I’ve been accepted to a lot of schools but have cut the list down from 13 to 6 schools.
The schools that I’m interested in, because of the environment/fit/people:
Carleton, Bates
The schools that my parents are interested in, because of career outcomes w/ higher salaries:
Boston College, Lehigh University (Computer Science and Business Dual Program), Colgate University
My original ED school: Barnard—I like the resources the the “campus within the city”, but unsure of lack of larger campus
I’m interested in majoring in Economics at liberal arts or business at the larger colleges because I would like to work in the business field in a large city like NYC. I’m worried I won’t find the school with the best compromise among many factors, because all the schools seems to be more imperfect than initially thought. For example, I applied to Barnard ED because it was the most selective of the list and the connection to Columbia granted a lot of resources besides the ones at Barnard. I also thought a women’s college would provide me great mentorship opportunities. But now, I don’t know how I feel about attending the school because of career outcomes and because most students major in English or Psych.
Carleton and Bates has the environment I want, but not the career possibilities/location distant from NYC.Philly/Boston.
Lehigh’s social scene puts me off (parties, 40% greek, hierarchy) but attractive grad placement
Colgate University has a great pre-professional program grounded in liberal arts, but overly sporty/preppy/rich
BC seems to have the best combo but I don’t know how I feel about attended a much larger school and forfeiting other more selective choices. I know it’s not always about selectivity, but I feel devastated that the work I put into getting into more selective schools was wasted, if that makes sense.
Did you/your child attend a school for fit or career outcomes? My parents are worried I’m setting myself up for failure by attending an LAC and I had to convince them to even apply to LACs. I do want to find a balance between fit and career outcomes because I know econ is a practical major, but maybe not as much as Finance or Accounting, and that happiness is important.
These are all world class colleges that should give you a strong background that will enable you to go anywhere you want to go.
Also, career success is based mostly on the individual, regardless of the college (s)he attends. So which place do you feel will be the best fit to help you grow into a person who is ready to realize your dreams?
You need to,get a map. It’s not like you are going to be riding a bicycle from Lehigh or Colgate to,the nearest big metro area.
Bates and Carleton are both great schools.
If you wanted an urban school, why didn’t you apply to urban schools (even BC is suburban, and while close to Boston, it’s also not a bicycle ride away…and even by commuter train…it’s a schlep).
Any of your acceptances are terrific schools. If all are within the college budget, I hope your parents will let YOU choose. The vetting should have taken place before applications were sent.
You are the one going to college…hoping you get to make,the matriculation decision.
First of all I would like to congratulate you on your acceptances! Next- I disagree with your parents ( no disrespect) that you are setting yourself up for failure by attending an LAC. These are all outstanding choices!
I knew that my older daughter was heading for grad school. She attended an undergrad fit school that had a very strong program in her major. She is now in grad school and entered the program very well prepared. In her case she found a fit school that also put her on a career track, and she found this while in HS. I won’t lie- I am happy that things turned out this way for her because I feel she does very well with this type of structure.
My younger daughter is different. She was very adamant about not finding a school based on a career. She wanted to explore and had no interest in saying she was “pre” anything. Refused to say pre med, pre law, etc and refused to say “I want to be a …” She was recently accepted into one of the professional schools at her college, but it’s not something that is very specific such as nursing, education, etc. it still gives her room to explore and narrow things down within the major.
I do understand your parents concerns because I had similar concerns with my younger daughter. I decided to let her take the ropes and control the process because it’s her life, not mine. I did tell her that I expect her to eventually be able to support herself. I am 100% confident that she will enter into a career path that makes her happy while at the same time provide her with a salary that will pay her bills.
Unfortunately I can’t speak for business type majors- I can only give you my experiences. I had to go with their personalities, desires, and strengths.
The lacs you cute have extensive alumni networks and are very well known both at the graduate level and in industry.
You don’t have to major in business to work in a business - in fact, most elite colleges don’t offer business majors and their graduates have no problem finding internships and later jobs.
Based on what you said you want, Barnard would be the best choice. But if you like Bates, go with Bates - it’s network is really strong on the East Coast. Carleton is quirkier and it doesn’t sound like the best fit but you listed it as a top choice.
I’m a graduate of an LAC, and a midwestern parent of children who attended college in Chicago and Rhode Island and are both now living in NYC. You don’t have go to college in a city to end up there. You just move there either immediately after college or by working your way along. My kids chose their colleges based on “fit,” which included the programs and type of place. #1 wanted to attend a college “where it’s okay to be a thinker,” preferably located in a “major league city” (as in sports!). #2 wanted to attend an art school in a “real city,” which Providence barely qualified for in her opinion; but RISD/Providence was quite accessible to Boston and NYC by train or bus. She had high school friends in college in NYC (at NYU and Columbia) whom she could visit.
I would pay NO attention to the “higher salaries” expectations for graduates of different colleges. (I don’t trust the numbers.) I would rather focus on the quality of the education and the early sorting through of your career options. Carleton is among the best colleges in the country. Its intellectual climate is reflected in the fact that a lot of Carleton grads go on to earn doctorates. (https://www.reed.edu/ir/phdrank.html) You’re not going to have stunted opportunities no matter what you major in at Carleton. The name carries a lot of weight in grad school applications, if you intend to get another degree. (My #1 kid was admitted to Carleton, but chose to attend UChicago and to major in economics. He then worked for several years in Chicago before moving to NYC.)
I think you don’t have any bad choices from this list. If you haven’t visited them, then get to it! Start eliminating some based on “taste” – your feelings after visiting, such as those you express about Lehigh. (Comment: I have a brother-in-law who went from Lehigh to being on the board of PriceWaterhouse Coopers, so you wouldn’t be doomed if you chose that college.) But don’t be too calculating; you’re going to the college for 4 years, so make it one you would like to attend. That said, you would have an enormous range of life opportunities as a graduate of any of the colleges that have accepted you.
I’ll also put in a plug for Carleton. My younger daughter graduated from there with a double major in economics and math, had jobs or internships related to one or the other after her first, second, and third years of college, got an economics-related job in NYC post-graduation, and is now evaluating acceptances from top Ph.D. programs for this fall. None of these things fell into her lap, but the fact she was at Carleton was not a hindrance at all when she was looking for work or applying for grad school.
As other posters have said, your parents are mistaken in thinking that BC, Lehigh & Colgate have better outcomes than Carleton & Bates. You can go anyplace from any of the colleges you have been admitted to- where you go and how fast you get there will be completely down to what you do while in college.
Be aware that most students don’t do significant internships during term (there are notable exceptions, by school, by subject and by student)- on the whole, students are busy studenting, especially in the first several years.
The only negative you give of your preferred schools is that they won’t have “the career possibilities/location” b/c they are distant from NYC.Philly/Boston. But your ‘career goals’ are vague- you want to work in the ‘business field’ in a major city. That isn’t actually a career path- it’s a category. You can major in anything and still go into business- a business undergrad degree is not necessary for going into the business world. That’s true even if you are looking to go into corporate finance- I know a whole bunch of people with humanities (history, english, philosophy, theology, etc)- undergrad degrees at Goldman et al). Your summer internships - in the field you are interested in! -and school activities will be what matters. Btw, it is true that top 2 majors at Barnard are English and Psych, and together they account for about 23% of the class. But # 3 is Econ & #4 is PoliSci (which is what a lot of would-be business people majored in back in the olden days before LACs had business majors), which together account for about 18% of the class.
Honestly, you need to get your skates on and go to your re-visit days. No matter what anybody says, all your colleges are ‘bubbles’ (even urban Columbia), where you will eat, sleep, live and work in for the next four years. As none of them will be significantly better or worse from an objective point of view, you should pick the place that fits you.
And then be prepared to change. Because you will- a lot.
Barnard is in NYC and so would make networking and hustling for job/internships outside of on-campus recruiting easier.
Your parents are, to put it harshly, innumerate, as they do not take in to consideration the mix of majors and career aspirations of the various student bodies. If a college has a relatively greater percentage wanting to go in to academia or to become a starving artist (or just to stay at home), their average alumni salaries would be lower compared to a college where relatively more want to head in to business or technology. But that doesn’t mean that someone who does want to head in to business would do worse at the first college than the second. So given that, why does it matter if the most popular majors at a college are English and Psychology?
And don’t let stuff like admit rate guide your decision. For one, admit rates can change a lot over the years (UChicago had a much higher admit rate than WashU a decade or so ago, for instance). For another, nobody who actually hires cares about relatively small differences in selectivity. They care about what you can bring to the table, so go where you would be happiest, get the best training/education, and opportunities.
I say fit wins hands down. Fit is a well reasoned analysis of you. So called “graduate outcome” is based on fuzzy statistics about other people, NONE of whom are you.
Know of several Barnard graduates who are working for NYC and other urban based fortune 500 and ibanking/financial firms. Some have gone on to attend top 5 MBA programs as well.
Same with folks who attended Bates or Carleton.
No disrespect, but I think your parents are reading too much into the career salary figures and regard college too much as direct vocational training rather than something much more.
Also, graduating with a business major is no guarantee one will be getting a rigorous education or gainfully employed:
Incidentally, the financial and corporate firms I’ve worked for tend to regard most business majors no differently and sometimes worse than your average “Liberal Arts” graduate.
One medium-sized Boston area financial firm I worked for had an unofficial policy of not hiring undergraduate business majors unless they attended elite ones like Wharton, NYU-Stern, UVA-McIntire, Berkeley-HAAS, UMich Ross, etc because they found themselves burned by too many prior hires from undergrad b-schools below that elite tier and felt it wasn’t worth the trouble.
Basic point is that one doesn’t need to necessarily have a business degree to work in corporate businesses or even ibanks contrary to OP’s parents’ assertions.
Time period’s irrelevant, especially considering both articles I linked to about business majors and lack of rigor/problems with employability were from this decade.
The university vs. salary surveys I’m aware of are very flawed.
They don’t isolate results by major.
They don’t account for geographical preferences. Compensation levels tend to vary regionally. Nominal salaries are higher on the coasts than in the Midwest. After adjusting for cost of living though, the results may be quite different.
They exclude advanced degree holders. Everyone I personally am in contact with who graduated from my university with me earned an advanced degree someplace. I don’t even know who they got to survey! But a pool of those who never got advanced degrees is not necessarily the same as a random sample of all of the university’s graduates.
So you can find surveys where schools with many engineering and business grads, and/or who mostly go to work afterwards in a very high-priced area (esp New York City), and don’t go to grad school so much, will place high on these surveys. That does not necessarily mean that a sociology major graduating from these schools will get paid more than some other school’s sociology major. Or that a grad who wants to live in Minneapolis instead of New York will really be worse off financially, after adjusting for cost of living.
I’d choose between Carleton and Bates. I’m partial to Carleton. I know some highly successful people from there. And very nice too. Your outcomes should be great from there as long as you’re okay with the weather and location in Minnesota. Sounds like cold weather isn’t an issue for you. I think an undergrad Econ degree is better than an UG business degree. Get that via MBA or not at all.
I'm interested in majoring in Economics at liberal arts or business at the larger colleges because I would like to work in the business field in a large city like NYC.
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As others have pointed out, you can move to NYC and work in business with a BBA or a BA from a liberal arts college. However, some of the LACs are better known for their finance and consulting placements than others.
My quickie rating is: BC/Colgate > Bates > Barnard/Carlton, with Bates and BC/Colgate being very close. I love Carlton but its graduates are not known for business. At Barnard, you’d be taking lots of econ with Columbia students to move forward on your intended career path.
I think you need to revisit some those “B” schools (Barnard, Bates and Boston College) in April. If you still love Bates, you should go there.
I think the “career outcomes/salaries” is important when you comparing Carleton vs. East Podunk but not so much when you are comparing “top schools”. Make yourself a spreadsheet of all factors of interest like:
I would make a spreadsheet and include info like:
Net Cost
Number of Undergraduates
Faculty Student Ratio
%of students that live on campus
How big is the department for your major? If you are majoring in something that only has a couple of professors, that does not bode well.
Housing- do they offer all 4 years? freshman only?
Urban/rural/suburban
Is this a commuter school? (do students go home on weekends)
Surrounding area - what is the nearby town/amenities like?
Transportation - how would you get home
AP Credits - can you get credit for AP tests you have taken
Male/Female ration
Greek life - what % of students are in greek life
Parking
Diversity
Safety
Sports
Jobs - what happens to seniors after they graduate
Internships - depending on your major, is it easy to get internships?
…and whatever makes sense for you
You might not care about, say, greek life. but if 50% of the kids are in greek life and you don’t want to be, that is something to know. Or you may want a big time sports scene or you might not want one.
Grade them from 1-5 as they make sense to you. A
Then Add up the “score” and look at each of them and see which makes sense for you.
