College Decisions IBD
All right, after having received pms, having read through past threads and college confidential, I'm down to the following schools for applications. I'll be applying to the usual suspects like Williams, Amherst, etc, but I'm looking for "safety" or "match" schools. I've already dinged
- alum light schools aka brandeis, tufts, rochester are out
- schools from the south as I'd prefer north aka vanderbilt, davidson, wake forest are out
- and no name LAC's that weren't appealing to me
and I need to choose a couple of schools from this list to apply to
USC, Rice, Hamilton and Bowdoin, swarthmore, Carleton, vassar, colgate, wesleyan.
I have strong preference for the northeast, which is why I'm not applying to pomona, claremont mckenna, etc. I only have USC because it has a business school and according to linkeidn places kids into GS/JPM/MS and MBB on the west coast. I'll be attempting to apply for northeast positions, and might not enjoy it as much.
Same deal with Rice, I'd also be going for northeast positions. However, I've heard so many good things about it and how it's a really friendly, accepting place where the competition isn't cutthroat, etc the school was named #1 by princeton review for quality of life. I realize I may be slightly screwed over recruiting wise, but if I network I hope that Northeast MBB can be a possibility.
Hamilton, Bowdoin and Swarthmore, Vassar, wesleyan and Colgate are northeast liberal arts schools. Carleton is in MN, but all of these are top 20 lacs and are well respected.
Also USC, Colgate, Vassar and probably Wesleyan would be safeties for me. Rice, Hamilton and Bowdoin would be matches and Swarthmore and Carleton would be reaches. However I realize that selectivity isn't everything!
Also if possible, I would appreciate say 1 - 2 picks from each designation of a safety, match, reach. Right now, USC, Colgate and Wesleyan seem a teeny bit better than Vassar, Rice and Hamilton and teeny bit better than bowdoin and swarthmore equaling carleton in terms of strength.
USC is a good semitarget. Amherst and Williams get a good amount of recruitment but by no means more than their large school equivalents.
Honestly none of the ones you mentioned have a noteworthy street presence. Dont know what you mean by "usual suspects" as your list definitely ignores the target / semi-target schools that I've seen in my experience (Ivy Leagues and others in the tier below)
USC is easy to get into, esp out of state for a semi target, but I'm not sure how legit it is. I've heard that UCLA, UCB and Stanford murder it for the few positions out there in CA. I've heard that USC is thought of equivalent to schools like IU, and it doesn't seem too prestigious. The LACs are all very prestigious, but not sure if bankers know about them. Essentially, I'd like to stay in the northeast and don't know whether usc/rice have enough pull to get me there vs the lacs who are all based in the NE with the exception of Carleton which is incredibly hard to get into (and thus thought of as legit by wall street employees).
UCLA and USC place the same into IB...i've dealt with both kids and have seen both OCR listings. USC though has an edge because USC alumni usually have more school spirit/are more willing to go out of their way to help other Trojans, and USC undergrads can take much more finance/business classes since there is an ACTUAL business MAJOR versus accounting/econ availability at UCLA-- MBA is a diff story and UCLA MBA is much better
and a lot of the BBs in LA (yes even GS and MS [MS LA is taking 3 USC FT analysts] ) are filled with UCLA/USC kids from analyst level to senior level...so what do you mean by 'not sure if bankers know about them'? Even Moelis LA has a few UCLA people. USC/UCLA even places kids into NY and SF is uber common as well.
Houlihan Lokey and other MMs in LA are also crawling with USC/UCLA grads so your argument here is very flawed. please do not share about the strength/prescene of these schools in finacne if you are not form LA, work in LA or attend one of these schools...this is blatantly spreading false info which you did above. thanks.
Lol, Swathmore and Rice aren't safeties for ANYONE. I'm not sure why your list is only limited to private colleges. UMichigan, UC Berkley, and UCLA are better for banking than every college on your list (excluding Rice and Swathmore of course). Also, keep in mind that LAC's are bad for banking outside of Williams and Amherst. Almost none of the LAC's have undergrad business schools so you can only study economics. Furthermore, most of the students at these colleges are humanities majors so you won't have many chances to join business clubs or do case competitions.
IMO, you should apply to the public schools I mentioned above if you was safety/low-match colleges. I know quite a bit about admission to competitive colleges, as I was accepted ED to Carnegie Mellon and will be going there next year. CMU actually has a pretty good business school (Tepper) so you might want to apply there.
Da Faq, I clearly stated that Rice is a match and Swarthmore is a reach. Also I don't want to go to a large or public university which is why I left them out. UCB, Mich and UCLA's business programs take target stats out of state to get into while only providing a semi target education.
CMU, NYU, Boston College, Georgetown, UVA.
have you thought about duke? amazing placement and honestly wasn't that hard to get into
I have strongly considered Duke actually and may apply. My stats are subpar in relation to those who got accepted according to naviance, but it may be well worth the shot. Have you heard of Davidson also in NC?
Rice isn't a "match" unless you're an ivy-league level applicant. Last year, Rice only accepted 16% overall; hardly a "match" to be perfectly honest. Also, Michigan and Berkeley have excellent business programs. Ross and Haas are considered targets by most people (or the closest thing to a target at a public school). I'm not sure why you think they are semi-targets.
@dukebanker12, Duke accepted 11% last year (for RD only). Not sure why you think Duke is easy to get into :P
Berkeley and Michigan are difficult to get into OOS with a decent merit package. Banks in NY hate state schools, and don't find that they weed out enough kids during the selections process. If you're the valedictorian of some crap school in state coasting with a 4.0 competing against kids with 1000 sats, and put in a teeny bit of effort into studying for sats, aps, etc you can easily get into UCB and UCLA while the more competitive kids are shafted and forced to go to UCD and UCI. I'm from the east coast and no one I know (most kids here are much wealthier than me) respect out of state public schools, including their successful parents who are lawyers, bankers, accountants, etc. We all respect our state school, but because it is affordable for in state students and I've generally found that when weighing the pros and cons that it's retarded to pay that much out of state when you can go to a private school with more personal attention for a better price (due to large endowments).
No one gives a shit whether or not your college is public or private. This isn't high school. Berkeley, Ross, and UCLA are hard targets. They all send 20-30 kids into banking each year, and they're better than every single one of the schools in your OP, except for maybe Williams/Amherst, and on par with Rice. If you don't want to go there because they're public and you're a snob, fine. And there are social and academic differences (big school vs. small school, access to professors, etc) that should be taken into consideration. But saying they're "not targets" because they're public schools, and listing a bunch of ok LACs (and USC? Seriously? That's a backup school for Berkeley/UCLA admits) as superior options is just stupid. You clearly have your biases. Fine. But Wall Street doesn't share them.
Disclosure: Got accepted to Rice and turned it down.
Acceptance rates don't matter shit. It's all about who applies, Baruch, the Cunys and Suny Binghmaton all have 30% ish acceptance rates but are all trash compared to Rutgers with around a 60% rate. As long as you show interest, you have a decent shot at getting into Rice as a lot of Rice applicants who aren't aware of forums such as this one are typically either from Tx with non competitive stats or get "tufts" syndromed when they are ivy caliber and send in generic essays
i got in with only a 2020 on the SAT and 3.8 UW gpa. a lot of ppl at duke have stats like mine. don't let admission rates intimidate you
USC, Pomona, Claremont McKenna
Claremont McKenna is beast with LA placements.
Great semi-targets.
And, who doesn't love LA?
@kidflash, I think you missed my point. When I said "ivy-league level" applicant, I meant an applicant for whom some (or most) of the Ivies are low reaches. If you're a match for any of the Ivies, Rice would definitely be a mid/low match for you. Thus, I was implying that the students at Ivy-league schools are generally more pedigreed than those at Rice (which is common knowledge, obviously). Hope that clears up my point.
@dukebanker12, Duke has become a lot more competitive in the past 5 years. I've seen admits to Cornell, UPenn and Columbia who were waitlisted or outright rejected from Duke. Although Duke's ED is less competitive than that of the ivies (outside of Cornell), I think Duke is at least as competitive overall as Cornell, UPenn, and Brown.
Why aren't you applying to the other 'usual suspects' like Penn, Duke, Columbia, Georgetown, Brown, and ene H/Y/P/S. Honestly most of those are as much a crapshoot of getting in as Williams/Amherst. If I had to do it over again I would cast a wide net and give myself as many options as possible- app fees are relatively pretty inexpensive.
@(Black Jack) The OP is probably applying to multiple schools of that caliber. He specifically asked for help in choosing safety or low match colleges. To the OP, you should post your query on CollegeConfidential if you haven't done so already. You'll probably get far more useful responses than on WSO.
I applied to (and got into) at least three of these schools, and ended up going to one of the lower ranked ones...worked out okay for me, but your mileage my vary.
OP don't be so naive and narrow minded, I was in your position a couple years ago when I was applying.
You said you want to stay within the northeast/east, consider Williams,Amherst, Georgetown, hell even Colby gives you a shot
As mentioned above, consider UMich and Ross, both are well respected on the street, class sizes shrink as you progress in the university, so a 100 student class freshman year becomes 30 by the time you're a junior.
Cast a wide net bro, don't be so narrow minded during the college application process.
From what I've seen regarding placement on Wall Street, UMich Ross is even better than Northwestern/UChicago/Caltech/Georgetown at placing kids into banking and consulting. I would only pick the Ivies/Stanford/Duke/MIT/NYU Stern (for finance only) over it if BB banking and MBB consulting is your goal. Emory/Wash U/Rice/UCLA/CMU don't even come close to it.
Eligendi minus ipsum consequatur consequatur culpa. Tempora aspernatur animi pariatur voluptatem labore veniam. Quasi maxime optio quia dolore adipisci. Aut ducimus dignissimos odit et enim ab.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Facere voluptatem ipsa sit quisquam facere vel. Et doloribus voluptas ut corrupti distinctio perspiciatis enim. Est omnis mollitia qui nobis dolorem dolorem aliquid. Sed et est a eos corporis optio corporis.