I got off the waitlist for Northwestern (Econ) and Brown (CS-Econ), but previously committed to Berkeley (Pre-Haas). Probably going into finance, but not sure completely and possibly want to do something technical like CS/data science as well. I live in socal so I have in-state tuition at Berkeley and around $20k in FA from Brown and Northwestern. Kinda worried about my GPA at Berkeley when applying for an MBA but I’m not sure if it’s worth the extra money.
Since your in pre Haas, and not in Haas I would think about NW and Brown. Cal degrees are a dime a dozen these days. Finance is an area where the cache of the school you graduate from means something, graduating from Brown or NW will carry more weight. Graduating from Cal in Econ your GPA will become a big factor and Cal is a very competitive place. Personally I would go Brown but others might go NW.
Is debt involved?
If I understand correctly, UCal-Berkeley will cost about $32,000 for your first year, while Northwestern University will cost about $52,000 & Brown will also cost about $52,000.
If you need to take out loans for NU or Brown, then UC-Berkeley should be given very strong consideration.
Grades / GPA is not as important for MBA school as one might think. Statement of purpose (career goals), post undergraduate work experience & one’s GMAT / GRE score is more important than one’s undergraduate GPA in most instances. Anything above a 3.40 will suffice for most top MBA programs (although UCal-Berkeley, Stanford & Harvard prefer higher GPAs).
Yes I really have to consider if it’s worth the extra ~25k year…it’d make my family’s life easier if I went to berkeley but it doesn’t rule out the private schools.
25K/yr is still something to consider…can’t say I’d foot the 100K to go to Brown.
Is the difference $25,000 per year or $20,000 ? Regardless of the answer, you need to justify selecting one of the more expensive options. Certainly such justifications can be found considering the school’s involved, but not if student loans are involved.
Have you asked both privates for more financial aid ?
If the difference were just $10,000 or $12,000 per year, then I would lean to Northwestern or Brown simply to avoid the large classes at Berkeley–although Brown also has a lot of classes in the over 50 students category (11% at Brown, 19% at Berkeley and just 6% at Northwestern University).
Northwestern also has the most small classes at 79% versus Brown’s 70% & Cal’s 54%.
$100K of extra debt?! not even a question imo
Be careful about assuming small class sizes anywhere if you want to major in economics, CS, or business, since these tend to be very popular majors at many colleges. You may find the class size comparison to be between large and huge, rather than small and large.
You can try looking at each college’s class schedule to see what the class sizes are in the subjects you are interested in.
The PRE Haas thing puts significant pressire on you, so I would look for ways to make the other 2 possible without overwhelming debt. For an elite school, Northwestern grants a decent amount of credit for AP exams, & the quarter system provides some flexibility in courses, so you might be able to graduate in fewer than 12 quarters ( which is not unusual at NU).
Say you graduate from NU in 3 years…then instead of paying out money that fourth year, you are MAKING money. And the college savings you had intended to spend on the fourth year can be used to lessen the debt in the first 3 years. Also lessen the debt by being a dorm resident assistant at least 1 year, and you might bring the debt down to a manageable level.
@ucbalumnus: Excellent advice in post #8. But, in comparison to a school such as UCal-Berkeley, not relevant in this case. Northwestern’s class sizes are dramatically smaller than any in the UC system including Berkeley.
Having smaller classes than UCB does not mean that the classes are small. A class of 200 is smaller than a class of 1,000, but is not really a “small class” experience. Better to look up the actual class sizes on the schedules rather than assuming.