I just got accepted to UVA and Emory as a transfer student and I will be a 2nd year at either. My goal is to study finance. However, at UVA, according to the admission counselor that I spoke to because I am not a regular 2nd year applicant for McIntire, it will be very difficult to get it, so they advised me to have Econ major with Financial concentration as a backup.
On the other hand, I also have Emory, where according to them, I am in good standing to apply to the business school next year.
Therefore, what do you think is better, Emory or UVA??
(I am an international student so out of state)
Emory without a doubt, why would you pay the same when one college is clearly superior?
@ljberkow would be able to give good advice. He’s very familiar with Emory’s undergrad business school program.
UVA.
@ok4waitingsolong I think I understand what is going on. As a transfer, Virginia will accept you as a transfer, but will not admit you to McIntire. Emory has accepted you and, there are no such barriers to Goizueta, which you would enter as a Junior like everyone else (some with enough AP credits can go in spring of sophomore year). The consolation as UVA is an Econ major, which you may or you may not want, with some concentration in Finance.
I don’t know what you want to do with your finance major. If the goal is to get an investment banking job, neither UVA nor Goizueta is considered a “target”. However, both are considered semi-targets and many students wind up on Wall Street or, in Emory’s case, with southern banks as well. I would hope you would keep an open mind as to what you want to do with your major.
You are an international student and Goizueta is definitely globally focused. Atlanta is also a great international city with great opportunities for internships. To me, this is an easy choice, but, of course, I am an alumni with a bias. I don’t even know if you want to major in economics. I found that whole area pretty boring, but if it is a passion for you, then maybe UVA is your choice. Also, even as a sophomore transfer, you still are very much a part of Emory College. To me, one of the great things about Emory is the balance between the pre-professional education and the liberal arts. They actually have so many who double major now. However, if you just want a pre-professional education, do NOT go to Emory.
Here is a good write on Emory’s business school from P&Q
https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/school-profile/emory-university-goizueta-business-school/
Good luck with your decision and congratulations on your acceptances to both schools.
Thank you for all your responses @ljberkow @privatebanker @BiffBrown @CU123
I don’t mind doing an econ degree, to be honest, as it was my plan if I was staying at my current school.
One thing I always hear though, to get a job in the financial industry is to keep the GPA high, do you know, between the two, where that would be the most attainable?
@ok4waitingsolong , if Econ and maximizing GPA are the most important things to you, then you should go to UVA. I think I was confused by your original post about the Finance major. The Finance majors at Emory average starting salary is $80K as compared with $71K for UVA Econ majors. However, investment banking salaries are similar no matter where you go to school. Your plan should be to go to UVA, do the Econ major and balance it out with other courses that can help you boost your GPA. The core curriculum at Emory/GBS probably leaves less room for those GPA boosting courses.
Emory’s Goizueta School undergraduate business school courses do not have a reputation for being especially tough grading.
They are not like the premed STEM weed out courses that make it tough to get As.
Here are placement statistics for Goizueta School undergrads upon graduation for 2017:
https://goizueta.emory.edu/degree/undergraduate/career_management/placement_statistics/index.html
Note that 89 students with business degrees from Emory (or 27% of all Emory students with business degrees) went into finance and earned a median salary of $80,000.
Try to find something similar for UVA or UVA econ majors before making up your mind.
Pick UVA. It’s a better school overall and will take you further in life.
There is a recommended grade distribution at Goizueta.
https://goizueta.emory.edu/degree/undergraduate/curriculum/standards_honors.html
Maybe it’s not being followed by professors.
Starting salaries for Econ majors at UVA are available on its website. Starting salaries for Goizueta are also readily available, but investment banking jobs are pretty uniform.
@ok4waitingsolong will need to determine the best way of achieving the highest GPA. It’s very possible that is Emory is now easier than I thought.
They are BOTH great schools! Congratulations. There is no bad choice here.
Emory – slightly smaller classes and you have access to Goizueta. Academically they’re peers.
If you need the sports and/or secret societies of UVA, and those things are more important than getting into your chosen major, then pick UVA. But academic fit is the most important area of fit, and for that reason I would choose Emory.
It seems like there haven’t been many UVA voices or current students commenting, so I will add mine. I’m not in McIntire–I’ll be the same class year as you–but I can answer some of your questions well. While I am biased, based on the criteria you have given I would suggest UVA.
To clarify for some of the other posters, you apply to McIntire as a second year (it seems like the same way for Emory, from what I can tell). McIntire hasn’t denied him, someone just advised the poster that they might not get in, because he will be a second year (sophomore) this upcoming school year. Speaking of the advice, who gave it to you? If it was an admissions officer from McIntire, then there might not be much you can do. I would be surprised if this were the case though, because McIntire accepts transfer applicants (who transfer as a 3rd year).
In terms of academic quality, UVA is clearly superior to Emory. They are equal overall, but McIntire is far better than Emory’s business school. While I despise rankings, they are a reflection of prestige, which is important in finance. USNews has McIntire tied for 7th, and Poets&Quants has McIntire 3rd. Emory doesn’t make the top 10 in either.
Based on the grading distribution that @ljberkow posted, McIntire is way better for grades. Even in professors don’t follow the distribution exactly, I would expect that it is reflective of wider grading trends at the school. The fact that 3.0 is considered Dean’s List is especially concerning on the matter. Since McIntire admissions are more selective than Goizueta, the grading in McIntire is much easier. Most students come in with a 3.7, and the mean GPA stays that way. I would expect Goizueta to have a much, much lower average GPA.
In fact, I think how @ljberkow describes Emory, also describes McIntire extremely well. It seems like the only real difference between McIntire and Goizueta is selectivity. The article he posted said that Emory’s business school has an ~85% acceptance rate and doesn’t like to turn students away. McIntire has a ~65% acceptance rate, and a lot of students who want to do McIntire don’t apply because they do poorly in a prereq and decide it’s not worth it finishing the rest. So basically, they are really similar, except McIntire is harder to get into, and as a result is far more prestigious and lenient grading wise (because they don’t need to weed students out). This also seems to be your biggest problem–you might not get in to McIntire, but you will at Goizueta.
DM me if you have any questions, I would love to answer them. There are some things, particularly on the GPAs and experience as a student, that are too sensitive for me to post publicly.
To be clear, what I posted was recommendations on grade distribution at Goizueta. As a current Emory student, @BiffBrown knows much more about grading there than I do. @ok4waitingsolong doesn’t really seem to have a preference between an Econ major and a Finance major. If I were advising, I would advise a Finance major at Emory over an Econ major at UVA, mainly because he is an international student and GBS is globally focused and Atlanta is a great international student. However, it looks like the plan is to stay in the US after graduation. Still, the Finance major at GBS has better graduation outcomes than UVA Econ major. My suggestion of UVA was solely based on the desire for an easier school and a path of least resistance. At large state universities, even ones as good as UVA, easy A courses are out there.
I think saying that point-blank UVA is a better school than Emory is misplaced. Some programs are better at one than the other, and UVA is probably slightly better known nationally due to being an ACC sports team versus DIII sports. No way would I pay full price to go to Emory if I could pay in-state tutition to UVA; but if cost were the same I think either would be a good choice—depending on particular major. Business may be better at UVA, health-related sciences would be better at Emory. The student bodies will be different at the two schools, and the locations are obviously very different.
For the class of 2022 and for recent graduating classes as far as I can tell, Emory has been far more selective than UVA:
For the class of 2022:
UVA accepted 26.5% of applicants and those accepted applicants had a mean SAT of 1431.
https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-releases-admissions-decisions-and-uva22-begins-trending-grounds
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2018/03/er_admission_2018/campus.html
Emory accepted 18.5% of applicants and those accepted applicants had a mean SAT of 1500.
Emory also has a higher ranking on US News and World Report.
This ties into the finance industry cares about prestige point. It’s not just the ranking of the undergraduate business program that potential employers will look at.
Thanks for everyone’s help
the USNWR rankings cluster Emory right next to UVA. besides the fact that the rankings are meaningless, the difference is nominal. You have two great choices, different locations. You may prefer Atlanta if you want to intern in the summer in the same city that you attend college in. Most UVA students get summer jobs outside of Charlottesville (for obvious reasons). But if you are willing to move for summer work, you should be fine. I also see that you are waiting for some other transfer decisions. Good luck!
I decided to attend UVA, except if I receive an acceptance to either Georgetown MSB, UPenn Wharton or NYU Stern that I am still currently waiting. Thank you for your help
Just to be clear–I said they were roughly the same overall, but UVA’s business school is way better. Potential employees (for finance, consulting, etc.) care about the business school ranking, not the overall school ranking; saying otherwise is just plain wrong. UVA’s business school is far more selective from within UVA than Emory’s is from within Emory, which is why UVA’s business school is way better ranked. Admissions data is completely irrelevant, because you have to apply to the business school at both Emory and UVA.