I am a sophomore that wants to major in finance, and find a job in that field.
As of right now: GPA: unweighted: 3.8 weighted: 4.7
Class Rank: top 15 out of 800
ECs: Special Olympics Coach/Volunteer, BPA member, DECA (going to state), Student Council, math team, Trust group, volleyball, (leadership position in at least 3 ECs)
All honors and 3 AP classes so far (1 freshmen year, 2 sophomore year)
taking 5 APs as a junior
Schools I’m considering (in state for Illinois)
Northwestern
Wisconsin Madison
Michigan Ann Arbour
UT austin
UNC
UC Berkley
Indiana
Gerogetown
UIUC
want to go into investment banking later in life, but any tips for the next two years to help me get into these schools? Is it worth taking many AP Classes and risk getting a B if I want to go business in college? I'm taking the ACT beginning of junior year! Any tips are appreciated thanks.
curious list of schools, OP. big state unis and a couple of elite privates. 6 to 8 APs ought to satisfy any of these schools. ECs with leadership in them are going to be important at Gtown and NU.
Start your research, question your thinking, talk to your parents about money, consider some schools that are not elite or big flagships. It’s early, but you’re off to a good start.
Not to early at all, my sophomore year I was going to the college fairs and meeting with Ivy admission officers to see where I stood compared to their application pool. The more you plan now the less work you’ll have to do later, go for it!
Your right about planning early. If you are taking the ACT in the fall, try to study every day over the summer for 20-30 minutes. ACT is knowledge based, so the more you know, the better. Also PSAT is in the fall, so SAT studying will help with that also.
My schedule as a junior: AP English (Language and Composition), AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Psych, accounting financial, Spanish 4, Gym (IL law that you have to take it 4 years), Lunch.
I dropped AP World History to take the accounting class, because I want to go into that track after college. Do you think that was the right decision?
This may be advice for your parents - run the NPC for every single college you may consider. Now. If this site did nothing else, I found out about the NPC during my daughter’s sophomore and those numbers were eye opening.
The only other advice is to find two safety schools you want to attend. Think of these schools as “goodies schools” - they will give you goodies such as money and honors colleges. These will be good, but not prestigious or widely known schools. This is the hardest part of the college search but it gets the least amount of attention.
Focus on yourself, not the colleges. In other words, take courses that fit and interest you, not what you think colleges want to see.
Which AP Physics? Since you indicated that you are considering NU - keep in mind that credit is only given for Calc based AP Physics. BTW - Your stats look good, and Soph year is not too early to plan. Good luck!
If you want to go into investment banking, I suggest you google “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case for Elite Professional Service Firms”. Quality investment banks only hire inexperienced grads from a select group of schools, and I do not see them on your list. If you want to go that route, you need to plan to somehow get a undergraduate or graduate degree from one of those schools.
Otherwise, all of the schools will open doors for you in Chicago and around the nation, with UIUC being the most cost effective option and Northwestern having the most opportunities.