<p>It’s important to understand that MBA programs prefer that students have worked for a few years before applying. So one of the challenges for students who want an MBA is to figure out how they’re going to earn a living during those in-between years, preferably in a way that provides some practical business-related experience.</p>
<p>Do not choose a college on the basis of where your son will get the best prep for the GMAT. I can’t think of a more useless decision factor. Unless, of course, it’s picking an undergrad school on the basis of the strength of its graduate MBA program.</p>
<p>Apples and Oranges. </p>
<p>Your son will end up changing his major a bunch of times like every other college kid out there. To try and game his B-school grad admissions now when he’s 17 seems to me to be an utter waste of time.</p>
<p>I went to B school back when dinosaurs roamed the earth- and I hire boatloads of new MBA’s every year. The one thing that has not changed is the majority of kids who graduate from elite graduate business schools DID NOT MAJOR IN BUSINESS. Lather, rinse repeat.</p>
<p>JHS touched upon my thoughts - the schools you list have very different personalities, what, other than business, is your son looking for in a school?</p>
<p>IU is definitely rolling admissions, and it should be a safety for him. Be sure to get the application in early. Reply will be earlier than most other schools. With his grades and scores, he would likely be a direct admit to Kelley. It’s an excellent, very highly regarded program. He could also then eliminate some schools from the very long list if any are less desirable than IU, since he will hear from IU early.</p>
<p>Most ED schools allow students to submit applications to other schools for rolling admissions. </p>
<p>I am not as familiar with undergrad business at UI…but it appears notification for priority apps submitted by Nov 1, is mid-December…so later than Indiana (if Indiana app is compelted as soon as they are available in Aug…or even in Sept.)</p>
<p>Not clear on why Duke is off the table…</p>
<p>Agree with those suggesting a look at Emory. Business school is considered very good and is very well funded.</p>
<p>@Marian: That’s a good point. We’ve never even discussed job/internship opportunities during college. Do schools in big cities have a distinct advantage in this arena?</p>
<p>@blossom: I’ve thought about the prospect of him being unhappy with business and switching to something else, but it seems as if he’s been pretty set on finance for a while. He would talk about wanting to go into it ever since 9th grade. He’s fairly fickle like every teenager, but I’m confident that he’ll stick to his decision here.</p>
<p>@2boysima: Yes, he’s planning on sending in his app to Indiana as soon as his school year begins and he can talk to his counselor. Do you think they’d be more generous with financial aid if he applies early and is accepted? And if he isn’t admitted directly into Kelley, how likely is it that he can get accepted into Kelley through the direct admission petition process?</p>
<p>Emory is a good school, but my son despises Atlanta. The last time we visited, we endured more racist remarks from the locals than I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. Emory seems to have a sizable Asian population, but the city itself was insufferable during the little time our family spent there.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between “doing” finance professionally and majoring in business in order to do finance.</p>
<p>I’ve hired hundreds of new grads for entry level finance positions- they major in engineering, applied math, linguistics, political science, economics, statistics, physics, geology in addition to accounting and finance.</p>
<p>Hence my original comment- your son is likely to change majors like every other college kid out there, regardless of how committed he is to finance as a career (and does he even know what people do in finance as a career?). And he can happily major in anthropology if that’s what floats his boat… make sure he does well in his quantitatively oriented classes… and go off to a bank or hedge fund once he graduates.</p>
<p>Most of the “finance” he’ll learn on the job. His employer will either want him to take the Series 7 or the CFA or the CFP or whatever specific certification he needs for the type of job he’s in… and it won’t take a quantitatively oriented kid too long to learn how to do a DCF or what-not.</p>
<p>So again- the presence of a graduate school of business across the street shouldn’t dictate where he chooses to go to college. Especially if he chose finance in the 9th grade- and may or may not enjoy the curriculum of an UNDERGRAD major in finance.</p>
<p>" With a 3.5, odds of acceptance at Duke are quite low. Northwestern is a more reasonable reach, and applying ED is more likely to make an actual difference "</p>
<p>That’s ludicrous. I wouldn’t urge anyone with a 3.5 to think that NU is in the cards.</p>
<p>^ Pizzagirl, I didn’t mean to imply that NU admission with a 3.5 is a shoo-in, I merely thought it was more likely to occur with ED than with RD. And I think admission at Duke is unlikely regardless of ED or RD. </p>
<p>My S was admitted ED to WashU with a 3.5 UW GPA, and I believe WashU and NU have similar levels of selectivity, with Duke more selective.</p>
<p>lakemom,
You are talking about weighted GPA. I do not think that many UG’s consider weighted, They strip GPA’s down to UW and consider rigor of classes and (as far as I know in D’s case) name of HS (if they had previous graduates). 3.5 uw would not be enough to gain straignt acceptance into B-school at D’s UG state school. They would be accepted to school and have to have certain college GPA to get into B-school.</p>
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<p>Well, of course admission is “more likely to occur” when applying Early Decision - that is the noted advantage. However, as I noted in my previous post, Northwestern and Duke and any other top school (Ivy or not) in that range is more than likely to admit virtually the same caliber student. People get waitlisted/rejected from NU but accepted to Duke, and people get waitlisted/rejected at Duke but accepted to NU. They are both high reaches - neither more likely to get into than the other. Sometimes different schools could be looking for something else, and those intangibles are impossible to determine. The rest is up to chance…and personally I’d place my chances applying Early Decision to the school that I like more which in this case seems to be a slight leaning towards Duke. But if another couple of months go by with the applications well under way and your son realizes that he actually prefers Northwestern, then apply there ED. But I would be thinking now of applying ED to Duke while taking the summertime left to fully focus on the two schools. If they are so close in the decision-making process perhaps more knowledge and time grants an increased perspective. Absolutely visit the two schools with your son if you haven’t, have him do more research, and then you’ll have your answer!</p>
<p>Just looked up Naviance for our school lowest acceptance to Northwestern was a 93 weighted GPA early action and same for regular. Average accepted GPA was 98.5. For Duke amusingly the lowest GPA EA was 100, and regular was 97. Average was a tad over 100. What they say about better students applying EA may be true, because there’s a 70-75% acceptance EA and much, much lower regular. (18% Duke, 31% NW)</p>
<p>TH77 –
Can’t answer your more specific questions about IU. However…if you look at last years admits on the IU thread…you’ll see your childs stats are on the high end of those admitted…even for direct admit to Kelley, I think.</p>