Career/College Application Help?

College Search & Selection
1

Hey everyone,

I’m currently in the process of trying to decide where I should apply to college. I’m Canadian, graduated from a NE prep school this past spring and am taking a gap year. I’m sort of all over the place and am having a hard time picking where I should go. The choices I have are:

Amherst College - am being recruited for swimming and my admission is basically guaranteed if I apply ED (need to notify coach if I’ll be applying ED in a few days!). If I go here, I’m thinking of doing some pre-med courses, majoring in Econ or Econ&Math and looking at either medicine or investment banking as a career.

Harvey Mudd College - am being recruited for swimming, though my admission isn’t guaranteed (coach said if I apply ED admissions told him I have “strong chances”). Would be majoring in engineering here, no intent on premed or anything.

U of Toronto - since I’m a domestic student, will be much cheaper than the previous two. Would be majoring in Chemical engineering here, possibly swimming (though it’d be more of a time commitment than the other two).

As a bit of background, I enjoyed math and chemistry in High school. Not much of a humanities guy (didn’t like history), though I’m fine with the odd religion or english class. As for the different locations/settings of these 3 schools, I’m pretty indifferent.

My end goal, for personal & professional reasons, is to work in the States (which is making me lean towards Amherst/HMC). My parents & I agree that an engineering degree would be useful, in the sense that I won’t really have to go back to grad school / can start working immediately after undergrad in Silicon Valley, assuming I do well. I have a few friends going the Investment banking route, so I’ve been wondering about that, too (and I’m thinking that the LAC vibe at Amherst will help me since I’m undecided about my career… don’t know if this is true, though). However, I have no prior experience in both finance (wasn’t part of Investment club, etc.) and engineering, so I’m unsure of which career will suit me better. My parents are willing to pay $ for HMC or Amherst, if it’ll be beneficial for my career.

Has anyone been in a similar position as this before? If I really wanted, could I get to Wall Street if I decided I wanted a career change, with a degree in engineering from HMC? Is a BA from Amherst useful / could I work in Silicon Valley with one? Anyone have any advice for someone like me when choosing where to apply?

I only have 2.5 weeks till applications are due and need to inform coaches if I’ll be applying or not, so I’d appreciate any and all comments. Thanks in advance.

2

I’m also on a gap year but I’ve worked at a big tech startup and have learned from that. No one cares where you go to school if you want to be a software engineer. What matters more is your skills. So the answer to “Is a BA from Amherst useful / could I work in Silicon Valley with one?” is yes.

On the other hand, I’m not sure how true this is, but I’ve read on here that financial firms really care about prestige.

If I were you, I’d choose either Amherst or U of T if you have no engineering experience and need more time to figure out a career path.

3

@pleasgod Thanks for your comment. And cool, I saw your comment on another thread that you’re going to be backpacking Europe/Asia… my friend and I are actually gonna be backpacking SE Asia from late nov-late dec. Where are you going?

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@CCThunderfin Awesome! And not sure yet, still planning things out. Have any suggestions of places? Where in SE Asia are you guys going?

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If your objective is Wall Street, there would be many universities that would be better to get there than HMC. Amherst would be better. I found this thread from last year - http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/amherst-college/1878790-wall-street-recruiting-at-amherst.html

If your objective is Silicon Valley, apply to University of Waterloo over U of T. They send a lot of co-op students and graduates to SV.

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@pleasgod I’ve never been to China/India so can’t give any recommendations about those places but SE Asia is perfect to visit in the winter. I have relatives in singapore so I’ll be there in January anyway but my friend and I are backpacking thru parts of Cambodia and Vietnam. Thailand for starters is good, too. I’ve never been to Cambodia or Vietnam, though I’ve heard the scenery’s amazing and food&lodging is dirt cheap. Let me know where u decide heading!

7

You are “sort of all over the place” but that’s ok, you’re young. Apparently you have strong enough swimming recruitment and transcript props to get yourself into top colleges–well done.

You seem to like Amherst best, and have been recruited/talked to the coach. But have you researched the school thoroughly for the academic programs? You’re right that it would be fine for a premed track (and the advising in that seems very good, we checked it out too;) but there may be better options given your notion for quick employment in Silicon Valley engineering.

If you think engineering may be your goal, it wouldn’t be impossible to do at Amherst through the five college consortium (Amherst, Mt Holyoke, Hampshire, U Mass Amherst, and Smith.) Check out U Mass Amherst’s engineering programs, which offer several tracks, including CS.

–BTW a friend of ours is quite happy at Northeastern in CS, which has just opened a new program in cyber security and is a co-op school too. (Like the Waterloo suggestion above.)

My question is, though, you seem to prefer LACs. So why not choose a more engineering-friendly Northeastern LAC in the first place? There’s a 4+1 option at Haverford, for example, where the extra year would get you an advanced engineering degree in cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania. (There’s also a 3+2 at Haverford with CalTech.) It seems to me you’d ace your engineering employability goal with a program like that, however I don’t know about the swimming.

You might also want to look at biomedical engineering? Just throwing that out.

Med school is a long slog. You’d have to really want it. (It wouldn’t be fast employment, MD-wise.) You’d also have to ignore the difficulties surrounding medical practice and health insurance in the US, if you wanted a career here.

Investment banking is also changing–becoming very different from the human/sales element that used to drive it.

If you’re thinking seriously about engineering for the reasons you gave above, then check out the engineering specifics of Northeastern LACs that feel kindred to Amherst. You may like another as much as you like Amherst, one that offers you the training, degree, and career opp you most want.

Anyway, good luck to you.

https://www.haverford.edu/engineering/

8

Do you have US citizenship or permanent resident status? If not, then attending university in the US is a gamble because Canadian companies prefer to hire from Canadian schools, and getting a visa to work in the US is iffy and probably impossible to predict more than four years in advance. Given the job risk of attending a US school, I don’t see how it is worth spending an extra $200,000 to attend university in the US.

I agree with the suggestion above that you consider Waterloo. It is very well known in the US (and also Canada of course) for high tech.

I find it a bit unusual that you are considering very small schools in the US, and the largest university in Canada. If you want a small school then you might want to also consider Trent.

I might also add that Toronto and McGill are very well known in the US. I know a few people who got their bachelor’s at one or the other but now work in the US.

9

Amherst would serve you extremely well and opens career doors at the level of the Ivy league schools, but it is not a place to go to if you are certain you want to be an engineer.

Of course, most of the people working in Silicon Valley are not engineers. If you must be an engineer, go to HMC. If you are interested in pretty much anything else, go to Amherst.

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@IvyGrad09 Thanks for the info. Didn’t look at Haverford as it’s not need blind for Canadians and doesn’t have swimming, though I must admit that engineering joint program w Penn program looks pretty good. When you say investment banking is changing, do you mean it’s harder to find jobs nowadays?

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@DadTwoGirls yeah, I only have Canadian citizenship, no US PR or citizenship.

12

I was in a very similar situation as you. I looked at various D3 colleges and a couple slower D1’s where I could be academically and athletically competitive (I am also a swimmer). I was stuck between Pomona College (right next to Harvey Mudd) and Amherst College, but ultimately chose Amherst. I took a recruiting trip there and just knew that it was the right place for me. I loved the small class size and the swim team and coaches were really great and supportive. I got the impression that people work really hard both in and out of the pool. And many of them had internships in the summer lined up and various other job opportunities.

Have you visited any of the colleges yet? I suggest you visit so you really get a feel for the school/classes/vibe etc.

Hope you apply to Amherst, it’s a great school!! A liberal arts education, in my opinion, will give you a well-rounded approach to life. Do not worry so much about confining yourself to the silicon valley for jobs, you can always move there after your undergrad is done and I think an Amherst degree will take you really far!

Ultimately, it’s your choice. What is your heart telling you? Follow that.

13

It is impossible, actually. An engineering major would mean doing a 3-2 program so leaving Amherst for the final year and doing one extra. The consortium engineering classes are not available to Amherst students for credit/major.