Where Should I Apply?
Hey everyone, would really appreciate some help here. I'm applying to colleges* in the near future and I want to go into investment banking after college. I have a good grasp of the idea of targets and semi-targets, but I also want some perspective given two factors:
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My stats & ECs: I'll be applying with an SAT score of around 1500 and an unweighted GPA of 3.7. My weighted GPA is around 5 (my school has a weird scale, but I've taken all honors and AP classes aside from some electives and physical education). I took 3 SAT subject tests and got 700+ on 2 of them (biology and history) and an 800 on math. I got either a 4 or a 5 on 10 APs. In terms of extracurriculars, I've done FBLA and placed at the state and national level and I've done MUN (model un) at a couple of national conferences. I've won a couple of small and large delegation awards at these. I'm also the editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper and I started an investing club at my school. I'm the founder of 2 non-profits and 1 business and I racked up about 50 volunteer hours. I've secured a patent for a security system and I got a novel published. I'm trying to squeeze in some financial or economic research with a professor before I graduate.
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My immigration status/location preferences: I'm technically an Indian citizen/international student (won't get my green card in time for college or even job applications for that matter). This means that I won't get need-based aid from almost any college and only a few will give me merit-based aid. We have about 100k saved for my education, so the rest will have to come from loans. I'm skeptical of taking on a lot of student loans because rates tend to be higher for international students and there's a bit of uncertainty. Getting a job is harder because I won't have work authorization and will need sponsorship, and there's a chance I'll get kicked back to India, where the low salaries (albeit proportional to the COL), will make it almost impossible for me to pay off my debts if I take on too much. So I'll have to shoot for colleges that either have reasonable tuitions or schools that give merit-based financial aid to international students. At the same time, I'm open to applying to schools that don't fit that criteria since applying to a bunch of schools doesn't really hurt. Finally, I should bear in mind things like work authorization. Despite growing up in the US, I'm open to other places, so here's how it stands
US (the bulk of the schools I'll apply to) > UK (a solid number of schools I'll apply to) > Canada (a couple of schools I'll apply to) > India (more of a worst-case scenario so I'm not applying to any schools there).
Within the US, I'm perfectly happy to be in cities outside of New York like Chicago, Houston, Charlotte, Boston, Raleigh, and more. In the UK and Canada, though, I'm really only OK with living in London or Toronto.
I'd love it if you could recommend some colleges for me to apply to given the information that I provided. If you want me to offer more information, please ask and I'll give it. If you have specific advice, please comment without being anonymous and I'll PM you. Any and all advice is appreciated. Thank you and have a wonderful week!
*I placed this in the IB forum instead of business school since I want to go into IB after college, the business school forum seemed more MBA-focused, and the IB forum probably has more traffic.
