I go to a TOP 40 university. I have been recently accepted to Vanderbilt, Rice, and WashU. I am interested in investment banking. However, none of the schools I got accepted to is a target school. Should I even transfer? If I stay at my current school for one more year, do I have a shot at Ivies, Uchicago, or Duke? I currently have a 3.79 GPA.
It is difficult for anyone to transfer into those schools, no matter what your GPA is. What are your reasons for transferring? If you don’t like your current university, you run a pretty high risk of not getting into the schools you listed. It’s up to you if the risk is worth it. If you just want to go to a more prestigious school and are okay with your current school, then maybe it’s a different story.
Vanderbilt is a target for southern banks i.e. STRH if that helps. I believe if you can raise your GPA up a bit more you have a solid chance at all of your mentioned schools.
It is extremely difficult to transfer to the Ivies, Uchicago, Duke, and other target schools (Stanford, MIT, Stern, Ross, Georgetown, Northwestern). Many of these schools have a sub 10% and even sub 5% transfer acceptance rate.
I would not give up the opportunity to attend either Vandy, Wash U, or Rice on the slim off chance that I might get into the target schools. Rice, Vandy, and Wash U are all semi-targets and it is possible to get a good IB job with good networking and high GPA.
I see that you didn’t get into Brown and Cornell this year. Will one year make a big difference in your application? All three schools you got into are phenomenal schools; just pick your best fit or most affordable one.