Match Me: HS Junior; Finance/Quantitative Finance Major, 1540 SAT

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Hello everyone, I am a HS Junior, looking for candid feedback on matches for finance/finance heavy schools; thanks in advance.

Indian Asian American
US Citizen
Virginia
Private, College Prep
Male, Junior Year

Finance, Quantitative Finance, Investment Banking

  • Unweighted HS GPA: Expected 3.7
  • Class Rank: N/A
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1540 (780 Math, 760 Reading)

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))

AP Music Theory (4), AP Human Geography (4), AP Calculus BC (4), AP Computer Science Principles, AP Latin, AP Language and Composition, AP Statistics (Senior year), AP Literature and Composition (Senior Year), AP Macroeconomics (Senior year), AP Physics C (Senior Year). Multi Variable Calculus Junior Year, AP Latin Junior Year.

Awards
National Latin Exam Merit Three Years in a Row
Royal School of Music (ABRSM) Grade 8 Piano Practical Examination with Merit
ABRSM Grade 6 Music Theory Examination Pass

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
CoFounder of the Chess Club
CoFounder of the Global Economics and Finance Club
CoFounder of the Photography Club
Worked as a Tennis Coach over the summer
Chess tutor for middle schooler
Math Tutor for middle schoolers and high schoolers
Varsity Tennis Player
Ambassador for Suicide Prevention Walkathon
Volunteer - Farmers Markets, Homeless Shelters

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Working on Essays. LORs expected to be good.

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)

No Constraints

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability): UVA, Virginia Tech, William and Mary, University of Washington
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable): Georgetown, Carnegie (with ED), Oxford
  • Match
  • Reach: Duke, UChicago, Vanderbilt, NYU, Imperial College of London,
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I would start by moving most of your “safeties” to “match” and all of your “likelies” to “reach” because that’s what they generally are, even for people with perfect stats and great ECs. Your list is then very top heavy, so you need to add in a few surer shots.

I’m sure people here will have great suggestions for you, especially if you can provide more info on what you’re looking for (urban, rural, large, small, etc).

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Va Tech is a likely. I guess W&M and UVA would depend on - is there an in-state boost?

Why UW? Not a safety OOS at all.

Gtown - not a likely. Nor a match.

If you’re good with Va Tech worst case - and frankly, it’s the nicest campus in the country and has the top rated food in the country vs. a Gtown which is known to not be good - and food matters - if you’re good with Va Tech - then your list is fine. But I’d add another likely just in case - or you can always apply to a Bama or Arizona after you get all your decisions.

What’s the goal career wise?

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Depending on where you live in the state, UVA is not a safety. Rural Virginia, maybe? Northern Virginia, no.

Also UVA business school is not direct admit, and very highly qualified kids get rejected every year. If you want to go to UVA and study business, you need to have a Plan B in case you don’t get in to McIntire.

Your list is very top-heavy. You need to add some more schools.

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Also consider where a 3.7 puts you in your class.

Even though your school does not rank, colleges will know where you are in your class both by comparing you to other applicants from that school and by looking at your school profile. The school profile will generally have the GPAs earned in your particular class year, and is usually broken up down by quartile or decile. So, by looking at that, they will be able to tell if you are in the top 10% of your class, the top 50% of your class, etc. This is generally very important information as it helps admissions officers compare GPAs, which are really irrelevant out of context, across different high schools. A 3.7 at some schools may be top 15%, while at other schools it is bottom half. The school profile will tell them that.

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As others have mentioned, I think that you’ve underestimated the competitiveness of the schools on your list, even though you will certainly be a strong candidate. Unfortunately, those schools get far more strong candidates than they can accept.
As you seem to have a strong preference for schools in bigger cities, these are some schools that I think would be likelies or extremely likelies for you that have good opportunities in finance.

• Bentley (MA)
• CUNY Baruch
• Creighton (NE)
• DePaul (IL)
• Fairfield (CT)
• Fordham (NY)
• Loyola Chicago (IL)
• Seton Hall (NJ)
• Southern Methodist (TX)
• Texas Christian
• U. of South Carolina

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Oxford won’t happen, given those AP scores.

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But Oxford Ohio’s fine b school at Miami would be a wonderful safety with merit !!

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Agreed. And I know plenty of people who were in state for UVA with better scores who were rejected. Maybe if he applies ED there he will have a chance.

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I missed Oxford on his list. I did just notice he goes to a private school. He’d likely be smart to get guidance from his counselors there.

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The 3.7 unweighted is likely your biggest barrier, and may be an issue (ie your safeties may not be safe) : work hard to get all As this year! Talk to your counselor now and again at the end of the year and see where your rough rank is(decile). UVA admits deep into the top 1/3 at some in state rigorous privates but others you really need to be top 10-15%. You need to find out the data for your own school.

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Agreed, this is not a good profile for applications to top UK schools. Junior year APs don’t demonstrate the most relevant subjects (Econ/Physics C)and Sophomore year 4s put you at a big disadvantage. You’d need a great grade in MVC and recommendation based on it, and not to step back to AP Stats senior year but go on to something like Linear Algebra, even then I doubt you’d get into anything more highly ranked than KCL or St Andrews.

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Acceptance rate for Virginia Tech in state finance major was 35 percent last year. It will be lower for a kid coming from Northern VA. I would call it a low Match.

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ok - thanks for the info.

But as noted I do think a Manderson at Alabama or Eller at Arizona - and there’s others are great “fall back” should someone get blanked - as they are decent schools - will be equally as strong, if not stronger, than Va Tech - and you can get in until May 1st, etc.

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Investment banking and quantitative finance require different paths. For IB you either major in business or econ, and for quant finance, you should be majoring in CS/Math. If you want to leave the optionality open, you need to go to a private school that will let you make decisions between econ and math somewhat late into the program. If you go into a business school, you are likely, very cleanly, shutting out quant. The other way is perhaps less of a problem – you can do CS/Math and still manage to go into IB if you have a 3.9+ in college. And IB and quant are both at least somewhat name conscious – so you should go to a decent school.

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I agree with @neela1‘s points. I’ll add that, if interested in working as a quant, pick a CS program that leans more towards theory and is math heavy.

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If you’re full pay I would look at direct admit schools. Fordham Gabelli, SMU Cox (alternative assets), or IU Kelley would probably be matches.

Some other ideas besides straight Finance. Both GT and ND grads place well. Other schools offer similar degrees.

https://www.isye.gatech.edu/academics/bachelors/industrial-engineering/curriculum/economic-financial-systems-concentration

https://economics.nd.edu/undergraduate-program/academic-programs/financial-concentration-in-economics/

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Agree with both Neela and Dadofjersey but will add that any engineering discipline can work, it doesn’t need to be CS. But don’t torture yourself majoring in something you are going to hate JUST for the sake of whatever job it is you think you want.

1- You cannot predict the job market in five years- who is hiring, what they are hiring, what they are looking for.
2- No matter where you go, you STILL need to interview, get the job. No institution randomly distributes quant or IB jobs to anyone whose resume matches what they typically look for. Every year there are grads who don’t get an offer from the places they’ve been gunning for (in some cases since HS) and it’s kind of sad… they trudge off to objectively great jobs in commercial banking or P&C Insurance or being a financial analyst at a leading pharma company-- and they act like they’ve been sentenced to ten years of hard labor in Siberia. They can be doing M&A work at that pharma company (yes, the bankers do the transaction, but someone on the corporate side needs to develop the analytics around “does this make sense for us”), getting a nice paycheck, and slide into depression.

Don’t let that be you. It’s great to have professional goals, but you are going to college to get an education, not to participate in an apprenticeship program for the banking industry. You need a major you love in order to do well, at a college that meets all your other goals.

Start there.

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I agree that one needs to be realistic in targeting either of these professions and expecting to get in. At Princeton, about 3% of the campus goes into quant. And probably a larger (but still small) percentage goes into IB or similar roles.

Interestingly from the example of one of the firms that I have some anecdotal data on, for quant, it is mostly either CS with Math, or Math with CS. There are the occasional Physics or Mechanical Engg kids, but I am surprised by how small their numbers are. Perhaps there is a distinction to be made between Quant prop/ Quant funds on the one hand, and Big Bank Quant in roles such as structuring etc which are more open to engineers.

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Yes, we can cut the quant pie into ever smaller pieces. But i’d be surprised if a HS student knew or understood the differences. And at this stage it doesn’t matter… OP needs to find a u which meets all the needs- not just job training!

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