Graduating Senior-my goal, any chance?

you're a high school senior and you're already worried? wow, what has the world come to? here's my advice: neither cal poly nor ucsd are shitty schools. if you get a 3.5 and network like crazy, you'll get something. start cold calling pwm offices winter of freshman year and try to set something up for the summer... they're easy to get. do that for two summers if you like it and then start shooting for IB or S&T (if that's what you want) during your junior year because the junior/senior internship really counts. work your ass off if you get a SA job and try to turn it into a FT offer.

Hahaha sorry, but college admissions were quite the wake-up call for me. It really hit me hard that I didn't take advantages of my opportunities while my peers, who I believe I can compete with, got into these really top schools. I'm not worried, but I'm trying to prepare the best I can. Thank you for the advice, I will surely network like crazy. Quick question-if I'm doing engineering, will any summer internship with regard to job experience help me or does it strictly have to be finance-related?

I mean turtles hit it with the standard response that you'll always get here.

If I had to do it over again, I would major in Math and Econ instead of Business and Econ like I did.. but it really doesn't make a huge difference. Go join a fraternity, have fun for at least a year, grab a GWM internship if you can or some sort of research job (law firm, working for a professor is great too), then worry about it.

Understandably you are a little nervous and upset that your friends are getting into better schools, and that's fine. When I interviewed with my current boss, he said "you're not one of those ivy league fuckers are you?"

Those people are more prevalent than you would think.

Hahaha your boss is awesome. No doubt I will definitely enjoy college. I just feel sort of like an underachiever. That's good to hear! I will be lurking WSO for quite some time now :) Maybe years from now, I can post about my success? :D

ya definitely make an effort to enjoy college as much as you can and that doesn't necessarily mean getting a girlfriend and partying you're brains out. i think playing in an intramural league is one of the most enjoyable things (of little important) you can do.

I will try and become involved and network like crazy! The reason I'm asking so early on is because I don't want to graduate and have the same feelings as HS-the feeling that I passed up on a lot of opportunities so I'm trying to realize what I need to do first so I would never be in that position again.

those aren't good schools but they're not terrible schools either. Get a 3.8+ and network your ass off and you'll be okay in the long run. You need to get a super-high GPA to get a good job and also to get into a top MBA or law school and give yourself a better brand.

Econ major is enough... throwing in the math major is just going to mess up your GPA. If you're at a target you only need a 3.5, but from these schools you're going to need to be magna/summa to have a really good chance of getting a good job on the street... so don't overload yourself with a tough major like math.

Go to UCSD and then transfer.

See this is where I'm kinda torn. I know Cal Poly is better suited for engineering and I could probably easily land a job/internships and whatnot. However, I could go to UCSD and possibly do straight economics-which they are very good in. How huge is the difference between say engineering and economics? What about SD and Cal Poly? And i'm not sure about transferring, isn't that pretty difficult? Sorry for all the questions-I'm just trying to set myself up the best I can for the future.

Cal Poly is a great school... but at the end of the day it's not a UC. It has 0 reputations on the East Coast.