college list help needed
For some background - full pay indian male with some decent connections in the field (mostly people who worked in finance then switched to high ranked corporate jobs if that makes sense). I really don't care about school environment too much but I'd like to get into a school that doesn't make it insanely hard for non div to get a good ib job. Assume i'm your avg T20 applicant, (also instate + autoadmit for UT so I really should be getting in there) so I'm not too worried about getting into at least one decent school. I'm also not considering schools that have been doing questionable in recent years (ie - stanford/dartmouth) no matter what their prestige is.
Safety: IU Kelly / UT Austin (ik ut isn't a safety but idk
Everything else:
UPenn Wharton, NYU Stern, Columbia, Cornell, UMich Ross, Georgetown McDonough, Harvard, Rice, Emory, Yale, Notre Dame, UChicago, Duke, UVA, USC, Northwestern
Should I be reconsidering any of these colleges + are there any other recommendations anyone else would have. I'm also looking for more "match schools" that have something more than a 10% ar. Thanks in advance, and would appreciate any advice
No way bro just said Stanford is doing questionable
Pick a few schools from each level of target which you would be happy going to, don’t just apply to like 20. E.g.
E.D. Wharton
E.A. 1-2 easy/instate state schools, Michigan, UVA
E.D. 2 U Chicago
R.D. Northwestern, Gtown, NYU, maybe 1-2 others
This isn’t the definitive list (nor will I claim it to be, it is just an example), but base it to some extent on which schools you like/speak to you and are targets to some extent.
I know it sounds weird because obv stanford is ranked really well but I have a couple friends who go there from a similar background to me and although they were able to obtain internships and whatnot in IB, they warned me that it mostly goes to diversity instead of orms.
Also college applications have gotten way too competitive these days (most of the schools in my list have rates around 5-10% so if I chose to apply to a total of 10 schools or something there is a possibility i'll only have like 1 admit), and I know that appling to more schools ≠ getting into more but it'll still increase my chances.
I guess at some fundamental level either you have the profile of someone who can get in or not. This means you can either waste a ton of your life writing thirty essays, only to get into your top school, or you can write a ton of subpar essays to thirty schools—most of which you don’t care about—and get into none. I would subscribe to the idea that you apply to a couple schools in each strata because you either have the chops to get into an ivy, or you don’t, in which case apply to all eight confers no advantage that applying to one does. But, hey, if you wanna write 30 essays, it’s your life, but then I don’t see what value add anyone on this forum can be, because your basically gonna apply to every school anyway, so not sure what our feedback on schools do.
As for Stanford, that’s interesting, I have never heard that about it before, but I am guessing it is the same level as at every other elite college too. GS isn’t gonna say “let’s recruit heavy diversity at Stanford, but we aren’t gonna recruit any diversity at Yale.”
IU, UT, Dartmouth, Stanford>>>>>>>Emory, ND, USC. For IB at-least.
In one thread we see that Dartmouth actually punches above its weight in PE recruiting, in another some high schooler claims its "questionable."
This site will forever amuse me.
I'm only saying from I've heard from college friends but I see your point
Also, what about EDing straight to stern? I'm fine with the cost and there are only a couple colleges on my list I'd prefer going to over NYU. I'm trying to find it acceptance rate and I've found estimates for 30% for its ED rate, is that true?
If you are worried about it being too hard to recruit from Stanford, you should not be E.D.-ing to Stern.
As a general rule, E.D. to the college which is your top; if you would take more than 1-2 colleges over it, do not apply E.D..
As for NYU itself, have you visited? It is an okay campus, but I feel like you should at least visit it and a couple other top colleges to really understand if you like it or not because it is very unique.
I would visit but the thing is I don't think theres a point in visiting any campuses (except UT and Rice cause its just a couple hours from where I live) since I don't even know if I'm going to get in. But I have heard a lot about Stern's lack of a college campus/spirit - but I also know stern's placement is insane and its right in NYC.
I think I might into some T20s but I'm not that confident about any of the ivies which is why I'm currently still leaning on EDing to Stern just to guarantee a good school, even with its downsides. Otherwise I'd just ED straight to Wharton
Bro don’t go to Stern. No college experience
This is pretty much the exact list I applied to (minus most of the southern schools on your list, and adding Berkeley UCLA UNC). If you know you're going to get into UT or Kelley, some of these schools aren't even worth applying to just because those two schools place better or just the same as them (imo, Rice Emory USC and maybe UVA are the same or worse).
Since you are applying to Ivies, I'm going to assume you don't care about studying business vs math/econ, since all of them besides Penn and Cornell don't have ugrad biz schools. Therefore, I would look into not applying to the B school at places like Cornell Michigan and instead just their normal colleges. Recruiting is equal between internal schools and you won't get different looks Dyson vs Hotel vs Econ/Math. Same goes for Ross vs Econ. But, it is def more competitive to get into bschool compared to econ. Just a thought.
For practically any of these schools, getting into the best finance clubs will be the most important part of finding a seat, imo. I go to one of the schools you are applying to and assumed the name would carry most of the weight, when in reality the networking access from these clubs is the most important part imo. Happy to PM
I'm like 95% sure I'll get into McCombs (probably not canfield honors though), but I've heard that rice was also decent due to a lack of competition and because its a good school? Or would regular McCombs still be better than Rice?
It's obviously doable, as is breaking in from literally any of the schools you are talking about. But I assume the majority of Rice kids are recruiting to Houston or non-NYC/SF/Chicago offices, especially to energy groups. It will certainly be easier to stand out in recruiting amongst Rice kids vs McCombs kids since the UT kids will be far more 'hardo'.
Linkedin is your friend in this. Go to some of the major firms and look up Rice and then UT and see what the quantitative differences are. People will say 'obviosuly UT will result better because its a bigger school and more kids recruit out of there' but there are proportional caps for the amount banks can hire from certain schools, meaning a bank 'target school' is given X amount of offers/superdays and bank 'semi-target' is given X-3 amount of offers/superdays. For example, there's only 6 or so offers that can go out to Yale students every year at a given bank even though there are likely 50 well-qualified kids in the process (no idea the exact numbers but you get the gist). Although, I only know this to be a fact at some bulge brackets, not sure at EB/MMs.
How are Stanford and Dartmouth not good enough but you want to apply to stern and uva…
^^^^^^ This
yeah looking at the other comments I think I def need to reconsider stanford / dartmouth, my friends were prob wrong about them I guess. I know people talk a lot of shit about stern on this site but thats just because its hypercompetitive + nobody has a life there right? Not because of recruiting
I mean, to some extent the issue is that when you have 100s of kids, recruiting becomes difficult because firms will try to diversify the schools they pull from. This means that Stern may place more than Stanford, but your average placement at Stanford will be better (both because it is seen as better by being an HYPSMW, and because there are less kids per spot, so a greater percentage get top spots and those who don’t get okay spots). Your friends are probably right, a lot of spots go to diversity at Stanford/Dartmouth, but at NYU diversity will get the same boost, and it will be more competitive for top spots because there are a lot more hardos. The best way to see this comparison is probably Stern/Ross/McDonough vs Northwestern: look up NUIBC—“Northwestern University Investment Banking Club—NU sends a lot of kids to top programs despite sending way less in absolute numbers, i.e. NU is a better school to recruit from than any of those three feeders despite not appearing that way.
at hwp rn, here are my 2c. Please understand that every recruiting cycle is getting more and more competitive each year. The people that they are admitting to these top schools are often unpredictable, and you might be a perfect candidate and still get rejected.
Paul_Owen gave a great list of colleges that you should apply to, but id really suggest adding some more for EA and RD just to give you some more breadth of choiches (not that UT isnt good). I'd also say make sure that you apply for BHP at UT Austin, its a great program with decent placement but really smart kids.
If you want any more help, feel free to respond, would be happy to.
I'm def going to apply to BHP, but I don't think I'm going to get in because of my rank (I'm not top 2%, I'm top 4% and I know BHP cares a LOT about rank). What do you think would be a good number of colleges to apply to? I'm pretty good w/ time management and not procrastinating which is why I'm leaning toward "more"
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