“A lot of money” comes in various sizes, and there are various ways to get there.
Investment banking is indeed one way to make a lot of money. It is however also a stressful job with very long hours. Is this what you want to do? This would not be my path, but it is a path that some people choose to take. How do you feel about a stressful job that requires long hours?
Steve Jobs made a lot of money, but from what I understand his first intention was just to make a computer that he and his friend Steve Wozniak could use (I guess they wanted to make two computers). Then of course they marketed it to others. Steve Jobs turned out to be a genius at coming up with product ideas and selling the ideas, and Steve Wozniak turned out to be a genius at actually getting things to work. They did what they wanted to do.
One way to make a lot of money is to have an idea, do what you want to do, do it the way that you want to do it, and be right (and a bit lucky). Nearly always this requires working with a small group of the right other people.
I think that @circuitrider may be on the right track, or at least have something to think about, particularly regarding highly ranked schools that also have agriculture.
What is your budget, per year? If we say that most of these schools have a cost-of-attendance (COA) of $80k, 90% of that is $72k, meaning that your budget is about $8k/year. Is that correct?
Cornell is the first “highly rejective” school that came to my mind when I read your OP. Excellent additional suggestions from others of schools with working farms.
@White_Rose1 Adding to the above question, I may have missed it, but does your family qualify for need-based aid? If so, have you run the NPCs at a few schools on your list to make sure their calculation of aid is in line with what your family wants?
For the UC’s and Cal states, the Cal grant program helps low and middle income California students with college expenses. Every student should run the NPC’s for the UC and CSU campuses of interest.
@White_Rose1 exactly what do you mean by this for Cornell? There isn’t guaranteed housing on campus for all four years, but so what? There are plenty of private apartments near the campus that are largely lived in by students.
Yes, there is need-based financial aid for California residents at UCs and CSUs (state programs like Cal Grant as well as campus-specific grants). Students should check the net price calculators.
Adding on to Thumper’s comment about the availability of nearby, off-campus apartments – if you qualify for financial aid, then the amount of financial aid that would normally be allocated to dormitory living will instead be allocated towards paying for an off-campus apartment. And sometimes the latter is less expensive, depending on where you choose and how many roommates you live with. Plus, you can save money by cooking for yourself instead of being on meal plan.
And many, many colleges don’t guarantee on-campus housing for all four years. But most will guarantee it for at least freshman year, and sometimes sophomore year.
Top 10 = Harvard, NYU, UPenn, Columbia, Cornell, LSE, UMi, UT-A and UNC-CH.
Notice that only 3 of those are even on your list?
Actually get into one of them
You are not the first student to think “I want to get into College X so that it will get me into Company Y”. Be aware that College X is not really interested in simply being your stepping stone- they want you to want them for themselves.
You have an actual story to tell, but you don’t want to tell it to places that would appreciate it.
You only want schools that guarantee housing all four years? That greatly limits your choices.
I went to Cornell. It’s not a big deal. The adjacent Collegetown neighborhood is all students living off campus.
From the Cornell website:
On-campus housing guarantees
All first- and second-year undergraduate students who are studying full-time on the Ithaca campus are required to live on campus, or in affiliated housing that has been approved to fulfill the residential requirement through the spring semester of their second academic year of enrollment. New transfer students starting in spring of 2023 are required to live on campus for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Juniors and seniors are not guaranteed on-campus housing. Rising juniors and seniors who would like to live on campus for the 2023-2024 academic year are strongly encouraged to apply to and participate in their continued occupancy process.
OP- you do NOT need to major in finance to get a job in investment banking, you do NOT need to work in I banking to make a lot of money to finance your dreams, and you most certainly do not need to play up your interest in finance in order to get into a college which will meet your academic needs.
Kids who want to work in I banking and make a zillion dollars are literally a dime a dozen. They live all over the country; they end up at Harvard and MIT and Villanova and Fairfield and Wake Forest and Swarthmore and U Chicago and Fordham and Baruch and U Michigan and BC. Public, private, Catholic, secular- all over the place. They played lacrosse in HS or tennis or volunteered at an animal shelter or taught programming to the visually impaired or did Morris dancing and were National Honor Society and were champion debaters and revamped the year book and were promoted to manager of the local pizza store. They started non-profits to eliminate hunger or to promote financial literacy or to eradicate cervical cancer.
Everything and anything.
You happen to have something unique-- genuine- which will set you apart at a wide range of colleges in the country-- your interest in farming and agronomy.
So go do that. You can work in I banking-- if that’s what you are still interested in doing. But the likelihood of you getting in to a highly rejective college based on your interest in finance and making a lot of money- join the club and get in line. There are tens of thousands of those kids.
The “IB Feeder” plan is shifting as we speak. Some of it is technology, some of it is post-Covid, some of it is the banking industry going in to one of it’s periodic reshuffling/who are we, how many people do we really need. But a downturn in M&A creates uncertainty which creates layoffs which creates both anxiety and opportunity.
You cannot predict what the hiring targets or cycle is going to look like in 5 years. So get off that merry-go-round. You be you. Find a college where you can explore your non-banking interests and trust the system that if you are a strong, top student with a robust set of interests and skills and experiences, the right career will find you.
These are cool. Since I have been known to make bread and also to brew beer, I am curious what the intended use is of your variety of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (which I understand to be brewer’s yeast). I have an experiment ongoing right now which involves some sort of yeast and apple cider (which is slowly turning into hard cider, I hope).
You should read the “applying sideways” thread on the MIT admissions web site. Its basic point is that the right way to get into MIT is to do what you want to do, and do it very well. If MIT is a good fit for you, then this will turn out to be the right thing to get into MIT. Of course MIT does not have agriculture and probably would not be the right fit for you. However, the same approach is at least IMHO the right approach to get a student into other highly ranked and/or selective universities.
I think that you have done some very cool things. I think that they will likely get you into some very good universities. However, this assumes that you apply to universities that are a good fit for you.
I will note that several family members have had good results with this “do what is right for you and do it well” approach. However, what I did that got me into MIT was almost completely 100% different from what one daughter did to get accepted to a very good DVM program, which was again nearly 100% different from what my wife and my other daughter have done. You have done a different set of unique things which to me also seem really interesting.
There are a lot of ways to be very successful in life. Getting to the “second home is worth $1,000,000+ level” definitely does not require investment banking. As far as I know getting to the $100,000,000+ level usually requires starting a very successful company (or a few successful companies), which again could be done with a background in a wide variety of areas.
Exactly. I wish that I could upvote @blossom’s post twice.
This is easily my favorite EC that I’ve ever encountered on CC. Agree with others that the agronomy interest is unusual and could really stand out on an application. A student in D22’s high school class was admitted to Cornell ED for an agriculture-related major, despite being unhooked and not at the very tippy-top of the graduating class (though probably still top 5% at a large public school). A reach, but worth the application.
I posted this some time ago on another thread by mistake:
You might consider Washington and Lee. It is strong in finance, and there are a lot of research opportunities. It’s also a very generous school, looking for leadership and diversity.
Understanding your goal is finance, I would weave the story of finance and plant biology into your application. I think you have a decent chance at excellent schools because you are a little bit of an out of the box candidate, which in my opinion makes a difference.
How good of an EC this would be would depend on the rigor with which it occurred. Anyone who has ever grown more than one variety of cantaloupe can be said to have crossbred a new variety, as muskmelons pollinate so readily you can’t hardly prevent it! But real plant breeding involves selection for important traits: ripening time, shelf stability, drought tolerance, pest resistance, % sugar etc, and then measuring and documenting these traits. It’s a multi-year process. If OP engaged in such a process, and created a variety that got to the naming stage (vs. the thousands of varieties that never go beyond being identified with a number) that would be a real accomplishment indeed!
