<p>A econ degree from Northwestern or a business degree from Washu Olin? I was looking through some finance jobs, and a lot of them require either a business, finance or accounting degree but not econ, so i am a bit worried.</p>
<p>First get into the school and worry. You might not even be admitted to the two schools.</p>
<p>I have to decide which school to use my ED on, ever thought of that?</p>
<p>I would do Northwestern</p>
<p>Probably Northwestern. I’d think you’d be able to get internships easily in Chicago. </p>
<p>Skip the ED thing. Apply to both regular decision, and if both admit you next spring, compare the aid packages and then decide.</p>
<p>ED is only appropriate if the school is your clear first choice, and you have no need to compare financial aid and scholarships.</p>
<p>Applying ED significantly increases my chances</p>
<p>It certainly increases your chances, but as ucb says,</p>
<p>‘ED is only appropriate if the school is your clear first choice, and you have no need to compare financial aid and scholarships.’</p>
<p>Well I heard NU and Washu were both pretty generous</p>
<p>I’ll go out on the limb here. My bachelor’s degree was in Economics and broadly speaking, you need a graduate degree in Economics to gain employment in that field. That isn’t to say that people with Econ degrees don’t find employment - I did and so do many others, but not necessarily in the field of Economics - many times it is in a business related field.</p>
<p>Both of the schools are wonderful, though and if you can get into either, I’d want to look at starting off as more of a General Business type major and trying out several of the specialty fields before deciding on a specific one. Truth is that many high school kids don’t know the difference between a Finance degree and an Economics degree versus an Accounting degree and will learn more about those when they finish the business program’s first two years. Just my two cents, but based on your initial statement, I’d lean towards Business at WashU</p>
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<p>But you don’t want to be one of those students who is admitted ED and comes back posting here asking if there is any way to delay the matriculation decision to see other results because you are not sure if the ED school is your first choice.</p>
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<p>If you apply ED, you won’t be able to see if the OTHER school is more or less generous. You’re bound to attend the ED school. Apply RD to both schools (add safety schools as well)</p>
<p>You can back out of the ED agreement if the school turns out to be unaffordable. You cannot, however, compare financial aid offers to that of the ED school - you can reject the ED offer based on insufficient aid, but not “take it back” once RD decisions are available. You have some time to educate yourself on the costs/benefits of applying ED. You would not be the first one to apply ED for the boost it gives in admissions, and I think that can be the right strategy for some. </p>
<p>A lot of people argue that ED may boost your chances, perhaps significantly, of getting admitted to selective colleges. The colleges themselves say that it doesn’t - they say that the higher admissions rates are explained by the very competitive bunch that apply ED to these schools. CC denizens argue (convincingly) that can’t explain the entire very large differences between the application rate - some schools with single-digit acceptance RD rates boast ED rates of 20% or more, and there’s clearly an advantage yield-wise for schools to accept more students ED.</p>
<p>That said, I think it IS safe to say that ED only works as a boost for candidates who are already competitive for admission wrt grades, test scores, and ECs, and/or who may be kind of borderline at the non-single-digit schools. So if you’re not a competitive RD admit, I wouldn’t bother wasting an ED on Northwestern.</p>
<p>I’m going to go on a limb and say that ED as a boost may also work better at the ladder-climber schools who are trying to compete with the very top/elite schools for students - Tufts comes to mind, for example, with the “Tufts Syndrome” thing (although whether that’s a real thing or not is debatable). Dave Berry says he’s seen it happen at Wash U (here: <a href=“http://www.collegeview.com/admit/?p=3083”>http://www.collegeview.com/admit/?p=3083</a>). However, both Northwestern and Wash U have yield rates similar to each other (35-40%), although Northwestern doesn’t strike me as a university hurting for students or recognition.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t really see much of a point on the student’s end of applying ED in a case like this one, where there’s no real clear first choice and perhaps not much of a benefit to applying ED to the student (depends on your stats, I guess). Especially not when there are soooooo many great colleges out there to apply to in addition to these two, if you really want to hedge your bets.</p>
<p>To answer the question, I honestly don’t think it will matter. An econ major with the quantitative skills can get hired into the same jobs as a business major, especially with the recruiting at Northwestern. The same firms are likely to be hitting both schools’ career services offices. I’ve heard finance people say that econ is more flexible than a general business major. Consider also the idea that you might change your mind about what you want to major in, and where you would be more happy as a student overall (so social scene and environment, too).</p>
<p>I said both offer generous financial aid because I was trying to imply that if I did choose to ED to one of these schools, the financial package they would give me would be sufficient. </p>
<p>@stanatedj, if i wanted to go into corporate finance, would I be able to with an econ degree?</p>
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<p>I know one person who is in investment banking with an econ degree from Northwestern. From what she said, there is on-campus recruitment for these jobs, so looks like the answer is “yes.” </p>
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<p>Perhaps more generically, the “level of applicant’s interest” thing, where colleges use it to reject students who appear to be using them as a “safety”. Applying ED signals a high level of interest, and presumably helps at such colleges, at least for high stats applicants who might otherwise be suspected of applying to the school as a “safety”.</p>
<p>Tufts itself does not consider “level of applicant’s interest”, according to <a href=“Tufts University Acceptance Rate | CollegeData”>https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=155</a> . It does not look like Tufts has past common data sets to see if “level of applicant’s interest” was considered in the past, when the “Tufts syndrome” reputation appeared.</p>
<p>A lot of times, the amount the college expects the family to pay is much more than the family is able or willing to pay. Generous can still leave room for a very large contribution. Did you run the Net Price Calculators for those colleges yet? If your finances are relatively straightforward then that can give you an estimate.</p>