I am a junior at an international school. I am planning to major in finance since I want to get a job in Investment banking department in the future (Preferably on the Wall Street, but I don’t mind other places).
My stats are:
GPA weighted: 3.9, GPA unweighted 3.75
IB (predicted): 42
HL: Math (6), Econ (7), Korean (7)
SL: Business (7), Physics (7), English (6)
AP: Micro (4), Macro (5), Statistics (5), Calculus BC (4)
SAT: 1510
SAT 2: Physics (720) ← I am not planning to send my SAT 2’s
EC: I would say my ECs are okay, but no sports
(Execs of a few clubs, Choir, LOTS of volunteer work, Summer Internship at a bank)
The schools I am considering are:
Reach - NYU Stern, UVA Darden, and Notre Dame, Middlebury
Target - UNC Kenan Flagler, USC Marshall, Emory, UCLA Anderson, Boston College, Colby, Colgate, Hamilton
Safety - Indiana Kelley, Villanova
I would appreciate it if you guys can comment on the list and/or give me some names of schools (unis, lacs, doesn’t matter) I have a chance of getting accepted to. Thanks!
You could try Math II SAT 2 and see if you get a good score — also pretty sure you have time to retake that 720 in Physics. You also don’t need sports to get in anywhere; I know many people who don’t do sports and are doing well at great schools (as long as you pass CAS!).
I’d add Washington&Lee, maybe Dartmouth to your reaches (no finance dept, but Econ majors do place well onto Wall St there). Brandeis could be good, and maybe Boston University as matches? Idk if Villanova is a safety for you, but IU Kelley looks solid.
For reaches, I would recommend looking at Duke, Georgetown (McDonough) and Michigan-Ann Arbor (Ross).
If you are not a resident of California, UCLA is not a target, it is a reach. Same goes for UNC. And USC is a reach, regardless. I think UT-Austin (McCombs) may be a better target than UCLA for IBanking.
Thanks for your reply! By the way, I heard getting accepted to UT-Austin is extremely hard because it accepts 90% of its freshmen from within Texas. Is that true?
The current UT Class Profile shows that 90% of freshmen are Texas residents. It also shows that non-residents are accepted at lower rates (31%) and need higher test scores, relative to Texas residents. https://admissions.utexas.edu/explore/freshman-profile
You would see the same thing at many other popular state universities, such as the University of California campuses. Non-residents will also be charged higher out-of-state tuition, and are usually less likely to receive financial aid. In Texas, private schools such as SMU or TCU would be more friendly to non-residents.
Your list includes Colgate and Villanova. People who apply to those schools also commonly apply to Lehigh, a small university located geographically between the two and roughly comparable in selectivity. Lehigh has a separate business school with a finance major, and has historically had strong job placement in NYC.
Another issue here is that “UCLA Anderson” is a graduate school – it doesn’t offer undergraduate degrees. For undergrads, UCLA offers economics degrees in the College of Letters and Science.
Would agree that USC and UCLA are both reaches. My pick for a match in California would be Santa Clara U, which is arguably the top private in the Bay Area after Stanford. SCU is located in the heart of Silicon Valley and has strong job placement there. They have a business school with an undergraduate finance major.
An additional point on UT Austin is that OOS is more selective, as indicated, and the McCombs school for business adds another layer of selectivity on top of that.
add more LACs to the list some of them have decent network on wall street - none of these target schools are actually good IB targets. if you are set on IB you have to add more schools where banks recruit even if these schools are reaches…NYU and UVA are good options and have good placements on wall street
Top IBs are just looking for really smart students. If you attend a top LAC, study something with some numbers/quant (Econ, math, physics, etc), and have a high GPA, you will be hired before someone with a finance degree at one of the aforementioned business schools. In my opinion and experience.
West coast business schools are more focused on tech start-ups than investment banking. The only west coast school I might go to if I wanted to be an investment banker would be Stanford, but even then you’d be a lonely soul surrounded by people dreaming of getting rich in tech.
Indiana resident here – on IU Kelley School, direct admission to the B school for undergrad is more or less strictly on stats, and while I don’t know the cut-offs precisely, a 3.9 UW and a 1510 should be enough for direct admission, assuming the rest of the application is solid. Admission to the IB workshop at Kelley, once a student there, is very competitive. IU is also one of the few midwest flagships which does give some merit to out of state students.
Is that true?