School Suggestions Please

What about Indiana University (Bloomington) or the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)–both have excellent business schools (Kelley and Ross)?

I’m assuming cost is not a factor…right?

It looks like you are considering Penn State as her safety school. Is that correct? If so, I’d add another sure thing school. If it comes to that, it’s nice to have a choice to make. The rest of this list is pretty top heavy…but your kid has great stats…OTOH…you just never know with these more competitive colleges.

I don’t get Penn State. A student can be directly admitted to the Smeal business school (difficult to be admitted) or they can be admitted to DUS, the Division of Undergraduate Studies (considerably easier admission). But either way. they can get a Smeal business degree from Penn State if they’re accepted as business majors as sophomores and not otherwise. So what is the point of the direct admit?

Also, how about University of Denver?

@“Cardinal Fang” your numbers for IU and Kelley School of Business are incorrect. I just looked up numbers. Undergraduate student body is 33,429 (most recent posted). The total number of students in Kelley (undergrad and graduate is 7500 with about 7,000 being undergraduates. My D just finished her freshman hear in Kelley. She has many small classes…several had 25 students. She has had a great experience, has had lots of opportunities and has gotten to know some of her professors.

@Musicmom2015 I am assuming that you and your daughter know this but at UVA students don’t apply to McIntyre until the second semester of their second year. They have to take several pre-requisites for the Comm School and they find out in March of their second year if they are admitted. It is a tough admit…UVA has LOTS of kids who are Economics majors because they didn’t get into McIntyre. Look at the McIntyre site to see the specifics. The acceptance rate is in the range of 55 to 60% of students who applied. And many kids self-select out and don’t even apply. Acceptance isn’t just about grades…they also look at extracurriculars at UVA, leadership, etc… Many clubs require students to apply…my son was rejected from lots of clubs that first year. I am familiar with McIntyre as my son graduated from McIntyre last year. I also know Kelley at IU well…it was my daughter’s “safety” and she just finished Freshman year. It was not her first (or 2nd or 3rd choice) but it is where she landed. Her stats were similar to your daughter’s stats. She didn’t get into UVA and some of the other schools on your D’s list would have been considered a “match” or “low reach”. As @“Cardinal Fang” mentioned…her stats look alot like those of kids who got into UVA and kids who didn’t get in. As your daughter is OOS that will matter as well…they are capped at 1/3 OOS students but about 2/3 of the applicants are from OOS. Also not sure if finances are a factor for you. I would suggest running the NPC at the schools you are looking at. Many of the schools on her list don’t give Merit money. Good luck!

If budget is an issue you might want to look at Miami OH.

Thanks for correcting me about the size of Kelley and IU, @MAsecondtimer. I misunderstood what I had read about the school, mixing up the entire student body of IU with the undergraduates at Kelley, a large error.

And as you say, the out-of-state acceptance rate for UVA is not pretty, 19% this year. UVA is looking for diversity; this year something like 10% of the acceptances went to students who would be the first in their family to go to college. So a student who is out of state and doesn’t have a hook is looking at long odds.

@Musicmom2015 First, you should be very proud of your daughter.

A 4.0 u/w GPA and 1560/1600 SAT 99.8%-ile is excellent!

Weighted GPAs are totally made up by high schools. One high school’s ceiling could be 4.5, another 4.7, another 4.3, another 10.0, and yet another 5.0. Most good college admissions departments plug in every course and every unweighed grade and apply their own formula to try to compare apples-to-apples.

Assuming her course selection is amongst the most rigorous offered at her high school and she has proven leadership in her ECs, she meets the general criteria for the very elite. This does NOT mean she will be accepted to any, but go to any admissions website and you will see she meets every university’s middle 50% freshman profile. I am not aware of any uni in the world that has a 4.0-4.0 U/W GPA range plus a 1580-1600 SAT middle 50% freshman profile range.

Continuing from my comment above:

You will do what you want, but if it was my daughter, I would have a strategy like this with 8-12 applications:
Pick 1 real Safety (hopefully, rolling admissions, so she can add a couple more later)
Pick 2-3 Matches
Pick 5-8 Reaches
I would try my best to not let her fall in love with any college.

I would ask my daughter if she would consider an Econ Major at the very elite US News Top 20 universities, 15 of the 20 do not have/believe in undergraduate business school. I would ask her to converse with an admissions counselor at any one of those elites to understand why they do not have an undergrad business school. Perhaps an admissions counselor at an elite that does have a superb MBA program (but not an undergrad business program) is the best place to hear why.

  1. After those conversations, if she decides she would consider Econ or another non-Business Major, then that opens up many more elite possibilities and easily as good of a path to an elite MBA program later.
  2. If after consideration and careful analysis, she is dead set on business-only, then that is good too. Compare the various undergrad business school rankings to consider a full list of potentials.

Hopefully, the Safety is a rolling admissions safety and she can lock in to a Top 10 undergrad Business School like Indiana - Kelley or similar (probably an invitation to their Honors College too) very early in the process, then her floor is high already and it is all upside, so shoot very high at that point.

If there is a Reach she slightly prefers over the others, then absolutely ED1 or restricted EA that Reach.
Consider an ED2 Reach as well.

I would have her think very hard about those two ace cards. If she is agnostic between six Reach unis and one has a much higher ED/EA acceptance rate, then why not play the odds?

Again, it is important with the elites to not let her fall in love with one, while preferring one is fine. I have a good friend who sent 3 of her 4 kids to Duke, Harvard and Stanford. Her kids had u/w GPA and scores like your daughter’s. I thought she had a bottle of the ‘secret sauce’. I asked what the ‘secret sauce’ was? She said, oh no, the GPA and test scores only get you onto the casino table. It is a crapshoot once you have a seat at the table. The one accepted to Harvard was denied by Duke and Stanford. The one accepted to Stanford was denied by Duke and Harvard. Repeat for the one accepted to Duke. She said, “Do not let your kids fall in love with one school while waiting for acceptance decisions. It is too painful.” Increase the odds by applying to several Match and Reach unis and let them determine your fate.

Congrats on your D’s stats! Considering campus feel, size, price, her intended major and her stats, I’d have to throw the University of Mississippi into the conversation. She’d get auto-merit with those scores and GPA - full out of state and tuition paid. You’d be on the hook for only room/board/books/travel. They also stack scholarships, and she could apply for more. Ole Miss also boasts one of the most beautiful campuses in the country and SEC sports. Besides, it’s a rolling-admit, so there’s no harm in getting accepted and visiting to compare to the others.

It may not be a “match”, but if the school is top 10 in her field, what’s the difference? Best of luck finding the perfect fit!

https://news.olemiss.edu/accountancy-programs-maintain-top-10-standing/

"All three degree programs at the University of Mississippi’s Patterson School of Accountancy are among the top 10 in the 2018 annual national rankings of accounting programs published by the Public Accounting Report.

The undergraduate and doctoral programs are No. 7, while the master’s program is No. 9. "

For safeties I’m thinking Pitt, Delaware, and UConn. She would likely get significant merit plus admittance to the Honors College.

@Musicmom2015 you may already have seen this (because this thread seems to have slowed down) but UVa will add ED for Fall of 2023. If your child truly has UVa as their #1 option that will be the best odds.
My daughter (who is headed to UVa in August) had similar aspirations in business her list included IU (Kelley), UNC, Georgia, BC (Carroll School of Management), Richmond, Emory and Furman. Some with direct admits (IU and BC) and others without (UNC and UVa). She got in everywhere except Emory RD and decided that even if she didn’t get into McIntire she loved UVa.
I wouldn’t be swayed by the 3.6 GPA and 55% acceptance rate at McIntire. With enough AP credits you can make the first 3 semesters course loads manageable to make it feasible. Even without McIntire there are great options for success at UVA.

Sorry, saw an error. Should say this Fall for the class of 2024…

@Cavitee Thanks so much and congrats to your daughter!! I saw that UVA added ED and that is definitely impacting my DDs plans. Right now her two favorites are UVA and Cornell. She will have to decide it she is comfortable doing ED to either one. Since it’s the first year with ED and EA at UVA it’s hard to know how much ED will help. Anything that helped your daughter decide among all her choices might help! My D has some overlap in her list. Latest thinking is:
Cornell
UVA
UNC
Emory
Northeastern
Penn State
American
Indiana
Michigan

Thanks!

I would throw Kelley in there as EA if they still permit. My one son had close friend with similar grades/test scores, looking for business major, similar schools as your DD. He did get into Kelley, EA and then was not accepted to any of his other schools Cornell WL him and then offered guaranteed transfer admissions the following year if he got a certain gpa freshman year where ever he decided to go. That’s how he got into Cornell. I do not remember which program.

I know a lot of people were shocked at those results. He got more WLs than denials, but none of the morphed intban acceptance even with his sterling stats and profile

@Musicmom2015 My daughter has only wanted to go to UVa since 6th grade but it also turned out that as she’s gotten older she loves McIntire and aspires to be in Finance. I’m a UVa (undergrad) and UNC (dental school) alum and we live a mile from the UNC campus. She has never wanted to go to UNC because she’s always wanted to go “away” for school but Kenan-Flagler is also a great option.
My feeling having attended both schools is the academic disparity between instate and OOS students at UNC is more pronounced than at UVa. I attribute this having essentially twice as many OOS students at UVa than at UNC. Also, the school systems in North Carolina are not nearly as strong as Virginia (particularly NOVA) so the overall preparedness is lacking.
Of the remainder of your daughter’s list that overlapped, I was least impressed with Emory’s business program for the cost and really liked Kelley (with Honors program and scholarship) and Ross is awesome but a very different vibe from UVa/UNC.

@Cavitee thanks so much! Can you explain how the vibe is different at Ross? We are finally near the point of finalizing the list!