Demographics
Asian Male, 2nd Gen
New Jersey
US Citizen
127th ranked high School in state
Legacy NYU Stern
Finance Major
3.5 UW GPA (9 AP, 6 Honors) Test Optional
Extenuating Circumstances: missed a month of school junior year due to COVID). 9th,10th, 12th combined GPA would be around 3.9/4.45
ECs:
Founded #1 Ranked Teenage Business Podcast (5-7 hrs a week)
Key Club State President (5-7 hrs a week)
Created a social media marketing agency ($5k profit per month) - 30 hrs a week
Co-founded app to prevent procrastination. BETA version releasing this month and on App Store in December - 5 hours a week
Co-founded Entrepreneurship club (only club in school partnered with university) - 3-4 hours a week
USA Powerlifting Competitor (been training since Aug 2021; competing March 2023) - 10 hours a week
Sales Internship (interned directly under CEO) - 7-10 hours a week
VP of Research - DECA (2 years) - 1-2 hours a week
Content Writing/Sales Rep for local agency for 1 year
Freelancer - podcast production, consulting, making TikToks for podcasts - 3-5 hours a week
Awards:
ranked in 15+ countries for podcast, #1 ranked globally; top 2.5% global among other podcasts, AP Scholar Award (July 2022), NJ Key Club Distinguished Treasurer (July 2022), “Key Club Walks” Thirst Project Fundraiser Champion (July 2022), Barrie H. Werfel Outstanding District Board Member (April 2022), NJ DECA 2020-2021 Entrepreneurship Start Up Business Plan State Finalist, International Diamond Challenge Semifinalist (Top 10 in Northeast Region in a 500+ team globally competition), NJ DECA 2021-2022 Entrepreneurship Start Up Business Plan State Semifinalist, Key Club September Member of the Month, Economics for Leaders selected @UMICH, Over 280 volunteering hours, Principal’s List (freshman year), Honor Roll (sophomore year)
Have you looked at Babson? This would be a reach, but they’re very focused on entrepreneurship, and their admissions are holistic, with EC’s, essays, recommendations, and personal qualities all considered “very important” in addition to stats.
You may be in range for Lehigh as a reasonable reach - they’re one of the rare schools that treats Asian applicants as URM, so that would be a help. It’s a good place to study finance.
College of Charleston could be a good safety. Their Center For Entrepreneurship is very well-connected, and they have a wide range of business majors including Finance.
Those are just a couple of examples - a lot will depend on your budget and financial aid eligibility, your weighted GPA… and what kind of college environment you’re looking for. I’m sure there are solid in-state options too.
Do you have a relationship with your guidance counselor at school? For all of your applications, the counselor recommendation would be the best place for the impact of Covid, and your high performance outside of the period when you were unwell, to be pointed out. Far better to have your counselor vouch for this than to explain it yourself.
Fordham, IU Kelley, Penn State (Smeal), U Pittsburgh and Michigan State are some names that come to mind. Depending on your GPA(W), you can explore Direct Admit to Kelley.
You need to secure a budget with your parents so you can get better responses. Without that it’s impossible to know if you’re hunting for significant merit or find $80,000/yr reasonable. Drexel gives merit and has a good finance degree, my cousin went there and started getting job offers his sophomore year. Rutgers, Rowan and TCNJ are also worth looking into.
My Rutgers accounting graduate and TCNJ finance graduate are doing very well, I do think decent test scores would help for admission (my TCNJ graduated in 2020, only had an uw3.4 HS gpa and 30 ACT, he did ED because it was his #1).
some of the list were at different times. Internship was a while back, agency rep and writing a while back and freelancer is scattered across the board with times but 3-5 is a solid avg. I would say I spend around 50-60 hrs a week on ecs the agency I run is most of that time