My D is having a difficult time making up her mind between UCSB (Financial Math/Statistic major) and UGA (honors, pre-finance). We are OOS to both (Arkansas), but she has a decent scholarship to UGA that waives most of the OOS tuition. She also has other great options (SMU/honors/Cox-direct admit, UMiami/Presidential scholarship/finance, UArk/honors/free, Ole Miss/honors/free) but she has narrowed it down to UCSB and UGA. She has a large education trust that will cover the OOS cost to UCSB.
She likes that UCSB would be very different from her southern roots and more in line with her liberal mindset. UCSB is higher ranked than UGA overall, but it doesn’t have a finance/business program and the classes are more theoretical than practical application. An advisor told her at our visit that she could switch to pre-Economics, which has more business course offerings, but still not your typical business degree. She’s heard that business employers don’t recruit at UCSB as much, and she would have to work harder to obtain internships/jobs. She won’t know anyone at UCSB, although we do have family a couple hours away. The campus is nestled between the desert mountains and a fabulous beach. It’s hard not to be mesmerized by the beauty of the area.
She was admitted into the honors program at UGA as a pre-finance major. The Terry Business college has a brand new set of buildings and is a well respected school in the south. The honors program grants a lot of perks, and she would have first dibs at class registration. She likes the big sports aspect of UGA and that Athens is a fun town that caters to the students. She is concerned about how Athens is 1.5 hrs from a large city and airport. She knows a few kids there, and the transition to UGA would be easier.
She plans to get an MBA after working a while after college. Her objectives seem to lean towards UGA, but she thinks she may regret not going to UCSB because it is so different from everything she knows, and it would challenge her in ways (culturally, socially, geographically) that UGA wouldn’t. She also wants to have lots of fun. She’s very smart, but also very social, and plans to embrace campus life (intramural sports, clubs, greek life) for the full college experience. I feel like we are in the thick of the forest, and fresh perspectives would be appreciated.
Yes. Although UCSB is a great school. If she has an interest in banking, investment advisory or analsysis, or corporate business. I believe a UGA and honors college would be a better training ground. And quite a fun place to spend four years. Liberal or moderates can equally enjoy football Saturday and SEC basketball. Lol.
Rankings don’t mean a whole heck of a lot. This year usnwr added income oriented criteria as well. In most lidtbdive seen, UGA is ranked higher than UCSB for ug business. UGA is number one in insurance and actuary, number five in real estate. Overall UCSB is number 5 overall public uni and UGA is the 13. Essentially the same and otherwise meaningless.
But vibe and political leanings are tough to guard. These are big populations of students. Most current students are liberal as a whole. And just because UGA is in the south doesn’t mean it’s dindrrvstive by any means. It’s in Athens. Pretty liberal little city.
Thank you for your input. As much as I love visiting Santa Barbara, I think I agree with you that UGA would be the better place for her major. Plus the outcomes for UGA ug business grads is better in the ratings I’ve seen. The new Terry Business College is spectacular, even though it isn’t overlooking a beach. Thanks again for your advice. It’s appreciated.
@tmeg01 . . . I have a different view of a person who’ll eventually be going for an MBA. I think it’d be better to major in Economics or even, e.g., math and econ, which I believe UCSB offers, because it’s as you stated more theoretically based and might prepare one better for the quantitative side of a management program (even if finance does have a theoretical side inclusive of taking econ and some elementary calculus and statistics).
Additionally, If your daughter were to obtain a business finance baccalaureate at UGa, I’m not sure what the point would be in obtaining an MBA in the same, except to make her skills more marketable for a higher end job.
If she did well at SB, there would be excellent offers on table for her, even if she majored in something like applied math or engineering (cited just as examples, not relative to your daughter).
And lastly, I hope that you’d be able to cover her costs out of pocket at SB at least significantly, so she’d have very little debt at the point of graduation. This is the biggest hang-up in attending SB, obviously, because she’d have so much help coming from UGa. Just by your not stating anything about this leads me to believe that you could contribute significantly towards her undergraduate college education. If not, it should be UGa without looking back.
Thank you @firmament2x for your input. She has received the same advice you give, which is why she is leaning toward UCSB. She’s been told that a more mathy background with some Stats/CS knowledge (which UCSB requires of the Econ major) would make her stand out in hiring. Then she could get an MBA or masters of some sort later if she wanted. She is very fortunate that she will have no debt from college, but we all question if UCSB is worth $30-40k more a year than UGA, even if we can afford it. If she attends UGA business undergrad, she would also try to get a minor in statistics.
Sorry, I read your original post title but it didn’t register because I mainly saw UCSB v. UGa.
Undoubtedly, some lighter computer programming in C++ or whatever would be beneficial, along with stats and calc.
She does want to go to SB, so her happiness factor would have to account for $120-160K over four years – perhaps you can also have her attend summer courses that would transfer over to SB from U of Arkansas or wherever; you’d obviously need to verify that beforehand. Maybe she could graduate in 3 or 3+ years. She could just as well work during summer to defray some of the cost. These could be the price she would have to pay to attend her dream.
Additionally, if your valuation of that range of figures above (to an average American, a very real one-to-one figure) would be place the decimal point to the left one spot, or, $12-16K, then perhaps SB would be a possibility, and more palatable.
Thanks again for your advice. It’s appreciated.