I’m going to look to transfer out of a bad business school (darla moore) and I need some safeties in case I don’t get into any target schools. I’m going to apply to BC, maybe Cornell, Michigan, UVa, maybe UNC and maybe Wake. Can anybody recommend high level schools that offer generous need based aid? I need safeties because the Ross transfer acceptance rate is single digits, and McIntire has like a 15% acceptance rate. Is IU Kelley really on the same level as Wharton/McIntire/Ross? My top choice is UVa but they only accept 25ish people a year.
I’m obviously looking for target schools (like the ones ive listed)
It looks like you haven’t even started college yet. If that is the case, I’d strongly advise against starting college with the intention of transferring. That attitude will stand in the way of your developing friendships, creating meaningful relationships with professors, becoming invested in activities on campus etc. – then if a transfer doesn’t work out you will feel really stuck. Sure you can throw in some transfer applications when the time comes, but recognize that there is a strong possibility that your best choice will be to stay where you start for all 4 years. Most top colleges are very difficult to transfer into and it is very difficult to get good aid as a transfer student.
That said, you might try schools along the lines of Fordham and Tulane.
I am just a prospective student too, so take my comments with a grain of salt, but I have friends/ family in high finance so maybe I can help you out.
College is what you make of it. The name of the school on your transcript won’t get you a job on wall street: being the best student you can will. I know for a fact Darla Moore has put kids in the last two years at Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and Deutsche, all in NYC. Those are the white shoe finance firms that I presume you are trying to get hired by. Is Moore a “target school”? Absolutely not. Does that mean that it offers so incredibly little that you should look at it as a waste of a year, biding time before real school starts? Again, no.
What you will find is that these bulge bracket banks have a very, very small number of actual “target” schools that they actively recruit. This means that if you cannot get into schools the likes of the ivies, UVA, Duke, Umich, or like Stanford or Berkely, then you will be at a school that may have a few firms recruit there, but not many: semi-targets. My impression (formed by talking to a good amount of people who know a good bit more than me) is that your best bet, if you cannot get into a real target, is to be a top student at a nontarget rather than average at a semi-target. So my advice would be to just apply to the real targets in a year, and if you have no luck with that then work your tail off at USC and network: it isn’t like you’d be doing the impossible making it to Wall Street from Columbia.
@connorf13 that is actually the best thing I’ve heard regarding this topic. I’ve been weighing decisions and whether or not its ACTUALLY worth it to transfer after 2 years, and I don’t think it is. I’d be throwing away everything I have at one school for a CHANCE to be recognized by a company that could have seen me in Columbia. I think I’ll be better off getting an internship or two instead of trying to transfer
@connorf13 I don’t think I’d be a stand-out student at a top school, either. Maybe at South Carolina
To piggyback off of what @connorf13 says; It’s also determining whether the school you’re applying to has any record of placing people into prestigious jobs. It can be a non-target, but if it has a huge alumni network that has a bunch of people working in AM in NYC then you can probably network your way to at least get an interview.
In addition, if a school isn’t a target school (which will all have low acceptance rates) then the other thing you should aim for is to be near a city with a strong financial center. For example, CUNY Baruch isn’t a target school, but because of their proximity and their business school they still push people into finance. Rutgers-New Brunswick also has a “Road to wall street” program that tries to push their top business students into finance.