I am a junior in high school and I’m thinking of applying to UPenn and NYU. Recently, I have become very interested in business/finance. Since middle school, I thought I would definitely go into STEM, but I have started to doubt that in high school. I think I have the right stats (3.98 unweighted GPA, lots of APs and 5s, 35 ACT) for Wharton/Stern undergraduate, but I’m not sure about my ECs. My ECs are:
Varsity robotics team: assistant captain and business/outreach leader junior year, captain senior year. This takes up most of my time – I probably have 12-20 hours per week of robotics on average, and it lasts all year including summer. I actually spend most of my time doing outreach for robotics, including presenting at two national conferences.
Band: Possibly a section leader for marching/pep band next year. Marching and pep band are on average probably 5 hours per week during their respective seasons (fall and winter).
Student writing coach: 4-5 hours per week throughout the school year. I have a good chance of being the lead coach next year.
Standardized test tutoring: Hard to say how many hours per week, as it depends on when my clients need to meet with me. 2-3 hours per week in general, but it ramps up as tests get closer.
Community service/volunteering: Very robotics and STEM-focused. I run summer LEGO robotics camps at community centers and homeless shelters, and I coach elementary school LEGO robotics teams in the fall. I recently received a community leadership award for my work with getting kids involved in robotics.
I’m worried that since none of my ECs are very business-oriented (with the exception of robotics), it might hurt my chances of getting into Wharton or Stern undergraduate. Any thoughts?
Your stats and extracurriculars are good. There are not too many undergraduate business school applicants with experience at something so technical and challenging as robotics so that would make you stand out. You should also look at MIT Sloan.
@Penn95 Really good advice on MIT Sloan. They have some of the top programs in the quantitate aspects of business (so does Georgia Tech if you need a more likely admission school). Business can be very STEM focused if you want it to be. Just realize that the biggest challenge with technical schools is that you are trapped if you decide you want to switch disciplines and you will get a narrow education (my dad and brother are both engineers and their English and History instruction didn’t go beyond the high school level). I will be attending NYU Stern and you have almost identical stats so you should have no problem with NYU. NYU is a Finance school (75%). Most consulting firms don’t even touch NYU Stern for recruiting because they realize that the Stern kids want bulge bracket banking position and will land them due to NYU’s prestige as a finance school. So definitely look into what specific kind of business you want before picking a school because you don’t want to realize you want to study accounting when only 10 other kids are pursuing the same concentration at your school.
Yeah in general it is preferable to study business at schools that have strong business programs but also are very strong across the board, have a very highly regarded name etc, such as MIT or Penn. Business is a very interdisciplinary field and if you are pursuing a business degree you need to big at an overall strong undergraduate institution to get a proper well-rounded education.