t sure how likely to get the aid in the school you want to transfer into, apply first then see what the results are. If you don’t need financial aid and money ain’t the issue for you, then probably do the transfer early decision program at UChicago. I heard of several people in non-target schools like Colby did this, and they are interning at some BBs this summer. I honestly don’t think they could have the same or equivalent result if they chose to stay, unless they just got lucky or worked extremely hard for the uphill climb.
Also take my opinion with a grain of salt: if you’re woman/poc/low-income, didn’t go to a private boarding school in New England, the so-called NESCAC network might not be as strong as how the alumni who took advantage of it have bragged about.
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