Want to work in Finance but need a lot of Financial Aid!

Transfer Students
1

<p>Ok, so let me preface this by saying that I will be attending The Ohio State University this fall, going to major in Finance and Accounting. </p>

<p>Ideally I'd like to work in lower Manahatten after college, ideally in Investment Banking for a couple years. After that I'd like to move on to Hedge Funds, PE, and getting my MBA, and then see where life takes me from there. </p>

<p>Now this can be achieved by going to Ohio State, they apparently sent two kids to GS IBD in NYC last year, but it would be veryyyyy tough and I would face a steep uphill battle and would have to do a lot of leg work, cold calling people, mooching up to alums, etc…</p>

<p>Going to an Ivy or a top b-school like GU- Mcdonough or UVa-McIntire, etc…would make my career goals a lot easier and say for example I do some of the legwork needed at OSU at one of those schools, I would be in pretty good shape. </p>

<p>Sounds good, right?</p>

<p>But the catch is, I need money and kind of a lot of it. My parents are willing to pay $18,000 a year and I am working, plan on working at school and am willing to go into a little debt. Problem is that our FAFSA EFC was over $40,000 and I don’t even want to know what our CSS Profile one was.
I really liked USC and got into Marshall, but just couldn’t stomach graduating $80,000+ in debt. And USC has a pretty good reputation in meeting FA.</p>

<p>One school I really liked was Penn and their financial aid appears to be phenomenal.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/paying/PennFinancialAid.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/paying/PennFinancialAid.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Pretty impressive, if accurate. My family situation is a lot like “Eric’s” (even the little sister part is true haha) with about ~$150,000 parent income, $200,000 home equity, $25,000 in savings.
Penn expects the parents to pay $27,900 and “Eric” to pay $2,350 for an EFC of $30,250. It also talks about the drop when his sister goes to college. </p>

<p>My dad makes slightly less than that a year and we have a lot less home equity. But my parents inherited a lot of farmland that is apparently very valuable so assets and home equity could be easily be around $200,000 like Eric’s family. </p>

<p>Even after the great aid from Penn I would still have to borrow like $5-10k a year and graduate somewhere between $18-28k in debt. Not that bad, especially if I can get a job in banking. But that’s no walk in the park either. </p>

<p>So for all intents and purposes, I am “Eric” haha. Where else besides Penn should I be looking at? </p>

<p>I know my options are kind of limited. Transferring to a top school is kinda tough and not all of them have great aid for transfers. And I need extra good aid. </p>

<p>I applied to (and was rejected) from NU. They also list examples on their FA website and they have some nice FA in place too. Although it appears that they include loans in their packages, when Penn does not or tries not to. </p>

<p>I know Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford have phenomenal FA programs but 1. they are extremely hard to transfer to and 2. The only one I think I would want to go to on that list would be Stanford and maybe Yale. </p>

<p>So for now I guess I have Penn, Yale and Northwestern as goal schools to transfer to. </p>

<p>Any other schools? How is the aid at Dartmouth? I would not mind going there, not sure why I didn’t apply out of high school. </p>

<p>Cornell-probably not going to work out money wise. Brown also appears to not have as great of FA either, or at least compared to Penn and Harvard, etc… Duke maybe? Really liked UVa (was rejected) but I don’t think they can come through with the money with my needs. </p>

<p>Columbia might be an option, although I don’t think I want to go there for undergrad, I wouldn’t mind getting my MBA there though. </p>

<p>So any tips? I also applied to NROTC and was denied (they don’t really need Finance majors ha) but I did apply really late and was a non-STEM major, so I might take another stab at it this year. Also might apply for Army ROTC, they don’t really care about major as much and I wouldn’t mind being in the Army. Was told I was basically a lock to get AROTC, since they need people and they aren’t as picky with majors as some of the other branches. </p>

<p>And of course if I go the ROTC route, I’ll have a job lined up for me at graduation and it won’t be at a bank, I’ll be an Ensign or a 2nd LT. But the GI Bill would be amazing with respect to paying for my MBA so that is a definite perk. I come from a military background too so I am thinking about joining the military anyway, I'd be dumb not to see if they would pay for my tuition along the way.</p>

<p>So any advice or suggestions? Penn CAS would probably be my first choice at this point. </p>

<p>thanks</p>

2

<p>Georgetown gave me a decent amount of aid, and they send tons of kids to wall street every year. Other than that, I would say look at Columbia since it’s slightly easier to get into than HYP but banks still recruit there.</p>

<p>Realize that if you go to Penn CAS you’re going to be competing against all of the Wharton kids, which is not a good spot to be in. If you want to go to Penn and do banking, it’s Wharton or bust (IMO obviously).</p>

3

<p>

@Buegie is absolutely correct. It would be nearly impossible to attain an interview/receive a finance offer if you are not coming out from Wharton. Transferring to Wharton is extremely difficult. Their transfer rates are low, and also require various upper division prerequisites such as Intermediate Econ and Stats with a Calculus prerequisite. In addition, you cannot transfer to CAS and then internally transfer to Wharton.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the post. </p>

<p>I plan on giving GU a look but I have heard that they are hit or miss with aid, but I’ll give them a shot. </p>

<p>I agree with you for the most part on Penn CAS and Wharton. But most people tend to say CAS sends a few kids to Wall Street and is on the next “tier” below Wharton, Harvard, Princeton, etc…</p>

<p>I would apply to Wharton (I even made a thread about it on the Penn page) but the odds are just so astronomically against me, I figured CAS would be a better bet for acceptance (but still kind of unlikely) and would still have solid placement. At least from what I’ve read and heard.</p>

<p>Graduating from Penn CAS + $20k in loans vs. OSU debt free (hypothetical of course)</p>

<p>Wharton would be no brainer but I think Penn CAS would still set me up rather nicely. </p>

<p>thanks again</p>

<p>edit:
Cross-posted with Mitch</p>

<p>CAS really that far down the totem pole? I realize Wharton kids are going to get first crack, but would some of the top CAS kids have a shot for an interview? I’ve heard Wharton can help CAS kids. They said interviewers come to look at Wharton kids but will also look at some CAS kids while they are at Penn. </p>

<p>ehhhhh so confused</p>

5

<p>I’m sure you can get a fantastic education from CAS, it’s a great school…the issue is that there is already so much competition just among all of the Wharton kids for IB jobs, as a CAS student you will be easy to “weed out” when the recruiters are reviewing resumes. Not saying it’s impossible, but your chances aren’t great.</p>

6

<p>I’m going to attend Stern next fall, and I would recommend you apply there as well. Landing an internship is much easier because of the location. Columbia is also great, but very difficult to get in. I tried going there as well, but was utterly rejected =[</p>

<p>I am also thinking about going into Ibanking -> MBA/JD -> Hedge funds, Private Equity</p>

<p>And tuition doesn’t matter. Take loans out. If you’re going to be a shot caller on wall street, you can pay back all your loans in 1 year probably</p>

7

<p>^ NYU is known for being stingy when it comes to aid.</p>

8

<p>Yeah, just take loans out… then be stuck with lifelong six-figure debt when your Wall Street dreams end on Busted Street.</p>

9

<p>Just kick ass at OSU. Network with alumni. Cold call if you have to. Apply for a billion internships. Kill the interviews.</p>

10

<p>Ok thanks for the replies. </p>

<p>Yeah I definitely do not want to borrow too much. I don’t mind taking risks and taking $40k out in hopes of landing a banking job would be considered a risk to me, but one I’d be willing to take.
Much more than that…ehh rather not go there. </p>

<p>Probably going to do what I planned on doing, so basically what Absurd said. Since I don’t have a B or A- on my transcript now in college, might as well aim to be on top and shoot for a 4.0. I’d be happy with anything above a 3.9 though. </p>

<p>When should I start contacting some of the bulge bracket banks in NYC? Was planning on cold calling kind of early wherever I ended up. </p>

<p>Where do you think I could get an internship for the summer after freshman year? A NYC BB would pretty much be out of the question, I think, but maybe I could aim for a Columbus/Cleveland/Midwest boutique bank. </p>

<p>(ehh should probably put some of these questions in the business/IB forum)</p>

<p>Still might send a couple of transfer apps out though. </p>

<p>Might as well shoot for Wharton and I guess I will give Columbia a shot. Maybe a couple of others. Could very easily end up being rejected by both of those schools though. </p>

<p>Thanks guys.</p>