High School Junior Looking For College Advice

Greetings,

I am currently a junior in high school who is looking to get into IB after college. Doing some research these past few months, I feel as though my current "stats" are subpar and could significantly hinder my ability to get into a target school. See below:

  • GPA: unweighted is ~3.6, weighted is ~3.9 (All of my classes are AP or honors). I have definitely been trying to improve in this area while not completely abandoning my life outside of academics.
  • SAT: I project it to fall between 1460 and 1510 by extrapolating past trends in my results and using the estimations from the CollegeBoard.
  • EC's: They have been limited by Covid the past couple years as mostly everything was cancelled, but I am currently in a few clubs that focus on skills ranging from engineering to public speaking.
  • Demographics: White male from the middle class
  • Other: I run a blog/media brand for teenagers interested in invested

I will be apply to college in the fall of 2022 and I have a few questions that I have been struggling with and hope those here can provide advice on.

  1. Considering the above metrics, which schools would you suggest I look at apply to?
  2. What steps should I take to improve before applying? I did some quick math and at this point my GPA is pretty much locked in, but I think I can get that 1500+ on the SAT. What else should I look at working on?
  3. Are there any programs/opportunities for people my age that I should take advantage of related to IB or business/finance in general?

Thank you all for your time, and I greatly appreciate answers to any of these questions or just general advice. 

 

I would first and foremost apply to my state college for finance/business/economics  and a STEM major, even being fron on-target having STEM in mix will greatly improve your chances. Other than that Villanova, Vanderbilt and ND are the only schools which come to mind but you can look at more extensive list on site.

I would probably try to focus application more on what I wanted to study and do in future but that doesn't mean drop everything else, just make sure you have some role in finance/economics club pre-college and a heavier focus in college.

As for networking, unless there is someone specific i.e. recently attended your school, cousin, uncle/aunt, church links etc. you want to ask questions (not ask for job obviously) then go ahead but otherwise it is way to early to cold email or anything of that nature.

 

Maybe I’m wrong but I think you have a pretty good profile. Not saying you’ll get into Harvard but there are so many schools that have pipelines into IB that you should have no problem getting into a lot of these colleges if you can write decent applications.

Schools like Williams, OSU, SMU, Florida, etc come to mind from a recent thread on NY IB target schools. Not to mention that IB isnt only NY and if you’re open to regional offices then even better.

Although I would say that you are probably only 16 years old so you have 6 years before you graduate so don’t fixate your decisions on a job you may not want to do in 6 years time. Also wayyy too early to start networking for IB

 

Williams is in a whole other league than the schools you just listed.

 

Agreed, I applaud your forward thinking and strategic mindset when applying to college, but you do NOT need to be worried about your ExOps from college rn lol. Choose the best school for you (best academics, alumni network, and social life) and you’ll figure the rest out in a couple years. It’s good that you’re thinking about it because you don’t want to chose some tiny school that will completely prevent you from entering the industry, but anyone who says “I’ve known that I want to be an investment banker since I was 9 years old” is a huge red flag. Just do you, work your ass off, get into the best school you can, and figure everything else out in a couple years.

 
Most Helpful

Great to see you’re already looking this far ahead. Having gone through this process a year ago, here are some things that really stood out to me.

  • Class Rank/GPA

Make sure that you are doing everything you can to get a high class rank as a lot of schools look into that especially competitive state schools. Taking all honors/AP is solid but also make sure you aren’t getting low Bs and Cs in these courses. Colleges like the strength of the schedule aspect a lot.

  • Business/Blog

One thing that really benefitted me in my application process was having a company myself. Possessing an entrepreneurial spirit is something that can differentiate you from most applicants. If you are making money from your brand and blog, I would incorporate as an LLC so as to show universities that you ran a legitimate operation. Weave this into some of your essays, if it applies. Really expound on this, I think this could be a huge differentiator on your application.

  • Essay

Start brainstorming essays for the Common App prompts as soon as possible. Also check to see if your schools have supplemental essays. I know schools like Michigan have a whole different application for their BBA program which have a ton of essays to write. Better to not rush them. I would say that having strong essays helped me get into some very competitive schools.

  • Networking

Like others have said, it’s obviously way too early to start asking for internships, cold emailing, etc. With that being said, if you have family friends in banking or are just successful, make a point of talking to them at gatherings. I know myself and lots of my buddies have gotten great internships just because we made an effort to get to know these people. Never too early to build a LinkedIn page as well and start connecting with a few people on there.

  • Schools

Not sure where you’re at, but there’s no harm in applying to a ton of places. I applied to 20 myself and am still happy I did that. Schools like OSU, UVA, Vandy, Emory, etc are all great.

Feel free to DM if you have any questions! Happy to help.

 

I would honestly look to schools where you can get laid the most and has the hottest girls, and where IB recruits. This will do wonders for your confidence, and that will carry over to your interviews come junior year. So like Vanderbilt, Brown, Stanford come to mind. 

 

Kelley should be a safety for you. I just got into Kelley a few weeks ago with a 4.0W/3.4 UW and a 33 ACT. I would recommend schools like UNC, Notre Dame, UTA, BC, Vandy, Emory, so basically the Semi-target range of IB schools.

 

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