Small Finance Schools, in/near big cities!

<p>Hi everyone! I just saw a post a few days ago similar to what I'm asking, but with different specifications, and it got some great suggestions. It persuaded me to posta one of my own!</p>

<p>Unlike the previous poster, I am a male junior! I'm looking for a smaller sized school in/near a big city. Most of the posts earlier were LACs or schools that didn't offer any business related courses. I'd like to study fields that would land me in the financial services industry after college. Most top business programs are quite large or are a part of a large university.</p>

<p>I took the ACT as a sophomore and got a 30, so hopefully I'll see some improvement. Also, I'm top 3% of my class with a wide range of decent ECs. </p>

<p>Any suggestions? Thank you!!</p>

<p>Babson College (outside Boston)</p>

<p>Bentley College (also outside Boston)</p>

<p>Some LACs that offer business - College of Charleston, Lake Forest College (outside Chicago)</p>

<p>What do you count as a big city? Some Jesuit/Marianist schools like U Dayton and Depaul have good business programs.</p>

<p>babson and holy cross. holy cross has highly ranked accounting major and also economics degree. holy cross also has one of the best alumni networks and hc graduates ranked 12th among all schools for highest salaries according to payscale study.</p>

<p>Fordham (NYC) – Although the school shows that it has over 7,000 undergrads, they are split between two campuses. The business school is at the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx – it has a beautiful traditional campus with easy access to NYC.<br>
I’d also recommend Babson and Bentley but only if you are positive that you want to study business as an undergrad.</p>

<p>[Illinois</a> Institute of Technology](<a href=“http://www.iit.edu%5DIllinois”>http://www.iit.edu) has an undergraduate business program and is right in Chicago.
It also has a well-regarded graduate Finance program and a Master of Mathematical Finance program which take advantage of being in a financial center.</p>

<p>Are any of those well respected schools for business? With the exception of Fordham (good suggestions), I’ve never heard of any of the other suggested schools for business.</p>

<p>Research Babson.</p>

<p>DePaul is well connected to the Chicago business community but it’s not small.</p>

<p>What kind of finance do you want to do? In addition to being obsessed with school prestige, the finance industry is very rough right now. I would not recommend trying to break in from a lower ranked school, unless you have a backup plan that you’re happy with. For example, would you be happy working in accounting? Would you be happy doing risk management or operations at a bank? </p>

<p>All of the US News top 10 schools are pretty good for finance. For the most part the rest of the top 10-20 are okay/good. As for schools outside of the US News top 20, you’ll probably want a school where the business school is better than the overall university. Berkeley, UCLA, Texas, UVA, Michigan, and NYU are the examples that come to mind. I know they aren’t small, but I’m pretty sure they are the easiest schools to get into that have good finance recruiting. As far as LACs go Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams are good. I believe that Wellesley is also good if you are a girl.</p>

<p>Holy Cross has fantastic business alumni network-CNBC rated HC 12th among all universities(Ivies included) for highest alumni salaries… HC has several specialized alumni networks including HC alums in finance/Wall Street, HC alums in high technology etc.</p>

<p>Macalester College is between St. Paul and Minneapolis, plus it has a good track record of getting people jobs related to finance (mainly through its Econ program).</p>

<p>Top Ten Undergraduate Business Schools per USNews:</p>

<ol>
<li>University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology</li>
<li>University of California–Berkeley</li>
<li>University of Michigan–Ann Arbor</li>
<li>University of Virginia</li>
<li>New York University</li>
<li>University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill</li>
<li>University of Texas–Austin</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University</li>
<li>Cornell University</li>
<li>University of Southern California</li>
</ol>

<p>Of these, only Penn, MIT and Carnegie Mellon have undergraduate enrollments below 10,000.</p>

<p>Babson College School mission (as provided by the school):</p>

<p>Babson College defines entrepreneurship education for the world. Babson educates business leaders through a unique hands-on, integrated curriculum that balances business and liberal arts. Students are immersed in an enriching environment that fosters entrepreneurial thinking, leadership, teamwork, creativity, communication, and diversity. The flagship of the first year is the award-winning Foundations in Management and Entrepreneurship, a year-long course in which all students start and operate their own businesses. Located just 14 miles from Boston, students have the best of both worlds: a beautiful, residential campus with access to all of the cultural and recreational opportunities a large city has to offer. This intimate New England school, the nation’s top ranked small business college, enrolls about 470 students each year into its freshman class, keeping the student population around 1950. Set in beautiful Wellesley, Massachusetts, Babson’s 370 acre residential campus is alive with intellectual, cultural, athletic, and social activities. Babson College offers a strong business curriculum with a liberal arts foundation. Students are immersed in an enriching environment that fosters leadership, teamwork, creativity, communication, and diversity. About 24 percent of undergraduates are international students who represent 66 countries; students of color comprise more 27 percent; and 45 percent of the Babson undergraduates are women. Babson College operates on the semester system with thirteen-week spring and fall semesters, one two-week winter session and two six-week summer sessions. Students are required to take 50 percent liberal arts courses and 50 percent business courses. Babson offers unique programs including First-Year Seminar, field-based learning programs, independent study, and an honors program. All students start and operate their own businesses with money loaned by Babson during their first year as part of Foundations in Management and Entrepreneurship. Students also have the opportunity to work as consultants to organizations as part of the Management Consulting Field Experience. All students are encouraged to self-design their course of study. Rarely do students’ goals exactly parallel a pre-designed major. This unique opportunity allows students to cultivate their own course of study to best prepare them to meet their immediate career goals upon graduation. Although all students will graduate Babson College with a Bachelor of Science Degree, most courses of study incorporate one or more of the following fields: accounting, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, international business, investment banking, management, management information systems, marketing and quantitative methods. In addition, students may choose to plan their course of study around one of twenty-five optional concentrations in both business and liberal arts disciplines. Babson offers students an extensive variety of student activities. These extracurriculars include 22 NCAA Division III (11 men’s and 11 women’s) intercollegiate athletic teams. Intramural sports are also popular student activities. More than 90 student-run clubs, organizations, and publishing opportunities are available across every interest spectrum. Some of these activities include: Dance Groups, Theater, Literary Magazine, Jazz Band, Music Ensembles, Radio Station, Student Government, Student Newspaper, the Yearbook and much, much more. The school also has four fraternities and three sororities. Approximately 10 percent of students are involved in Greek life. Our approach is unique. Our learning concepts provide students the ability to adapt to ever-changing business environments, the experience to hit the ground running upon graduation, and the know-how to discover opportunities that will create economic and social value - everywhere.</p>

<p>The business school at TCU is quite good. They have a great relationship with Fort Worth! Lots and lots of internships and real world experience. Your scores would get you in as well.</p>

<p>Do you have any distance parameters or financial limitations? Preferred type of weather?</p>

<p>Look at William & Mary. Close to Richmond, Va Beach, Norfolk and many graduates go to DC for careers as well.</p>

<p>URichmond has a decent business school, more on campus recruiting than most small schools, and is in Richmond, which isn’t a “big city” but is nevertheless close to city resources (though the campus doesn’t feel urban at all). I don’t go there, but one of my friends does and feel like its an often overlooked pick. But i second all the people that said Babson, it seems like the best choice.</p>

<p>Trinity college is also a small LAC with an unusually large amount of recruiters. Its not in a big city persay, but it is in one of the biggest metro areas in New England and closish to Boston/NYC. It really depends how much you care about being in a big city</p>

<p>After a bit of perusing, I found some other semi-fits:
tufts (no business school, but recruiters on campus and close to boston, small university)</p>

<p>Case Western (has business school, dont know about finance/banking recuriter presence, in Cleveland, which, while a sucky city, is still a city, small/medium university)</p>

<p>CMU (top business school/lots of recruiters, in pitsburgh, small/medium university)</p>

<p>University of Rochester(bias:where I go, financial econ major and business major, top business school, in Rochester, which, while a kinda sucky city, is still a city, fair amt of recruiters/job prospects in finance)</p>

<p>Depaul (small university in Chicago with a business school, thats all I really know)</p>

<p>Fordham (small university in new york city, has business school, thats all I really know)</p>

<p>Villanova’s School of Business is extremely well respected, esp. for finance… Reasonably small (6,000 undergrad), close to philadelphia, etc.</p>