I regret not thinking ahead and “tailoring myself” in high school, so that’s the main reason why I’m reaching out for help with this post.
I realize that Pace University’s Lubin school is a non-target by far, however, it is my best undergrad opportunity logistically and financially for me (paying less than half tuition and practically next to Wall Street).
I am thinking about aiming towards working on the buyside while attempting to avoid the back office (and BO seems to be common for Pace alum aiming for bulge bracket banks). To balance out for not attending a target, I’m considering double majoring in Finance and Economics or Finance and Management with maintaining no less than a 3.8 GPA (or else I’ve pretty much fucked myself and this post renders useless). I am planning on founding a club in my freshman year, participating in 2 or 3 clubs that are tailored for my career choice (https://www.pace.edu/mypace/pace-opoly-businessprofessional), and to network the fuck out of downtown Manhattan and Pace itself.
Aside from that, I co-founded a 501©(3) NPO to help alleviate the opioid epidemic and just in the past few months I’ve been gaining media attention on LI and occasionally in NY overall. I’ve been working with elected officials to revise a law regarding the opioids and do have great connections to at least get my bill sponsored (on track for that this summer).
This is a much smaller thing, but I’ve also founded a Business Club at my high school which got in the biggest Long Island paper and started a fashion e-commerce that generated $7,500 throughout this school year.
I work at a private country club on the North Shore on Long Island and maybe, by luck, I can get an unpaid finance internship from one of the members if I indirectly mention my passion. I am going to attempt to caddy this year given that I’ll be closer to the members for conversing instead of my typical catering.
I’m trying to use my already established hard and soft skills in entrepreneurship, politics, and humanitarian pursuits as a way to boost my application and by double majoring in one of the aforementioned with electives, clubs, and potential internships to balance it all out. Unfortunately, my non-academic accomplishments came after I applied and got accepted into schools, so that definitely disadvantaged me. Also, my SAT and ACT was only a bit above average for Pace (I’m retaking them both over the summer and freshman year) and HS GPA was poor due to social anxiety (which I’ve finally got under control). My HS GPA was a 3.2, so it explains why I got into Pace and why I didn’t bother applying to any big schools.
Transferring out of Pace after my freshman year is not out of the question at all. I’ve considered Cornell’s Dyson (15% transfer acceptance rate into the B-school), Columbia, Fordham, etc… Stern has a 2% transfer acceptance rate from a few years ago so it’s almost laughable to even attempt that. I’ll also try applying to the Big 10 schools but again, the transfer acceptance rate is just ridiculously low and it’s more like a shot in the dark rather than something truly practical to achieve. I’m still going to take prereq’s that align with the big b-schools for transferring so that way I’m at least playing the game right.
Any advice you can give me to help smoothen things out would be very much appreciated. Thanks 