Great to know about Wisconsin. At this stage, she’s already applied, but if she is accepted, we will look at that as a factor. I agree with your son’s approach, you can always sort of shift to other things later, but my D20 (graduated HS in 2020) is in year 3 of school and only now getting into major courses heavily, and so she’s behind the curve big time on internships and such. She’s likely to not have any internships as a result when she graduates. She’s in 3d animation at an engineering school, and internships there are 99% based on portfolio, and her portfolio is weak due to lack of classes taken in time. She has a huge 2d portfolio, but not enough 3d.
Very interesting. As someone who has worked for one large bank, and 4 major hedge funds, I would be very curious to see how accurate and in depth it is. Simulation concept is genius. A “day in the life” sort of thing.
As mentioned, I have been working in funds for 2 decades now (I am on the software engineering side), and I have seen all the roles in depth (recruiting, HR, trade ops, traders, risk, compliance, quants, analysts, PMs, fund accountants, data analysts, tech, and so on), and I have them all ranked in my head. Some are lower pay, less creativity, and people who are just punching the clock (operations), and others are exciting but high risk (analysts, PMs). In the funds I have worked in, all of the special treatment goes to the Portfolio Managers (PMs), and analysts. Treated like kings, can bend company rules, wear ripped jeans or a baseball cap if they feel like it, have everything paid for. There’s a high demand for success and it is ultra competitive, but that job seems way better than being a fund accountant or a trading ops person (fund equivalents of Morlocks). Risk analysts have it pretty good as well, as do treasury and portfin folks.
And that’s the rub.
RD decisions will probably be released at the end of March or early April. An applicant must be accepted to their “home school” before Ross can evaluate an application. And Ross will probably have had two releases already, one mid-Feb and one mid-March.
For intents and purposes, at least in years past, but for a couple or just a few Ross acceptances that chose to go elsewhere, Ross has likely closed their decisions after the mid-March decision.
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I think kids with top stats don’t necessarily imply motivation - that’s the risk with that line of thinking.
The flip side is - one can go to a lesser ranked school - my daughter chose College of Charleston over- Florida, UGA Honors, Wash & Lee - and the pedigree isn’t there but her classes are small and she’s a Charleston Fellow - which is a small cohort within the Honors College that does really great stuff.
So I think your daughter can find motivated kids - at UCLA, Michigan, Wisconsin and more - but can also find those not motivated, who breezed through HS, are great test takers, and will end up partying out of control with mom and dad gone…and it’s easier at big schools to skip class which many do.
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I’m surprised at this. I’d think they have so many kids because they are high stat. They are buying them in - although schools with auto merit - Alabama, Miss St., etc. don’t look at rigor - and in the case of Bama only a 3.5 is needed - but a 32 ACT to score great rigor.
At Arizona, another fine school, a 3.9 is needed for great merit - but no test score.
Surprised to hear they are pulling in full pay kids - but maybe those kids a rung below are scoring those auto merit and paying less. And they get NMFs - as much as anyone.
But yeah - they were accused of going after rich areas - and perhaps you’re right, it’s driving revenue.
I think certain schools you know - if you don’t apply EA, it’s going to be tough. UMD comes to mind - I think 90% of their class is filled EA - and they’ll have plenty of kids like your daughter - it’s a tough in. There are others - I think Purdue is another.
I don’t know where Michigan is in this scenario - as to whether or not it will hurt.
Wish her well.
Are you pushing your daughter towards a school with a business school and dedicated finance curriculum based on your observations or is that her preference? When you say finance what initial type of roles do you think would be of interest to her?
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Unless your kid is a recruited athlete, the sport doesn’t matter much from an EC perspective. It’s not like the AOs are looking for soccer players vs. track or swimming or anything else.
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Because at many large publics your chances are very significantly diminished if you apply RD instead of EA. Not prioritizing top choices when completing apps doesn’t usually work in one’s favor.
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Haas has a direct entry pathway starting this year (Fall 2024 applicants), they also have a Global Management Program that has always been direct admit (small class size, only 75 I think)
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This really doesn’t change anything. The question was asked after the EA deadline, so unless there is a time machine … unless your point is “don’t even bother”
This is a great discussion actually. So for some, it doesn’t matter. But I would advise against that line of thought because so many leaders I know (male and female) played contact team sports. It seems like almost all of them actually (outside of pure tech industry). It’s likely because those kids were very balanced, strong, resilient, tough, while also being very intelligent. They learned how to deal with people shoving and even trying to hurt them. They dealt with the most competitive tryouts and cuts, the most ruthless coaches and teammates. Very different than track or clubs. It’s not everything - but I would think anyone that would dismiss it or treat it no different than any other EC is missing some key info. Feel free to disagree, just my 2 cents.
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I agree team sports provide many useful things, but they are treated like any other EC in admissions if not recruit level. Of course, most participate for reasons unrelated to admissions.
A remarkable number of high school students commit 30-40 hours per week to ECs. I don’t think that is good, but it is not uncommon.
And there are tons of successful people in lots of different fields who played violin in a county youth orchestra, danced in a professional company, published their first novel at 17, and developed a cutting edge algorithm to predict flu outbreaks in nursing homes.
It’s tempting to look at our own kids accomplishments and nod “yep, that’s the ticket”. But there are multiple tickets. And not just team sports- the solo sports as well. An accomplished figure skater has spent thousands of hours on the ice-- and that focus and tenacity will serve him/her well whatever path he/she takes in life.
Adcom’s value ALL of these things.
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No. A little, but because she kept inquiring.
So I have three daughters, 2 are already in college. First one didn’t want much to do with STEM. Second one did, and she was an artist who also did CS programming AP classes, strong in math, and ultimately decided to major in 3d animation to hit upon her art and STEM side. She got a large merit award from WPI, worked out great.
Both of these kids knew what I did, and heard all about my job of course growing up. I took them in a few times on bring your kids to work days (they loved the office), but neither wanted to go into finance or business.
When I asked the third what she wanted to do, she said “be paid very well”. Her perspective was that a job is a job, and you should have interest, but you don’t have to love it as your hobby. She is very good at Math, Science and Technology (she won the school’s Woman in STEM award for her cumulative work over her first 3 years in those areas). She has a true love for Human Geography (and did Geography club stuff), and she likes global economics. She is very strong in math and even enjoys it (crazy, right? Not me). So we talked about careers, I mentioned everything from medical to law to business to CS to finance, and her dream job at the moment was being a financial analyst/expert who specializes in global econonics/human geography type things.
So while I think finance is one of MANY decent career paths, if you enjoy that stuff, I’m not forcing or pushing her much, only when she asks me for details. I did have her meet with a awesome woman I knew from a past job that was a successful financial analyst, and she really enjoyed the chat and hearing about what the woman did.
But both my daughter and I agree that things change. She knows that I changed my major twice, and that her oldest sister has already changed majors. So the idea is going to a great school with a good number of lateral branch options for career paths.
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There is no reason to be dismissive of Track as a sport or even clubs. Maybe at your school its not a demanding sport, but there are plenty of athletes out there who put A LOT of time into it and compete at a very high level.
Regardless, while I agree athletes bring a lot to the table, the demand of the sport will not be seen as a reason to not be on top of things. It’s unfortunate and like you said, nothing to do now, but that is not the same as it being ok. Same is true for the EA app. We are simply saying, for anyone who comes read/learn for this thread, that EA should be taken advantage of when available.
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I wasn’t being dismissive - just saying I personally might rate certain ECs, especially the ones that have tryouts and cuts a bit higher. We know a very dedicated runner who is going to an Ivy next year.
Fair enough!
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We each have our own rating systems. For better or worse, the adcom’s don’t care how WE rate certain EC’s.
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I bet this is common. My kid would have majored in atmospheric sciences - not engineering - but he wants to live at least similarly to how he grew up.
My daughter says her bf will make enough since she’ll make less. He’s in finance at U Denver. Here’s hoping he does.
Yeah, I am a bit torn on it as well. There are so many rewarding, fantastic careers out there, that just don’t pay very well. So you often need to choose between work happiness, and what I describe as “choice”. When I talk to my kids about making money (we do well), and how hard I have to work for it and how I don’t love everything about my job, I talk about the freedom of choice it gives us. Many people can’t replace a car, or a washing machine even. But at any time fortunately we can. We can choose to go on a few trips each year. We can choose to move. I can choose to change jobs. I can afford to go see a specialist for medical out of network.
In the end, some people prefer to choose a career they love, but spend all of their time outside of that job with a large lack of choices in all of their free time. Ideally if you can have both, great! I wanted to be a video game programmer, but quickly turned to business/finance programming when we had our first kid, and I wanted more choice (to buy a small house, an SUV, afford life insurance, etc.)
Good luck to your daughter and her bf at UD! My oldest is majoring in something that will likely not pay well, and her boyfriend at college is trying to major in robotics.