<p>I currently go to Carleton College in Northfield, MN. I plan to major in Economics and then would like to get my MBA from a prestigious business school such as the Booth School at UChicago. How much would it help my chances of getting into Booth if I transferred after my freshman year got my degree from Chicago instead? I know other factors are involved, but just curious as to if going to UChicago would increase my chances. Also, is the econ program at UChicago stronger than Carleton's, and if so, how much stronger? Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>Two things:</p>
<p>1) Some professional/ graduate schools disapprove of one getting his or her graduate degree from the same institution as their undergraduate degree, and</p>
<p>2) Typically, top MBA programs like to see applicants having a decent amount of work experience (usually about four years or so) before applying, rather than applying fresh out of undergrad.</p>
<p>Why are you interested in the Booth MBA? What are you looking to do with it?</p>
<p>Go Maroons!</p>
<p>I’d like to get into investment banking or corporate finance field and I feel like Booth would be the best option to prepare myself for that field, especially after a few years of work experience. Do you know if Booth disproves of getting an undergrad and a grad degree from UChicago? Also, the undergrad econ program seems to have many investment banks recruiting from them (so I could get some work exp before grad school), more so than Carleton, would you agree? I’m open to any advice you have and it’s much appreciated!</p>
<p>Sounds like you are wavering on Carleton even before you arrive on campus for your freshman year. Give the place a chance, you might love it there. If not, a transfer is always available.</p>
<p>If you’re dead set on transferring, you should pick your courses carefully at Carleton. Chicago doesn’t like to give transfer credit for it major Core courses (Humanities, Social Sciences, and Civilizations) which are all two- or three- quarter sequences. On the other hand, I believe they are more lenient on transferring physical/biological sciences credit, so long as you can pass their accreditation exams. So, if you’re 100% sure you want to transfer to Chicago (or another Core-heavy school like Columbia) you probably want to focus on the classes that you can transfer over, lest you end up taking more than four years to graduate in total.</p>
<p>However, this is all just going off hearsay. Can any actual Chicago transfer students comment?</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m definitely going to give Carleton a shot, but I just like to keep my options open. That makes sense though that I should stay away from courses that UChicago won’t want to transfer. Thanks for the help, and if anyone else has some input that’d be great too!</p>
<p>I don’t know that many transfer students at Chicago, but I did get a chance to talk to a few during O-Week, and my adviser works with most of the transfer students, so he blurts out a few things every now and then. I’d recommend just staying at Carleton if you’re otherwise happy there. The transfer students told me that the university takes almost no credit. They do offer some credit for math, physics, and chemistry (and maybe biology as well) for taking placement tests. My adviser also said that students transferring into the economics program tend to have trouble adjusting to the math-oriented format. It is my personal (and uneducated) opinion that coming to UChicago won’t really help you that much for MBA admissions, if at all. The things I’ve told you are second-hand and not at all a complete picture of what’s going on, but it might be best to err on the side of just making it easy for yourself to graduate without the hassle of transferring.</p>
<p>^How could going to one of the most academically prestigious universities in the world not “really help that much for MBA admissions?” Just because Chicago isn’t as pre-professional as its academic peers doesn’t mean it isn’t worth transferring. I would agree, however, that it would probably be more practical to stay at Carleton if the OPs only reason to come to Chicago was to increase his chance of admission into a prestigious MBA program.</p>
<p>As far as I know, undergraduate school prestige isn’t one of the criteria for MBA program admission.</p>
<p>Professional (Law/Business/Medicine) Schools don’t really care where you went for undergrad, as long as it’s still a reputable place. So long as you do well on the things they DO care about (GPA/LSAT/GMAT/MCAT/work experience), you’ll won’t be held back as far as admissions goes. It just so happens that many of the intelligent people who do well at the latter also happened to do well in high school and go to stellar undergrad schools as well.</p>
<p>Okay thanks a lot for all the tips everyone. I’ve just heard so many good things about the econ program there and it’s really caught my interest. I’ll just wait and see how Carleton treats me to decide if the excellent econ program would be worth attempting to transfer.</p>
<p>If you are really dead set on Booth (which I think is difficult, given you are only entering college now), one thing to consider about coming to UChicago undergrad is that there is a Booth Scholars program, which is only open to UChicago students. You apply in your senior year and if accepted, they will automatically defer your spot for 2 years before you start your MBA. It is similar to the Harvard 2+2 program, the only difference is that only UChicago students can apply. I believe the acceptance rate is quite high, something like 40% (according to my adviser). A few people actually end up applying to other business schools during the 2 year deferment period, or even decide not to get a MBA at all. </p>
<p>That being said (and as you said yourself), you should definitely give Carleton a chance 
As others have pointed out, Econ at Uchicago is math heavy (Econ major myself), so you should definitely take that into account. I have friends that were accepted into the Booth Scholars program, so PM me if you have any questions about Booth or Econ in general :)</p>