lisieux

I'm just about to turn in my reply form to UVA, and hence turning down Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon's Tepper. However, some other thread made me think twice (thrice, 4x, over and over again......) about my decision.

Can I have your feedback on the school and the university in general please? Things like, what McIntire is particularly good at and all.. I am interested to go into Investment Banking. Or maybe International Business. And also, bad things that might stop me from enrolling to UVA...

Please give me a balanced view! It'd be good if you can tell me where/which uni you're from also.

Thanksssssssssss so muchhhhhh...

(Sorry for being so fickle. I'm gonna spend hundred thousands of dollars for uni as an international student, so this is an important decision to make... Must make sure it wont go to waste. And turning down Berkeley and Carnegie IS a hard decision! I keep on asking myself "Are you sure or not??" Haha sigh. Thanks!!)

Special thanks to Barboza, quaq_mire, and otehrs who've helped me a lot in the other thread..

quag_mire

for investment banking, i would choose UVA...I think you're making the right choice...but if you're interested in the quant side of finance, then Tepper would be a better choice...but all said and done, you are in good hands if you do well in UVA, so dont be stressing too much

barboza

Haha, lisieux, I see that you're still making your decision! I understand that this is very important for you, so it's wise to think very hard before making the choice. I would not solely rely on rankings to determine whether a school is better than another; there are so many "legitimate" rankings out there, and it's impossible to determine if BusinessWeek has a better ranking than USNews. You might want to consider the methodologies used from these sources, but don't read into rankings too much. Instead, I would focus on looking at what opportunities are offered at each school, and how students have used them after their undergraduate career.

McIntire is famous for their finance and accounting programs, and many go into investment banking and consulting for internships and full-time jobs. There seems to be a heavy focus on recruitment for investment banking in McIntire, so if you are set on i-banking, I think you are making the right choice. While your final two years will be consumed with taking classes in McIntire, you'll still be able to take other classes - and you should especially do so during your first two years prior to entering McIntire.

I really can't think of any negatives, as international students here seem to enjoy their experiences very much. They have such a great support within the UVA community, and mesh in very well with Americans here. This is especially true for my friends from Singapore (and Hong Kong!), a lot of whom end up in McIntire. I know a girl who even transferred from Singapore Management University to McIntire, after her semester-long exchange program here!!! She really loved every minute of her time last year, and received an summer internship offer from a huge investment bank in NYC fairly recently.

My advice is that if you want to concentrate in finance and see yourself doing investment banking (or consulting), then UVA is the place for you.