@VeryLuckyParent I’m not sure if other business schools do this, but HBS has a page under their class profile that provides a complete list of the 264 undergraduate institutions that their most recent graduating class attended.
@notveryzen Good point
@nightbird407 Yes, I have seen this. They say they recruit from practically every college, but here is the dirty little secret. I have been analyzing their most recent class’s facebook page and it has a small spattering of “state schools” but a huge representation from the “prestigious private universities”. Not only that, a lot of the folks have very specific employers who don’t usually spread a very wide net when they recruit undergraduates. These employers mainly go to the top private Universities.
I want to believe that a good student from a state school who has a good academic record and decides to work for a typical fortune 500 firm for 4 years and then applies to Harvard MBA stands a good chance of getting in, but the data seems to suggest otherwise at least from this one class. Harvard seems to be cherry picking a certain kind of candidate for their MBA class
^^Really, you think that parents who are about to shell out close to $300K (vs. $0) for their son’s college education are out of line for doing research re the job/grad school placement records of the various schools under consideration? Wow.
@VeryLuckyParent : I based my earlier post on the understanding that, as you said, your son – like plenty of other smart, ambitious 17- or 18-year-olds – is “eyeing a career in either Finance, Consulting, or Hi-Tech” and anticipates getting an MBA. My point was that there are many different paths through which he can do that, but that the engineering paths are radically different from the non-engineering paths, starting right away. Of course, if he starts out as an engineer, he does not necessarily have to end up as one, and of course engineering is an excellent discipline in problem-solving and critical thinking that can be applied to non-engineering tasks. All of that is a given. But if your son goes to engineering school, he is going to have to follow the path of an engineer for 6-7 years (undergraduate plus a first job) to get value out of it, and that’s a very perverse thing to do if you don’t like engineering. And if he drops out of the engineering program at either a Midwest state flagship or a local directional university, that won’t be the end of the world, but he (and you) may wish he had gone to Chicago instead.
(To be clear: When I am using “engineering” here, I mean to exclude things like “financial engineering” that do not require ABET accreditation and can be approached just fine from an applied math perspective.)
On the other hand, if he really wants the fundamental engineering experience of actually making things, as opposed to manipulating numbers or theoretical concepts . . . well, he’ll have a lot more opportunity to do that if he goes to engineering school. And if he likes “Hi-Tech” more than finance, that is a field where generally engineers rule.
This is what is keeping him up right now
Will you be able to visit this week? DD found it very helpful. Loved everything about it and although she has one more school to visit, will be ecstatic to attend. Didn’t mind the gray 30 degree rain/sleet/snow one bit. It may not be the best school for her career-wise but it tugged at her heart.
Kids can change massively, and lot of things can happen, during college. We are going to let the daughter go where she thinks she will be happy and let life play itself out.
May be doing your son a favor to encourage him to be more of a satisficer than a maximizer with this decision. Less likelihood of regret down the line regardless of what happens.
I am a Math/CS student at UChicago interested in high tech/quant finance. For your questions:
- Will his GPA get destroyed thereby ruining chances for top flight MBA school if he attends UChicago, given the caliber of students, academic rigor and a rigorous STEM department like Physics, Chemistry, Math etc. On a related note, will he have to be buried in books 80 hours a week to get a 3.5+ GPA at UChicago? That is what it takes to be a competitive Grad school applicant to the top MBA programs.
Not at all, many of my STEM friends and I have 3.9+ GPAs (We don’t study more than 40-50 hours a week). Chicago sends many students to top grad schools for pure physics, math, or chem, which usually require getting stellar letter of recs and a very, very, very high GPA. Getting into a MBA program won’t require nearly that much effort (although the Econ/liberal arts majors applying to these MBA programs do have it much easier for workload/gpa).
- Is it better to be a big fish in a small pond, get a great GPA at a lower tiered school, work for a “decent” but not “prestigious corporate brand name” and then try and get an MBA from a top business school
Not sure, but I do know its best to be a big fish in a big pond, and it is ideal not to close that door early on.
- Given that he can earn as much coming out as an engineer from a top ranked state school does it make sense to spend so much money on an undergraduate degree at Chicago.
This is a hard question. If he wants to do engineering, going to Chicago will not boost his chances at getting a high-tech job over a state school. I have done many tech interviews now, and interviewers don’t care at all about what school I go to; they are mostly interested in how well I can solve their coding puzzles. The extra benefits in going to an elite private school will be coming in getting a quality education, primarily because he will be surrounded by extremely bright peers and a culture where academic/professional goals are the focus. This higher quality education is probably not worth an extra 150k over 4 years for most families. However, the case for finance (incl. quantitative finance) and consulting is much different. The doors for those fields will be completely closed at state schools, excluding a few (Berkeley/Mich). I ended up picking Chicago over Berkeley, because they cost me nearly the same (actually, UChicago was cheaper). However, I am not sure I would have done that if Chicago was full price.
- If he attends UChicago and our financial situation changes because of job loss or some such thing, will the school adjust our EFC? We can afford to pay full sticker price now, but not sure if we can for all four years.
Yes, they re-evaluate financial aid packages every year. So far, our experience with the FA office has been that they are very helpful, they are not trying to squeeze extra money out of you, and they structure the aid and scholarships in ways that are designed to help you the best.
@puzzled123 Thank you! I have PM’d you with questions on your major for advice.