Boston College at Full cost or Unknown LAC with scholarship?

Transfer Students
21

I was wondering the exact same thing. Sometimes students under-appreciate their own “very good but not super top ranked” schools.

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22

If I manage to get into BC I would also get the chance to become that “A” student, which will be helpful when applying to places.

If there was no debt involved in my situation, would you advise to transfer instead?

23

But there IS debt. So getting As now (esp.with lots of math)+getting into top rated graduate program remains the more cost-effective option.
Did you apply to BC only or are you waiting for more answers?
We need to know what LAC you’re talking about to have an idea of what you’re talking about and the limits it does place on your path.

1 Like
24

Attending BC is not a guarantee of an opportunity to work in IB, but it does increase your odds of getting an interview with the ten bulge bracket banks.

Did you get the PM that I sent to you ?

How did you get your IB internship while at your current school ?
Is the bank a boutique or a bb ?

What is your home state flagship university ?

Getting an internship with IB is a significant step toward getting an offer of employment.

1 Like
25

From WSO, here is a list of IB target schools for BB banks:

  1. UPenn

  2. NYU

  3. Harvard
    (The top 3 are the dominant schools.)

  4. Univ. of Cambridge

  5. Cornell

  6. Univ. of Texas at Austin

  7. Columbia

  8. Duke

  9. Chicago

  10. Michigan
    (Top 10 has some significance in terms of percentage at the BB banks.)

  11. Yale

  12. Virginia

  13. Boston College

  14. UCLA

  15. London School of Economics (LSE)

  16. Princeton

  17. Georgetown

  18. Northwestern (much better for MC–management consulting)

  19. ASU–Arizona State Univ.

  20. BYU

  21. Georgia Tech

  22. Penn State

The list of target schools for boutiques is different and includes schools such as Indiana, Vanderbilt, USC, UCal-Berkeley, Dartmouth, Illinois, & UNC-Chapel Hill.

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26

Essentially, you may be giving up a near debt free MBA if you elect to attend BC at full sticker price.

The top value MBA programs (ROI) for those paying sticker price are:

  1. Univ. of Washington–Foster School of Business
  2. Harvard
  3. Univ. of Texas at Austin–McCombs
  4. Univ. of Virginia–Darden
  5. UCal-Berkeley–Haas
  6. Stanford
  7. Yale
  8. UNC-Kenan-Flagler

Not sure why UPenn-Wharton is not on this list.

While an MBA is not as important in IB as it is in MC, an MBA degree from a top program opens up many lucrative opportunities.

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27

At your age, kids tend to heavily discount the future. I know I did. But to get a name school on your resume/OCR at a target school, saving your money for a Masters like that Duke program (there are others like it and more quantitative ones) or top MBA may be more cost-effective.

I won’t say it’s a slam dunk because BC would offer a BC undergrad experience (grad school isn’t exactly the same, though could be similar).

I would say that both BC undergrad or a Masters at a target school could get you where you want to go and it seems that you have enough money to only spend on one of them. 20/40 years from now, the expense/ROI won’t be what you will think about. Instead, it will be the experience. So have you visited BC? Do you have a burning desire to be an Eagle (I can’t say I sense that; especially since you are asking strangers on the internet). If you don’t, does spending extra on BC make sense? Especially since it is possible to break in to IB from a non-target, even if it is tougher, but if you manage that, the $100K or so you saved could turn in to a decent sum after 20/40 years of compounding investment returns.

28

Graduating BC with $35k in debt is 100% worth it if you want to do IB. Even if you don’t like IB specifically, come to terms with the fact you will NOT be working on the street from that “unknown” LAC without getting extremely lucky and working a network.

You’ll make at least double the 30k in excess earnings in your first year if you do IB vs. a job from that unknown school with no connections (assuming you have the grades, do the right things to get into IB).

2 Likes
29

An example of more quantitative oriented masters degrees:

MQM: Business Analytics is a 10 month masters program for recent college grads with a strong quant background.

30

Those aren’t the only options. And have you taken in to account taxes and COL?

31

which taxes do you mean in this regard?

32

Is your hypothetical $30K pre-tax or after-tax?

33

I absolutely love to hear that…speaking my mind

34

While $35,000 in debt is not likely to be a hardship for a BC graduate, the real issue is the total additional COA for two years at BC which may be as much as $150,000 since OP is “on scholarship” at the small LAC & OP has obtained an IB internship while at the small LAC.

In short, the focus should be on total additional cost of $150,000 and not just on potential student loan debt of $30,000-$35,000.

2 Likes