Hi all! I have finally narrowed down my decision to either Wesleyan University or Umass Amherst’s Isenberg School Of Management. Wherever I go I will be studying either economics or finance. If I go to Wesleyan I would be paying around $45,000 a year compared to $25,000 at Umass, which is a huge difference. Although I would be willing to take out loans if I went to Wesleyan (around $80,000), but I would leave Umass debt free.
So, please if anyone has any insight on the rigor, job/internship placement, networking and social life, please comment! I only have a short time before I make my decisions so all the help will be greatly appreciated, thank you!
That’s a pretty stark choice. UMass is a typical state flagship university, probably one of the better ones Back East, but, not on the same level as Michigan, Wisconsin, UVA or UNC-Chapel Hill. It has a sprawling campus with high-rise dorms. It is widely known as party central for the 5-college area. Drawbacks: It has no discernible alumni loyalty that I am aware of. Just about everything you achieve there will be at the expense of a pack of other people who will be competing against you and who will be largely unknown to you.
Wesleyan is one of the nation’s premier small colleges; it emphasizes the individual student and his or her “passion”, be that inside or outside the classroom. Nearly fifty percent of its alumni will kick in at least a token amount of dough every year to show their loyalty and support and whatever your goals are, you can be sure that every possible human resource is at your disposal to get you there. Drawbacks: Three thousand students spread out over 300 acres of park-like landscape can be deceptively quiet, especially at night. If you’re looking for huge frat parties and bon fires to liven things up, you won’t find them in Middletown; Wesleyan’s idea of excitement is the protest rally not the pep rally.
I’m a fan of Wes, but as a student you are limited in how much you can take out – are your parents willing to sign for the majority of the loans? And do you really want to start you life with that much debt?
UMass is part of the Five Colleges, which grants you access to courses at, and the ability to experience and benefit from, Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire (just don’t get lost!) – some very fine LACs.
Wes is great, of course, but I’m not sure it’s $80k better than a UMass/5 Colleges experience.
Unfortunately, no matter how many courses the OP takes at Amherst or Smith, they will never be considered peers by the students at those private LACs. That’s the social reality.
Wesleyan has 2.5x the number of paid academic staff for two-thirds the number of students (both grad and undergrad.) One can argue whether the OP’s family has the means to finance the difference in quality, but, the difference is real and I would argue the differential in potential impact is likewise real.
Thank You for the reply! As an Econ major at Wes do you see it being a problem paying back these loans? Also, my goal is to someday work as an Investment banker at a large bank in either NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc. In your opinion which school would set me up better for this opportunity?
It is incredibly difficult to get an investment banking job so I wouldn’t count on that happening regardless of where you attend. And $80k (+interest) is a lot of money to repay.
Wesleyan is really good for economics.
But if that $80,000 difference ends up in loans, then that is really hard to justify.
To provide you some context for a decision, your case is pretty common. Over the past several years the financial aid picture in higher education has been such that many kids from the region are falling through the “doughnut hole” and deciding to attend UMass. These are kids who previously would have attended NESCAC or Ivy League schools. This effect combined with a more aggressive out of state recruiting campaign has been driving up the level of incoming students at UMass.
On the facilities side, counter to national trends, the state of Massachusetts has been investing in UMass. Combined with a new push toward external fundraising, a lot of facilities have been upgraded and a new “campus within a campus” honors facility was built. The Isenberg School is currently in the middle of a renovation and expansion (which has both good and bad points for you depending how long it takes).
Basically, UMass has improved quite a bit over the past decade, and especially if one takes advantage of the 5 College Consortium (which can be a little bit of a hassle), then one can get a really good education there. It will not be the same as a LAC, but some aspects can be better - depending on the person.
Are you shooting for Wall Street?
Did you get into the Honors College ?
Here are some links to provide background on UMass.
Good Luck
http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-raises-record-379-millionhttps://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/07/05/umass-business-school-expansion-bolstered-donations/dn1i0NmqpROT0Uyk9dICnL/story.html
https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/isenberg-addition-and-renovation-project
Yes, working on Wall Street is my goal. I was admitted to the Honors, but I do not have an interest in attending. A lot f people I have talked to have said it wasn’t worth it.
It would be a brick. I’m guessing that would land you in the vicinity of $10,000 a year, assuming a payback period of ten years. In New York City, that would be about a third of what you would expect to pay for rent in an exceptionally modest studio apartment and most young professionals I talk to these days are paying well over half their salaries on rent alone. So, there’s not a lot of room left over.
I can only put it to you this way: At Isenberg, you would be competing with ~900 students in your graduating class, all of whom would be looking at pretty much the same sorts of jobs you would. At Wesleyan you’d be competing with about 50 graduating Econ majors - tops. Maybe another 50 if you include all the Math and Physics majors who might be drawn to I-banking or some other form of number crunching for wealth and profit. I don’t see any equivalency between the two situations.
If you choose Umass, pick Honors. Whoever told you it wasn’t worth it don’t know what they’re talking about. First, you get to have priority registration, which at any college is gold, but at a large public college changes everything for you. Second, if you want a position where prestige is necessary, you want honors. Consulting and IB won’t even look at your resume if you’re not in Honors (even in Honors you’ll have to be really good). And you’ll want those Amherst/Smith/Mount Holyoke courses on your transcript too. The field you’re thinking of divides people into those “in” and those “out”. It doesn’t matter you feel you’re in, odds are stacked against you if they don’t see it stamped on you in some way.
You could of course go into a hundred fields where they wouldn’t care at all.
But you’d still have a huge benefit of priority registration. (Plus the added bonus of nice housing, special seminars, personal advisers, etc.)
As for Wes… why would you be that much in debt? How much can your parents pay? You can borrow 5.5K for freshman year - will your parents take a Parent PLUS loan for you?
Where else did you get into?
Because neither are targets or semi-targets for IB or Wall Street.
You could probably carry that debt if you got to Wall St. but it will really cramp your lifestyle, life in NYC is expensive and the hours are very long. Pay per hour may not be much more than some other top jobs. Some of my daughter’s friends are not liking it. You need to love it to excel at that level.
The path to Wall Street is hard even at a “target school” and there is lots of attrition along the way.
We could have another market crash.
Those darned computer engineers have targeted “fintech” as a good application for AI technology.
You will need to be at the top of your class and have the requisite activities no matter where you go and at a target school the competition is more intense. Wesleyan is not really a target, but it is more heavily recruited than UMass, Probably less recruited than Amherst. Falling off the track with $80K in debt (or being forced to stay on the track because of debt) could get really ugly. Student loans are not erased in bankruptcy like other loans.
Most Wall Street careers require an MBA (the entry positions are sort of like a 3-4 year internship) so there may be more debt in your future…
Isenberg is a moving target, some major financials are starting to recruit there and Wall St. is starting to get less “cliquey”.
Here is a thread discussing the issue. It talks about a UMass person with the requisite qualifications attending Amherst College’s recruiting events.
This is a complicated analysis - best of luck
https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/news/isenberg-alum-shares-financial-trading-insights
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/what-if-i-cant-afford-a-target-school
Not to negate @circuitrider point, but the actual numbers would be about 230 finance majors at Isenberg plus around 300 Econ vs about 75 Econ at Wesleyan. But the real question is how do the top 75 at UMass compare to the 75 at Wesleyan. I suspect the top of the Econ pool at Wes is pretty high, but you may need to be closer to the top at UMass to have a shot. The flip side is that the larger pool at UMass will draw more recruiters from other areas.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=amherst&s=all&id=166629
The OP sounds like they may be a prime prospect for the Wesleyan three-year degree program. It could potentially shave 20% off the top of that debt and there are people there willing to work with you to help thread the needle:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/other_acad_programs/3year.html
Amherst College has a LOT of lunches, meetings, programs (online and in person), events for finance/IB and if UMass students can go, and that link above suggests they can, then that would be a pretty big plus for UMass.
I dunno, @OHMomof2 , but, telling me that if I hustle enough I might be able to cadge an interview by using the facilities of another college, doesn’t sound like a great recommendation. What it really sounds like is one commentator got lucky and things could change drastically if all 500 Isenberg seniors suddenly descended on the Amherst campus trying to get interviews.
Here’s the year-end summary of the Gordon Career Center (which is for Wesleyan students only) for the Class of 2016:
Highlights:
71% employed;
12% in the Financial Services sector (third most popular sector after Tech/Engineering 15%; Education 13% and Media/Communications 13%)
Top Employers -
Booz Allen Hamilton (6)
Yale University (3)
Google (5)
Albert Einstein College of Medicine (2)
Massachusetts General Hospital (5)
Analysis Group (2)
Teach for America (5)
CKM Advisors (2)
Achievement First Charter School (4)
Cushing Academy (2)
Argus Information and Advisory Services (4)
Framingham Heart Study (2)
Deloitte (4)
MATCH (2)
IBM (4)
Morgan Stanley (2)
Amazon (3)
Regeneron (2)
Brattle Group (3)
Remedy Partners (2)
Citi (3)
Rockefeller University (2)
Goldman Sachs (3)
ScribeAmerica (2)
Epic Systems (3)
The American School in Japan (2)
Success Academy Charter Schools (3)
United States Forest Service (2)
University of Pennsylvania (3)
United States House of Representatives (2)
William Morris Endeavor (3)
University of Chicago (2)
Wesleyan University (2)
I know NOTHING about Wesleyan, never looked at it, so that was not a comparison.
I just know that in general, events at the 5 colleges are open to all 5 college students.
For an $80K difference in price I’d look into it a little.
Here are more links that I dug up…
The addition/renovation looks really nice
I wish I could find the equivalent outcome report for UMass but so far no luck.
Goldman, JP Morgan and State Street hire at UMass, vs. Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and Citi at Wesleyan (which is pretty much a wash)
In terms of student demographics,
50% of Isenberg students are honors
Average GPA 3.94,
Average SAT 1279
https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/isenberg-school-management-top-public
https://www.umass.edu/dcm/isom-addition
https://issuu.com/isenbergschoolofmanagement/docs/deansreport2016
Both my nieces graduated from Isenberg Honors. One graduated in 3 years and went directly into a job paying nearly $60K. That was 4 years ago and she is now in six figures working just north of Boston. The other niece graduated in 3.5 years and was employed nearly immediately in a decent job, I believe in the $45K range. She decided to move away from the Boston area and so hasn’t been able to increase her salary in the 3 years since she graduated but that was a trade-off she is happy with.
I think in this particular case its more about fit, location and how those reconcile with COA. I think your overall end opportunities are about equal.
Edited to add: Neither has any debt and niece #1 is employed by a company that is funding her Masters.
Any amount of loans above the federal limit (around $30K total) puts you in the private loan market, which is like swimming with sharks - you better know what you are doing. I would be very reluctant to go above that threshold.
Here is some information
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1498510-read-this-before-you-take-out-a-parent-plus-loan-p1.html