I made a list of colleges I have any interest at all in applying to but it’s about 30 colleges long. I have about 5 schools that I would say I am significantly interested in and another 10 I am interested in based on ranking and another 15 I would consider applying to at all but I need help narrowing down my list.I made my list by looking at schools that have under a 40% acceptance rate, have economics as as a top 3 major, and aren’t less than one thousand students. I’ve used college search engines but those haven’t been much help.
About me: I have a 35 ACT and if super scoring applies I have gotten a 36 in every section except math, a 33. I rank in the top 10% of my class I’m pretty sure. We stopped doing rankings as of a few years ago because the salutatorian and valedictorian got very competitive. My extra curriculars are okay but not exceptional. For example, I am a co founder and leader of the investment club but have never had a meaningful job (worked at a place a few weeks before I got mugged that summer and didn’t want to do anything) and only done volunteering consistently at the library (24 hours). I plan on majoring in finance and/or economics.
What I’m looking for in a college is a finance target school. A school that will help me get a job on Wall Street, these schools are pretty much just the most selective schools. I also would prefer the school to be in or near a large city(not the most important thing). I want a medium to large size student body because I go to a high school of 300 kids so any school of 3 or 4 thousand+ will feel big to me. My parents are willing to pay full cost but they’re not willing to pay significantly more than Ohio state University (20k total tuition and room and board) unless the school is significantly better. I am also a male and would prefer a school to be at least 50% female.
Upenn is my current top choice because it is in Philly, near NYC, not too far or close from home, and the most recruited college on Wall Street.
I’m from Ohio but have no problem going far away if it’s a great school. My safety is Ohio State. I would appreciate help in narrowing down my list.
Here is my full college list
Colleges I am for sure applying to
1 Upenn(Wharton school of business)
2 UofM(Ross business)
3 Uchicago
4 OSU(Fisher)
5 NYU (Stern)
Schools I will probably apply to
6 Columbia
7 Princeton
8 Boston College/university
9 Dartmouth
10 Cornell
11 Yale
12 Uindy
13 Miami of Ohio
14 Duke
15 UNC
16 Georgetown
17 Vanderbilt
18 Indiana University
19 Northwestern
20 Notre Dame
Might apply
17 Brown
18 George Washington
19 Harvard
20 Tufts
21 Villanova
22 William and Mary
23 Tulane
24 Washington and Lee
25 Urbana Champaign
26 Rice
27 Texas A&M
28 Berkeley
29 Texas at Austin
30 Stanford
TL;DR I’m a pretty good candidate for selective schools and want a 3-4k+ size student body, a good finance program, decent amount of females, near a big city, and my parents are willing to pay for a great school.
First, you need to determine your major. Are you interested in economics, finance, or business? Because it seems like you chose Universities based on their business school even though you will likely be in the liberal arts college. As far as Wall Street recruitment goes, your undergrad school won’t really impact it. MBAs are really the only useful degree as far as Wall Street is concerned, so choose a school that will help you get into a good MBA program in 4 years.
If you’re not from the state, I would say eliminate all public schools. I attend Berkeley, and let me tell you that it is not worth paying out of state tuition for.
Your stats are well above the averages of Boston University and Tulane. Tulane will probably waitlist you to protect their yield, so I recommend eliminating them.
Also, it seems you would like to attend school on the east coast, so why bother applying to southern schools such as Vanderbilt, Rice, or Duke? These schools are more known for their medical programs anyway.
As far as business goes, Stanford does not offer an undergrad business program.
Frankly, it doesn’t seem like you’ve done much research. Choose one major, decide which schools on this list offer the most appealing programs, consider if you are willing to pay the tuition, and how likely you are to be accepted. Choose 3-4 reaches, 5 or so likelies, and 2 safeties. Anything more is sort of overdoing it.
You really need to look at what kind of merit any of these schools will offer you if your parents budget is 20k, as that will limit your list fairly quickly. I assume based on the full pay comment that you will not qualify for financial aid. You do not mention your GPA.
You need to find out just how much more your parents are ready, willing, and able to pay for a place that is “significantly better” than Ohio State, and you need a sense from them as to which places they consider to be “significantly better” than Ohio State.
Is the more than $70k it will cost each year if you are accepted at Stern and decide to attend there no big deal? If so, fine. If not, then you need figure out which of the places on your list can be made affordable for your family.
Run each school’s Net Price Calculator and remove any that are above your parents’ budget limit. Make sure you have a couple affordable safeties on your list. If nothing else pans out, you’ll still have a choice.
I think your top 5 choices are good. You’ll get into OSU and probably NYU (in which case your parents will have to decide whether it’s worth the cost, but it’s worth getting in and then you can have that discussion; if you want to work on Wall Street, going to NYU would be significantly better than OSU). Your chances are slim at Penn and Chicago but they would be for anyone so it’s worth a try since they’re your top choices.
For numbers 6-20, I agree with the other posters that you should drop all the Ivies and Duke. You already have enough reaches without those, and you probably won’t get in. So that leaves you with BC, BU, Miami, IU (Kelley), Notre Dame, Northwestern, UNC. You have a good shot at BC, BU, Miami, IU, while ND, NU and UNC would be reaches but possible.
From your 20+ list, I’d drop all of them except Villanova which has a good undergrad biz school.
So that narrows it down to about 12. You’re still heavy on reaches there, but you do have some matches and at least one safety with OSU (and perhaps Miami).
Consider UVa instead of UNC. Maybe drop Northwestern. I’d also go with BC over BU. Or go with Babson instead of either BC or BU.
That’s a lot of schools! Remember, you’ll be spending 4 years of your life at wherever you choose, so make sure the school’s campus is somewhere where you personally will be happiest. I can’t say much about the programs at each of those schools (and of course, the defree program you want should come first), but I’d suggest a book like the Princeton Review guide or the Fiske Review to get a sense of the schools’ “personalities.”
@sean3315 Attached is an article that attempts to rank the top feeder schools for Wall St. recruiting. Not sure if you had already found this or not. It might help you narrow down your list