<p>I am going to be a sophomore this upcoming year. I entered college as an accounting major, but I am now interested in finance. My school is good for accounting, but is not recruited for investment banking or many other non-accounting finance related careers. I do however have a very high GPA and am the recipient of a prestigious scholarship.</p>
<p>I believe I could get accepted at many of these brand name schools. However, are these schools really as difficult as advertised? I've mastered getting good grades at my school but is it different at the Ivies and Public Ivies? I have some questions that I hope some of you could answer.</p>
<p>1) Is it worth risking my exceptional grades to go to a more "brand name" school for IB? Are those other schools as difficult as advertised?</p>
<p>2) Are big state schools like U Mich, UCLA, University of Illinois, etc. recruited by many investment banks?</p>
<p>3) Is transferring after my sophomore year too late? I know for many schools they don't accept spring transfers.</p>
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<li><p>It’s worth it. Schools and employers in your field recognize the difference between top grades at an okay school, and slightly lower grades at an excellent school. Obviously you still need to do well, but if you’re passionate about finance, you can pull it off. At UVA, the average GPA for the school of commerce is actually a little higher than the rest of the university.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know enough about this to answer, sorry!</p></li>
<li><p>No! Again, I’ll use UVA for an example. UVA students apply to the McIntire school for their third year. External transfers do the same, but they must apply specifically to the Commerce school for consideration (i.e. you can’t apply to Arts and Sciences as a third year then try to get in a year later). You don’t need to be a spring transfer. You can apply before March of your sophomore year to transfer for your last two years.</p></li>
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<p>Thanks for the input. UVA actually is on my radar and that’s good to know. I think Notre Dame does something similar to that. I will definitely entertain the idea of applying to transfer there.</p>
<p>Any other comments/advice would be appreciated!</p>
<p>I have another question free for anyone to answer: Would a M.S. in finance at a target school for IB be another route to go, or should I just try to transfer undergrad?</p>
<p>MS would be okay, if you wanted a grad degree MBA would be better. If you’re still in school though, transferring is your best option.</p>
<p>and for #2 - UMich is okay, the others don’t see a huge amount of recruiting, though there’s always a chance to break in if you network aggressively. </p>
<p>What schools are you looking at specfically?</p>
<p>Yeah, an MBA is something I’ll definitely pursue in the future.</p>
<p>As far as schools I’m looking at, I may apply for schools like UPenn and Harvard but given the low transfer acceptance rates I’ll omit them from the list of schools I’ve researched:</p>
<p>UCLA or USC
UMich
UT Austin
University of Illinois
Northwestern</p>
<p>With what brishe said, I’ll probably look at UVA too. I’m not necessarily going to apply to all of these, I just think I’m a competitive transfer at these schools. Although, I figure I should cast my net wide to keep my options open. Do any of these schools stick out as ones I should definitely pursue? Or are there any schools I should consider other than these?</p>
<p>Unless you’re looking to get into a regional office, I would probably skip UCLA and UIUC. They’re not bad schools but they just don’t see a huge amount of recruiting from NY BB offices.</p>
<p>I would look into Columbia, NYU Stern (if you can afford it) and Georgetown. I was accepted to Gtown as a transfer and will start in the fall. They give alot of aid and put alot of kids on WS each year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I wouldn’t mind working in a regional office actually, but I’ll look into the transfer requirements for those schools.</p>