<p>Hard to imagine so few URMs have top SAT scores because more than 150 seem to be on College Confidential. What gives? Is it's draw that elite or are kids not telling the whole truth?</p>
<p>My guess: a little of both, and there really aren't anything close to 150 on College Confidential. (Also, I note that mini said "African-American", not "URM". Hispanic students and those from indigenous-peoples backgrounds have lower SAT scores than the general average, but I'm sure there are a decent number of them with SATs of 2300 or more, too.)</p>
<p>If she's looking at undergraduate business, it would be worth it to look into UVA (McIntire) which is ranked second after Wharton in undergraduate business. Great curriculum, good recruiting. Some five year masters programs if she decides to change her focus. You apply to McIntire after the second year, but the acceptance rate is about 70% and a candidate of your daughter's quality will be accepted. Basically everyone I know who went into UVA serious about business got in, because they made sure to take the right classes early on and do well in them. </p>
<p>My (former now) business teacher has a master in IR rather than an MBA. He has a degree in economics too I think. I'm not sure if he actually has a degree in business, although he comes from a family in business so I guess it would be a different situation from others. If she is going to get an MBA she doesn't have to major in business undergrad, of course, and international business is her focus IR would probably be better anyway. More of the kids who do undergraduate business at UVA go to law school, although a lot do work a few years and then get an MBA, sometimes further education is subsidized by employers depending on what it is. If she wants the high stakes, fast paced, top jobs, I think breaking into that today you'd need an MBA. And from a top school. Some companies like Google really only recruit of HYPS for young hires, because these are really desirable jobs and they have the flexibility to do so.</p>
<p>LOL
I take back my recc that Gradmary's D take a look at South Carolina's International Business program...it seems its quite "underneath" her standards or the standards the posters here have set for her.......</p>
<p>I didn't list WUSTL because I am not sure about it's 'international' reputation. That said, I have an Asian friend who runs a huge food importing business from suburban St Louis--because he went to WUSTL and fell in love with another international student who wanted to raise their children there.</p>
<p>International business is such a wide field. She should focus on aspects of business (Ibanking? Marketing?). She should also focus on regions. Europe? China? Africa? latin America?</p>
<p>In four years, it isn't possible to survey all business types and all regions. Different schools offer better oppourtunities for different areas of business and different regions of the world. For example, the West Coast schools have a strong Pacific rim focus.</p>
<p>Defining what she doesn't want to do in international business will at least give her more grounding when she examines the course offerings at each of the schools.</p>
<p>Wake Forest was the safety school recommended by DD's counselor at school, because of business program and size. We have put lots of effort into the reach schools but we fall down on safeties.</p>
<p>I'm hoping a school like Wharton will give DD the exposure to see many different career options internationally. I had suggested applying to Cornell Hotel School because I could really see her managing hotels around the world and loving it. Travel is her passion.</p>
<p>I'm a bit afraid if she goes to an ivy she'll just head to Wall Street if she has the opportunity without knowing what else is out there. Valid concern?</p>
<p>Hmmmm....I don't know you Mary, but I'd visit WF first. I'd take BU and UMiami over WF for super-safeties. </p>
<p>The Wall Street pull is huge--but the hours demanded are killer. She won't go there if she loves to travel. They don't give their empolyees time to travel! This is a good area to examine when she visits and researches schools. How many of their grads go to Wall Street? How many go abroad?</p>
<p>The global travelling Fortune 500 CEO that I know went to St Olaf's for undergrad--so there are many paths to big business jobs with tons of travel.</p>
<p>Don't forget the UK schools like LSE and SOAS. They say the intl center is switching from New York to London and I believe it. Also, earning pounds is a massive massive bonus.</p>
<p>Many years ago, I knew a young woman who majored in government and East Asian studies at Harvard (her language was Japanese although she herself was not). Immediately after she graduated she got snapped up by Morgan Guaranty Trust and within the first month on the job, she was involved in the debt restructuring of a major Latin American airline/ So she got to travel. After a couple of years, she decided to head back to grad school to get two MAs, in international relations and Business. She has been working in Silicon Valley since, and produced a major paper on outsourcing. She has also done lot of travel. </p>
<p>Cheers is right that London is challenging NYC as an international center of finance. I'd take LSE over SOAS.</p>
<p>Working on Wall Street can be a great entry-level business job. Gives you solid finance skills and an overview of a market segment. Heck, a kid with a good liberal arts education, a good MBA, a good job rec or two, they would be in line for a great late-20's job opportunity. Add a language and some experience dealing with other countries?</p>
<p>And in business, really, it's what you do with your late 20's early 30's jobs that tends to make the most difference in the meat of your career, i.e. 40's into early 50's for most people.</p>
<p>Um what does BWR stand for? I was just curious from the title of the thread.</p>
<p>Bright well rounded.</p>
<p>Mary, I work in international business and have traveled and lived overseas (mostly Asia) for some 40 years. There are so many entrees to "international" that I don't even know where to begin. Some people I know in international finance have IR degrees, some in the foreign service have MBAs. The US Embassy in Jakarta which is one of the biggest in the world has at least a dozen economists on staff, including many PhDs. There's a lot of interconnectiveness, but for sure there is no one best route.</p>
<p>Your daughter seems to be drawn to both international relations and finance which is fine as they definitely overlap. A business degree would put her in the MBA stream, but she could also get a more general degree (like ecomomics, political science or even English (!) ) and still eventually get an MBA.</p>
<p>Wall Street tends to like the big name prestige schools -- Dartmouth, Princeton, Penn, Williams, Amherst fare very well. Wall Street, however, may or may not be a direct route to an overseas job. The big investment banks, brokerage houses and consultants have zillions of international workers, but it's a VERY competitive channel and as others have mentioned entails a backbreaking (soulbreaking) work environment. The women whom I have known who have succeeded in Asia in finance have either had very supportive and flexible husbands or have been single. </p>
<p>The foreign service or NGO route is far less generic. People who work for the State Department or any one of a myriad of non-govermental organizations have all sorts of undergraduate degrees, though most in higher up positions have graduate degrees from IR hotspots like Georgetown or Princeton. Here the brainier ,more intellectually driven schools are the most attractive.</p>
<p>Then there's the thousands of jobs related to international business that are neither directly related to finance or government -- manufacturing, IT, retail, advertising, hospitality, services of all kinds. These are careers that are accessible to graduates in just about any fields who have the will to find a job that takes them overseas.</p>
<p>I think all of the schools on your daughter's list could get her where she wants to go but they seem out of whack culturally -- Brown and Dartmouth are SO different. I would think Princeton and Dartmouth would be a better pair. Smith and Wharton are on separate planets. I think Tufts and JHU are both excellent additions, but I sure wouldn't consider either a safety. (Having said that I think your daughter's chance of admissions anywhere are very high.)</p>
<p>For a safety I would suggest applying to the University of Michigan early in the year under their rolling admissions. I believe if you apply in September you'll be notified in about 6 weeks. Michigan as I'm sure you know has one of the best business schools in the world and it seems to fill your daughters other requirements -- except for size.</p>
<p>I also think Michigan would be a good choice for your D. (Went to grad school there.) And what if she wanted to change her major later? That's one of the advantages of Michigan for your D, strong in business but also strong in many other areas.</p>
<p>Since you want safeties and since she wants business, I'd suggest you check out University of Texas in Austin. McCombs is an awesome business school and the weather is better than at Michigan. Notre Dame's Mendoza also has an excellent reputation, and although it's not a safety for anybody, they also have to work their butts off to recruit URMs who are not athletes. For her it might be a safety. If she has or will have AP credit for Calculus, science, English, history and a foreign language she could possibly do a business degree in three years at ND and I think they have a four year Master's program--DD mentioned it (she has 32 credits from AP and if she majors in business all of her first year requirements will be satisfied by the AP work)</p>
<p>A bit off the OP, but with talk of international finance I had to pipe in--
One thing my brother never thought of, before going into international institutional stocks, was the schedule. When working for a dutch, german, russian (etc) bank, chances are you could be working their hours, which in his case means getting into the office by 3 a.m. Getting up at 1 a.m. may be OK for an energetic go-getter out of college, but is def. a drag for a 50-year old with a family and an hour-plus commute...</p>
<p>One more thought...as a parent of a strong willed brilliant girl I know that what you say may be mocked or discounted...but with scores like that she should look at majoring in math or computer science or engineering. Women who are good at math tend to shy away from hard sciences, math and engineering, and most of the really smart business people I know did not major in business. Undergrad business is what guys do when you wash out of engineering or math because they can't hack the math, but for some reason mathy girls go into business and I think they are selling themselves short. Majoring in mechanical engineering and then working in business will make her a lot more valuable than being yet another girl with a finance degree.</p>
<p>Thanks all. DD has been quite clear that she would only do the business undergrad if she gets into Wharton Huntsman. After that there are several no business major reach schools she would prefer to the others with undergrad business.</p>
<p>She has spent considerable time at the Wall Street firm her uncle works for helping out everywhere from M & A to sales and trading. She has fairly good exposure in that respect.</p>
<p>DD took a college engineering class last summer, did well but <em>hated</em> it. She is not linear in any way. No way she'll choose a math major or engineering. Math is her weakest subject, though she does fine on tests and in class, she has gone to school with many brilliant math students who flew by her taking calc in 10th grade and linear algebra by 12th.</p>
<p>I encouraged a Michigan app but she did not like it, size and location.</p>
<p>LSE is a good thought. Can anyone comment on the undergrad experience?</p>
<p>Good suggestion momrath--on UMich rolling app. Get the true safety out of the way. </p>
<p>Like Princeton addition but will say that Brown has a great IR program.</p>
<p>Mary--it sounds like your daughter could do pretty much anything she wanted to do. I'd try to keep her focused on schools that will give her a broad skill set and a challenging undergraduate experience. Given her stats and background it seems that some of the schools on your list would be safeties for her (Wake Forest, Smith, Wellesley). Do you think she'd like Boston College or Emory? Somebody already mentioned Georgetown, and although I would not call it a safety for anybody else, your daughter does sound strong, regardless of URM or non-URM. Two others that popped into my head are Wesleyan in CT and Middlebury in VT.</p>
<p>One other definite safety and I think good in IR-Macalester in St. Paul MN.</p>