You can google it, but that’s exactly what it means. I’ve had 1/2/3 in college since 2014, unfortunately we are in the donut hole so many schools were off the table even though they had the stats for more selective schools.
This is interesting. I know Alabama - which buys kids in like your daughter and hence has such a large NY (853 current students) /NJ population (842 current students) and CT 252 - was accused of targeting “rich” counties and school districts in their recruiting.
Sounds like Michigan State might be doing the same.
Figuring if we can buy some of the best and brightest from top outside our zone areas, we can improve our standing!!
Of course, Michigan State is #1 in Supply Chain - so that will attract many regardless of other things - including finances.
This was from the article I mentioned - the quote was targeted at Bama (and obviously others)
“A small number of universities exhibit recruiting patterns broadly consistent with the historical mission of social mobility for meritorious state residents,” the researchers concluded. “However, most universities concentrated recruiting visits in wealthy, out-of-state communities while also privileging affluent schools in in-state visits.”
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As I counsel kids (often some who have graduated with the uber practical degrees because they were so clear-headed about which jobs pay what) I often hear “I have a degree in finance but I don’t want a desk job”. So we break that down- what was the appeal of finance? What skills have you developed that might be transferable to a job that does not involve manipulating numbers on a spreadsheet (which typically means desk job).
And although I’m pretty creative about fungible skills-- hey, the National Parks system needs finance people, Disney World hires oodles of finance pros, Princess Cruise needs talented finance people-- at the end of the day, if you’re going to deploy your skills in financial analysis, at some point it’s you, a computer screen, and a spreadsheet. That’s just reality. If you are working on a large infrastructure project (deep water port in the Gulf of Mexico) your workspace might be at the top of a drilling platform. But if you’re working in financial analysis, you probably aren’t the person wearing a scuba mask at the bottom of the gulf.
I think this is an important reality check for kids who are still in HS who decide they maybe kinda sorta want a specialized degree in finance. They need to understand what finance IS-- and also, what those types of jobs involve. If you’re working for Mattel- yay, Barbie. If you’re working for Starbucks- hey, pricing analysis of new beverage offerings. But the fundamentals of the roles have some locked in parameters and most HS kids don’t really understand that.
Can the kid with a finance degree retool? of course.
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I wasn’t referring to a chess club. I have a kid who has that level of commitment and I would never consider him a competitive applicant. But my other child does a fall varsity sport, plus student government, clubs and other ECs on top of a full AP/IB course load. She and most of her friends managed to submit their applications by the ED/EA deadline. I don’t think the colleges will take the fall commitments into consideration because so many students get it done anyway. I wish the teachers at their school would give a lighter homework load during those first few months of school, but they wouldn’t let up.
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We are in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA so practically the midwest. Watching the admit rates drop drastically post-Covid has been eye opening. I love Naviance for the data points.
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I understand! My D22 did not apply to anything in the Midwest.
I am sure that all the colleges that are national in scope are aware that certain pockets of the country produce students that are able to handle the rigors of intense college programs (and often afford to pay full freight for it too). Michigan State actually does the behind the scenes math where they predict how you will do there based on how others from your high school (with similar GPA) did at MSU.
Recently I have seen U Michigan become ultra competitive to get into. (I will note that per poets & quants, Ross admit rate last year was 9.8%.) Around here it seems like Wisconsin is the new U Michigan. At least for the average excellent unhooked liberal arts major.
Applying regular decision isn’t considered a travesty, or rude. Some kids are trying to get their SAT scores up in November or December, and from what I researched online, it said applying EA gave you a 5% increase in odds over RD. Like I said above, if it’s not, it’s not.
As for kids who do a varsity sport, as well as student gov (not a huge time sink) and charity work (also not a huge time sink), and another club, and are also EXCELLENT academically, these are very few (and you should be proud of your daughter, she is in rare air). As an example, although my kids HS has 550 kids per class, big sports, and very competitive academics at the top level. My daughter was the only one on the entire soccer team that was doing that. A few other kids poked around with an honors class or two, or tried AP Psych one year, but none that were truly doing the full load academically. The other kids just had less to do outside of the sport. I for one am glad that it is now over (her fall season ended) as the lack of sleep to make it happen is just not right for teens.
My D24 is VERY interested in Wisconsin. To be honest, she is more interested in schools where she is in the top 25% than schools that match her stats level. Not because she wants to be any kind of big fish, quite the opposite, she’s super humble and would prefer to be around kids who aren’t always trying to be the best in the universe at everything. The kids with 20 ECs (totally manufactured if you have 20) scare her off as being unrelatable.
Bama has a huge presence at our kids school. 10 years ago they didn’t, but they are recently going very hard at the schools in our area. Part of it could be just for out of state revenue (kids who can pay full price OOS for Bama, or close to it).
At least at our school, no one from the top 40% of the kids in our school is going to Bama. It’s usually ACP (which is college prep level we have below honors or AP) kids with lower SAT scores going there. But they are great quality kids, often very good socially, and I am sure they will do well, and more often than not, it’s the kids who are highly ranking social experience at college above anything else (greek life, parties, sports, campus).
Not to nitpick, but to avoid confusion: you’re referring to a current HS senior? If yes, this would be your D24 (daughter, HS class of 2024).
If you think that athletes (especially female ones) with high test scores, rigorous classes, and significant EC commitments are anomalies, you may want to rethink your daughter’s competitive chances. There will be many, many students with similar profiles in the applicant pool at all competitive colleges.
The valedictorian of the high school my kids attended is almost always a female athlete. My older daughter was a two sport varsity athlete, played club for one, took the most rigorous course load, and had significant other EC commitments (one which garnered her national awards and scholarships). For better and for worse, she learned to prioritize, multitask, and go without sleep so that she got it all done, including her college applications. Most of her friends in college were similar. They are not the exception, nor were they the exception at their high schools.
Applying RD isn’t a travesty, but many schools view EA applications as a sign of demonstrated interest. Even if the student is deferred in EA, the early app helps in RD because the school factors in a higher yield potential.
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Haha, oops! I thought it was age. She is 17, class of 2024
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We were lucky because D22 was a recruited athlete, so she heard the “no” early on in the process from schools that pre-covid might have been a “yes.” Many of her friends felt blindsided by so many rejections. These were kids that in the old days had really cushy soft landings if they didn’t get into the Ivy of their choice. (Our Ivy numbers took a hit post-Covid too.) It was really hard for those who had siblings that went through in 2019 or 2020, because everything changed so much.
After going through the process with D22, we were very realistic with S24. He is football, so we knew he would be busy Aug-November each year. So he did testing the summer before Junior year so he had a test score and a GPA to work with. Did a deep dive the summer before Junior year where we talked about why he wanted to go to college, what he wanted out of college, and what he wanted his day to day to look like at college.
We dug into which clubs or organizations would he join on each campus and how competitive are they (he’s finance); placement rates and positions for full time and for internships; major program structure (including stuff like whether and how much foreign language/gen eds, as well as are your electives specific to finance, business or anything, and whether and how they subdivide the finance major into specialties). From that we narrowed down the list to 12 or so schools. Then we did all of the school visits (except one) from the end of football thru to Spring of Junior year. His list was final by April or so of Junior year and included 9 schools. Then he put together his Common App stuff over the summer, doing essays in July, so that when football became full time in August he was good to go. During that time after further reflection he took 2 of the schools off his list. So he only had 7 apps to complete.
It seemed really crazy at the time, but really he just pushed his crazy time line early so that he could enjoy football. And because the process started early and stretched so long, we had lots of time to reality test what he said he wanted. For example, he did a week long summer program at one of the schools on his list to see (a) if he liked the school (turns out he did not, becasue of the size–good info to know!), (b) if he minded being a plane ride away (he did not mind), and (c) if he liked the sub-area in finance that was the subject of the program (he did). If we hadn’t had the list going by winter of Junior year he would not have been able to apply to get into that program to test his interests.
I think that because he has been thinking about these 7 schools for so long and in such depth, he really would be happy at any of them. And that makes me happy!
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Having spent a lot of time researching Wisconsin for finance … one thing my son really liked was that the business school there front loads the finance classes and you do your gen eds as a senior. This is the sample 4 year plan: Business: Finance, Investment, and Banking, BBA < University of Wisconsin-Madison
D24 knows he wants to do finance. He would prefer to take a lot of finance classes up front so that he knows something going into internships and then he can take some fun classes senior year after he (hopefully) has a job lined up. If your daughter is hoping to explore multiple major options her first year, Wisconsin might not be the best fit from that standpoint. That said, I know that some kids go into the school of business after freshmen or soph year, so maybe they let you take the classes in a different order or different years if you want.
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I would strongly encourage her to apply to Ross. She has the stats for sure. Even for direct admit you first apply to U-Michigan in any one of the other schools (not Ross) and indicate Ross as your top choice. If you are admitted to U-Mich your app gets sent to Ross. My S24 has applied to Ross EA (via LSA Economics), it is amongst his top 5 list (all top 5 are high reaches). We are in CA and Berkeley Haas is his #1 which is also the most economical for us. He wants to work in Finance and has been a little too rigid about that.
Interestingly the Ross portfolio was daunting at first but as he did the 2 portfolio requirements (the business case and the artifact) it made him think harder about it actually meant to major in business and he actually liked explaining his artifact (which was not business related) and his business case. Now I need to nudge him to apply to Wisconsin and Uof Minnesota as well.
That’s amazing that you were able to get it down to 7 schools he’d be happy with. I love that. We did something very similar so that by the time summer started before senior year, D24 had testing done and a solid college list. She started working on her apps as soon as school let out. We knew she wouldn’t have time once august rolled around because tryouts and practices start the second week of august! The only frustrating thing was supplementals came out in august and she just didn’t have time to get them done so she was working on them up to the EA deadline. I did have her apply to Pitt and PSU even though she’d rather go farther away. However, they both have exactly what she’s looking for, especially PSU, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up there in the end.
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I had a family member at UC Berkeley who is a recent grad. They said admission to haas isn’t guaranteed until after sophomore year. Of his ten UCB friends who applied to Haas as sophomores only one was admitted. Does Haas really operate that way or do they also have a direct admit pathway? I think UNC-CH has that setup, too.
The drawback of applying to Ross without a sense of preparedness is what the OP cited early on: If not accepted to Ross now, his daughter will not be able to apply at any point in the future. His student has strong stats, but Ross has a single digit acceptance rate and she is coming from an overrepresented state, so it sounds like they have determined that it makes more sense to keep the Ross possibility in her backpocket so that she could potentially apply as a student.
If your son is interested in exploring more about finance. I just came across this website: https://www.theforage.com/
I’m curious if anyone here has experience with this site/program. It looks like a nice way to get an idea about what a given job in finance might be like on a daily basis.
My D22 was interviewing this past fall for consulting internships–I wish I knew about this so she could have looked at some of these and learned a bit more about the day-to-day before interviewing.
Respect your opinion, but I am going to continue to go with the anecdotal evidence I have seen. Many of the candidates have a flush EC list, no doubt. But team sports, the really competitive ones that only select athletes can make (so different than track, or the sports where it’s easier to make a team without a lifetime of out of school training), have a lower percentage of top scholars combos (basketball, soccer, football, baseball).
Of the schools, the ones my daughter didn’t get to yet were either the ones like UC schools (which have a later deadline, she finished those this week), or schools like U Mich - where she wasn’t planning to apply to it initially and changed her mind later.
I don’t disagree with the impact it can have on demonstrated interest, and why that matters for yield. But there isn’t anything I can do about that now. So I am looking forward and trying not to dwell on what I cannot change