<p>I'm looking into these schools for a career in ibanking or consulting. Does one of these schools give a clear-cut advantage employment-wise, preferably on the East Coast? </p>
<p>Also, what are my chances of getting into Preferred Admission at Ross if I'm in the top 7-8% of my class, have near-perfect SAT and ACT scores, but not much business experience?</p>
<p>Williams > Ross = Northwestern from my point of view. Williams has some really really nice placement rate…when you consider that many people there arent even looking into anything remotely close to business</p>
<p>Preadmission is a total crap shoot. The best you can do is pad your resume with solid, preferably business related activities and try your best on essays.</p>
<p>Actually Bearcats, Ross is a cut above Williams. I would say Ross followed by Williams, followed by Michigan (non-Ross), Northwestern and Amherst. When I worked for Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, Michigan Business School (it wasn’t called Ross at the time) was generally considered one of the top 5 or 6 hunting grounds. Wharton and Harvard were the only two programs that were more highly recruited. </p>
<p>To the OP, I would recommend majoring in Economics, not business, and all four universities/colleges you are considering are equally good. Don’t worry too much about IBanking placement. It is unwise to pursue a four year course of action for the sake of landing a job in an field you know nothing about and in industry that could be gone by the time you graduate. If you attend a top ranked university or college like Amherst, Michigan, Northwestern or Williams, major in Economics or Mathematics or whatever, maintain a high GPA (over 3.6+) and take the right initiative, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.</p>
<p>Since you want to go the ibanking/consulting route, I’d go with Ross > Amherst/Williams > Northwestern. Honestly though, you’ll have a great shot at breaking into the industry coming from any of these schools (assuming you put in the work in college). </p>
<p>Without any business-related EC’s, your chances for Ross preferred admission are going to be weak unless you can put together a really good essay explaining why you want to be studying business.</p>
<p>^The following list suggests it’s more like Northwestern > Amherst/Williams for consulting
[Undergraduate</a> Recruiting at Vault’s Top Six Consulting Firms: Vault Management and Strategy Consulting Career Information](<a href=“http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=252&article_id=14364421&cat_id=1085]Undergraduate”>http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=252&article_id=14364421&cat_id=1085)</p>