<p>I'm not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question, so I apologize in advance it is indeed the wrong place :P</p>
<p>So I'm faced with a dilemma. I'm a senior in high school, and I plan on attending graduate school to obtain my MBA in the future.</p>
<p>I'm in Georgia, so the two schools that are relatively inexpensive to attend (and pretty good schools at that) are Georgia Tech and University of Georgia-Athens (UGA). Both have business programs.</p>
<p>Now, I'm well aware that Tech is the more prestigious school. It may not have the best business program (compared to its engineering), but Tech is a known school throughout the nation, so on and so forth, etc. UGA isn't a bad school either, but it isn't on the same level as Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>My question is this:
Considering that I plan on attending graduate school immediately after undergraduate, is it better to obtain a high GPA at an lower-ranking university (UGA)? Or is it better to obtain a decent/average GPA at a higher ranking school (Tech)? Which is better for admission into graduate school?</p>
<p>I know there are many more factors involved in graduate school admissions, but I'm trying to decide which would be better for me in the long term. I still have time to decide where I'm going, and I'd prefer to make the choice that I won't end up regretting four years down the line.</p>
<p>I always hear jokes that Georgia Tech is a school that demolishes your GPA so that you have nowhere else to go besides Tech's own graduate programs after graduating. I have no idea how true/untrue that statement is.</p>
<p>I might like to add that I'm not a genius. As far as high school performance goes, I've gotten an A in every liberal arts AP course I've taken. But math is the bane of my existence, sometimes ending the course with a B or C. Which is why I'm worried about attending Tech.</p>
<p>Attend the university that is the best fit for your academics and personality. It is not worth doing the kinds of calculations that you are describing about GPAs. Frankly, either school will be fine but since you are not a STEM kind of person, why would you want to go to Georgia Tech? </p>
<p>Please also realize that the rule of thumb is that it is better to have significant work experience before getting into an MBA program. An MBA is a very practically oriented degree and an applicant with no practical experience is at a disadvantage. You are still in high school, focus on getting into a university which matches your strengths and doing your best. You need to have long-range goals but realize that these too can change and so making a important decision based solely on this kind of plan is a bit unwise.</p>
<p>I’m fairly confident that I won’t go into any engineering or science majors/fields. Business is preferred, but if not, law.</p>
<p>And I mentioned Tech because, despite not being a liberal arts/business oriented school, I noticed that the school’s connections and employers are on a different (higher/better?) level than UGA’s.</p>
<p>I’m just the type of person who tends to really overanalyze their plans/future. I guess it comforts me to have some sort of idea as to what I’m doing.</p>
<p>For many reasons, you shouldn’t automatically assume that you are going to get a higher GPA at UGA and a lower GPA at Georgia Tech. With that said, I agree with @xraymancs - attend the university that is the best fit for you both in academics and social/personal life. And definitely don’t select a school based on what you think is best for some specific kind of graduate program, since you have no idea what you’ll be interested in in 4 years. Going into college, I thought I wanted to go to law school. I didn’t.</p>
<p>Where you go to undergrad doesn’t really matter as far getting into MBA programs, and it doesn’t matter for the majority of jobs either. Georgia Tech has a bit more national reach mostly because of its engineering programs - recruiters come from all over to recruit engineers - but UGA has a very strong regional reach, especially for business. There are UGA grads working all over Georgia and the Southeast in a variety of business fields. So you could go to UGA, use their alumni network and reach in the Southeast to get a job locally, and then work for 3-5 years before applying to MBA programs anywhere in the country.</p>
<p>You also should realize that Georgia Tech requires all of their undergrads to take a pretty rigorous math/science core - I know you have to take up to calculus II, and I’m pretty sure you also have to take physics and some other math classes. If you’re not great with math, then UGA might be the better choice.</p>