<p>I am currently a second semester freshman at Bentley College (business ugrad program).</p>
<p>I have decided I want to transfer to a Liberal Arts college with a strong econ program, but I am not sure what schools would fit that description and are in my range.</p>
<p>I am in the honors program at my school and recieved a 3.94 gpa first semester.</p>
<p>During my senior year I took place in an economics competition called Fed Challenge and my team placed in the top 6 out of over 120 schools.</p>
<p>I am active in a few clubs at my school, mainly Economics / Finance club and Entrepeneurial society. I also participate in service learning where I go into local elementary schools and tutor children about how to use computers.</p>
<p>As for sports I box and kickbox, played intramural soccer, dodgeball, and ultimate frisbee.</p>
<p>Economics is the major I would like to pursue, and would eventually like to go for an MBA (hopefully at a top school). </p>
<p>Any colleges in the New York / New England area would be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>For the MBA you can't beat going to a LAC with an Econ (or even other for that matter) degree. Your SAT is low, and I think you might need to raise it to go for the top top schools. If you sustain that GPA another year you wouldn't need the SAT, but with your high school GPA you will likely need it higher.</p>
<p>Cornell is the easiest Ivy to transfer into by far. Its not a LAC though. Dartmouth would become much more realistic with a higher SAT, but for now its a long shot. It essentially a LAC and it has an excellent econ dept to boot. Same goes for Williams, Amherst. I would go for Middlebury/ Wesleyan/ Vassar. All are strong and have excellent graduate placement.</p>
<p>Some suggestions of LACs with excellent economics programs: Bucknell, Bowdoin, Bates, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Haverford, Lafayette, Middlebury, Trinity College (CT), Wesleyan, Allegheny, Vassar, Hobart & William Smith, Wheaton (MASS). While some of these would be more of a reach for you than others, I think they'd all be fairly realistic to aim for based on your college grades. You may also want to consider some smaller universities - try Tufts, U of Rochester, Villanova for example. Good luck.</p>
<p>really you need to do the whole college-search process over again. Start from ground 0 and figure out what you want in a college. While strength of the econ program may be an important consideration, it should not be the only one, maybe not even the most important one. </p>
<p>Get a book such as "Making It into a Top College" by Greene or "Looking Beyond the Ivy League: Finding the College That's Right for You" by Pope. You want a book that lays out the whole college selection process, including the setting, type of student it attracts, faculty interaction, special programs, and so on. All LACs are not alike, any more than all U's are. You need to take all your preferences into account, and the first step is discovering just what those preferences are. The books will help you discover that.</p>
<p>I've thought about my advice above and want to make it more emphatic. Strength of the econ program should not be your most important criteria.</p>
<p>You said that you wanted to go to a top MBA program. MBA programs are unique for grad programs in that they care MOST about what you've done since college. The top programs are looking for students with 3-5 years of serious business experience. They care somewhat about what college you went to, and pay attention to your GMAT score. But major is not really an issue, and in fact a less popular major is probably a plus since it helps you stand out from the crowd.</p>
<p>Given your goal, you should be focusing on getting a great job out of college. That means looking at what companies recruit on campus and historically hire from that LAC. And the key to getting a good job out of college are internships, so you want a college strong in those. Lastly while most people out of college have a few years to wander and find their direction, you're going to want a job thats a good fit right away given that the 1st few years out of college are so critical. So you want a college with strong ties to alums so you can talk to them and find a field that you'd enjoy. I think these 3 factors far outweigh strength of the econ major. </p>
<p>Companies don't recruit based on strength of the econ major. You can get a good job at a consulting firm, for example, with a major in anything from Anthropology to Zoology provided you have the internships and interviewing skills to convince them you'd be a good fit and that its a college who's graduates they believe in. This leaves you free to major in something that fascinates you, not picking econ because you think it leads to a good job (unless you've picked econ because its more intrinsically interesting to you than anything else).</p>
<p>At this point you ought to get a few books about MBA admissions and see for yourself what factors are important. Then, with those in mind, find a LAC that fits you.</p>
<p>It has been my understanding that the strength of your undergraduate school plays a large part in the decision for MBA admission.</p>
<p>While jobs are important, going to a school such as Yale, Northwestern, any of the ivies, ect, will greatly effect the chance of admission.</p>
<p>I had associated the strength of the econ program with the strength of how the school would be veiwed by MBA admission programs.</p>
<p>Trinity, Tufts, and Wesleyan all sound like schools I will need to look more in to.</p>
<p>Dartmouth / Cornell sound very good too, but I think they may be too much of a reach, but I haven't looked into any of their admission stats either.</p>
<p>NYU is also a school I am thinking of applying to.</p>
<p>If there are any other suggestions, please let me know.</p>