Texas A&M or Penn State?
I am a high school senior from Houston, Texas who is currently deciding on where I should go to college. I am a little above the average student but also 2026 college decisions were a disaster. I was accepted into Texas A&M with my second choice major (Economics) this is not in mays business school and Penn State ( directly into Smeal) At the moment I am a complete mess who switches which college I like the most every other day. I would love to break into IB and I'm willing to go above and beyond to reach my goals. I love Texas A&M and Penn State but I'm not sure how good the opportunities for breaking into IB is. The main problem I have is should I take the risk to transfer into mays when only 100 kids can transfer into mays business school each year. Is it obtainable to transfer in or do yall think it is way too tough? At Penn State, (the safe route) I'm in all I have to worry about is doing well. All in all, it's a tough decision and I'm looking for any insight into what my chances would be like at any of the three. I am also not sure if I want to leave Texas because I really love this state. Do yall also think it is worth staying in Texas to do IB or am I limiting my opportunities? I will be willing to leave though if I have a drastically bigger opportunity than staying in Texas, but I plan to come back to Texas eventually.
Work your ass off to get into mays. Although neither of them are really target, you’ll have better opportunities going to mays as opposed to Penn state. Poets and quants ranks mays in top 25 undergrad business schools so take that as you will. If I were you I’d try getting in as soon as possible, and heavily leveraging your alumni network.
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Not a definite answer, but in my networking I've consistently seen people from Texas A&M working in IB or PC.
PSU all the way. The alumni network is absolutely insane and most if not all kids in the finance clubs place well. Better name nationwide than A&M and a great time too.
Comes down to if you’re willing to leave the great state of Texas. If you go to A&M, it’ll be difficult to do that for a while - like yes you can maybe be one of a handful of kids that go to NYC a year but Aggies do have a bit of an odd reputation at a lot of places in both Houston and NYC. And, candidly, after Fish Camp you’ll be brainwashed and probably won’t want to leave. That said the Aggie Network is very real and powerful, though generally less so within IB. Conversely, I’ve been in both Houston and NYC finance circles and have only come across a handful of PSU grads and I believe every time they were engineering undergrad. That’s not to say that there aren’t PSU business grads in finance, just not in the space I’ve been in I guess.
Texas A&M is arguably about to hit its most successful stretch they've ever had in college football over these next few years so if you're into the SEC experience and want to watch your school win a natty then go there. Sending more and more kids to NYC every year, and you can find an Aggie at nearly every bank in Houston. As time goes on I find it harder and harder to ever convince myself to leave Texas though, absolutely no reason to in my opinion, fucking love this state.
What’s the cost at each?
Texas A&M: 30k since i'm in state
Penn State 55k
Save yourself some money and stay in state. Study hard and get into the business school.
A&M would get my vote if you get into Mays. Better ranking, lower cost, Texas>Pennsylvania.
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