We went to Decision Day at Pitt this week and he made his decision. He absolutely loved it and was driven by the smaller student body, DA to B school, and overall opportunity for hands-on projects or internships with downtown Pittsburgh companies and their global internship opportunities in study abroad programs (short and long). We came home and he pressed the ACCEPT button and he’s officially PITT bound. He won’t be Big10, but is so very relieved and happy about Pitt. I have absolutely enjoyed the support and EVERYTHING learned on this specific string. Good luck to everyone…
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Awesome and congrats! I think Pitt does such a great job with their prospective/admitted student days. We live in Pittsburgh and I took my reluctant seniors to a blue and gold day last summer. By the end after talking to the business school, comp sci school and honors college they were both definitely more interested. One decided they wanted something less urban and the other wants to experience a new place, but overall I think it’s an excellent choice!
Congrats!! I am so excited for your son! Amazing opportunities at an amazing school … and what a location!!
And congrats to you for being done with this process!! Enjoy the rest of his senior year!
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I see most of the right university here. The list is great help
Anyone else want to share if they or their kid made a decision? If so, what made them choose that school and what were the other finalists? If your kid hasn’t picked yet, what schools are they deciding between?
I’ll go first, my kid is likely down to IU Kelley, Purdue and Florida State (in state for us). We’ve visited all three recently, but still no pick yet. IU and Purdue both put on compelling sessions for their business schools. Seems like he’s not as interested in UIUC (ACES) Iowa (Tippie) or South Carolina (Darla) that he was also admitted to. He is also deferred and waiting on UGA (decent chance) Michigan (probably a long shot).
I will jump in as the mother of a sophomore business student at Purdue. I can’t really speak to the other programs other than I know that Kelley is highly ranked. My daughter transferred in mid-way through her freshman year from a small engineering college when she realized engineering was not her fit. I have to say that I have been impressed with the personal attention she has received at Purdue. Her academic advisor at Daniels has been fantastic. Choosing business late in the game, she really didn’t know which direction to go. She started in management, decided she liked numbers more than people–haha–and switched to business analytics and information management, then missed high level mathematics courses and switched to mathematical economics. Her advisor supported her at each step helping her to analyze course requirements and to stay on track to graduate on time. She will even be able to pick up a couple of minors. If she ever has questions, she never has to wait long for answers and advising. My daughter absolutely LOVES the campus and is involved in several organizations that allow her to follow her other passions for leadership, music, and dance as well. She’s thriving.
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Great to hear, thanks for sharing. One of my take aways from up close visits to both IU Kelley and Purdue Daniels is that I came away thinking that Kelley has amazing opportunities for those go getters who can thrive in a competitive environment or bounce back from a few no’s before they find their right avenue. But the student may need the initiative to put themselves out there to be able to take full advantage.
Purdue Daniels, being smaller (about 1/3 the size), felt on the other hand somewhat more collaborative, less competitive and more supportive. Don’t get me wrong, Kelley had a lot of support initiates too, but a more introverted student may feel more overwhelmed there vs Daniels. Would enjoy hearing from others who agree or disagree with this assessment.
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Who’s kiddo deciding between IU/illinois/Whisky? Curious what kids are looking at when considering the three schools. They are my S24’s choices, with no clear winner, but I think Wisconsin is falling behind in his rankings.
Does your son have a particular major or area of interest? Or is he going in exploring majors? Because that could be a factor.
In general, I would recommend talking to people on each of the campuses about the competitive clubs or workshop/academies? Specifically, talk to students and find out how your son would access these opportunities. And see if your son likes the people he meets with, and if one campus resonates for him.
It is clear that your son is an exceptional student, and I would expect that he will excel academically at any of the three. Much about the college experience and accessing internships and networking opportunities is about the social and professional clubs and other activities outside the classroom. I would recommend your son look for the place that he feels he will best maximize those outside of the class opportunities.
Also, is he 100% sure he wants to major in business? If not, then he will want to look at the quality of the other schools within the larger university.
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He is going Business route as he is a DA to the three business schools and first choice major is Finance. We visited Illinois in November for Gies open house and Indiana on Kelley’s DA’s day couple weeks ago. Wife will be going to Wisconsin for their DA day first week of April. Kelley put on quite a show, their school marketing machine is very impressive. Can’t say the same about the LLC dorm we saw, but he can manage for one year of living there. And he willl learn how to operate washer and dryer, which we the parents think is a great skill to have in the real world. Illinois/Gies is not as flashy in their courting the students but the school ticks off all the right boxes and it’s in-state for us, so $$ saved there. They are putting up a $25MM new state of the art building to be shared by Gies and another school/program. Then the size of each school, Gies at 3,000 v. Kelley 10,000 undergrads. Does smaller size lead to less competition and more opportunities to join aforesaid clubs and workshops? Perhaps…I got a sense from Kelley that the competition for very popular Investment Banking and Finance workshops is borderline cutthroat…I am probably wrong, but that was my impression.
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I got the same impressions from visits!
If your son is math/data/tech inclined it seems like Gies has real strengths there. And in state pricing is a huge bonus!
Kelley seems to have a well-worn path to lucrative jobs thru workshops, but I think it is very competitive to get on/stay on that path. I can’t tell if Gies has the same paths and they just aren’t flashy about it. Maybe you can track down someone in the Golder Academies to find out more about the strengths there.
Did you get a feel for how much of a presence Greek life has in the business schools (referring to social fraternities) at both schools? It is my impression that both schools have massive Greek systems with outsized effects on campus. But I couldn’t really pin down whether that trickled into the business school in a notable way. Did your son feel more socially at home at any of the schools?
This may sound silly … does he have a feeling one way or another about the volume/abilities of kids from his high school already attending/headed to any of these schools or programs? For S24, he has really felt comfortable at Kelley, part of which is their polished presentation, and part is the kids he knows that have gone to Kelley from his high school/area. For my D22, she did not want to be with kids from HS. She went to a LAC that takes maybe 1 kid a year from our HS. Part of what helped her make her decision was a good conversation w a senior at the LAC that graduated from her HS and could talk about the academic and social transition to the college.
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I think you and I covered this previously in DMs…I look at his HS as basically a feeder school to both Illinois and Indiana, so lots of kids matriculate to each university. I see a high number of kids auto admitted to Kelley. It’s a different story with Gies, it’s a hard admit for anybody, regardless of stats and test scores. He went to Kelley’s DAs Day with four of his good friends, and bumped into another one while taking the campus tour. None of those kids, who are all bright and motivated, were accepted at Gies. I am not saying this to brag about my son, I think Gies admission standards are a high hurdle to clear. And his girlfriend chose Illinois, biology/pre-med…so we can be looking at a real dilemma how to make the right decision which school to go to.
As far as Greek life, both schools said around a quarter or so of the undergrads join in, but there are so many clubs and organizations outside of Greek world, a kid who wants to find something to do with similar minded friends, will not have any trouble doing so.
And thank you for bringing up Golder Academies. I do not know what they are and will absolutely look into it.
Just to correct the record- the Master’s in Accounting is typically NOT to “make up” for undergrad- it’s to fulfill the requirement for the CPA. There are thousands of accounting grads who added a Masters in Accounting after majoring in accounting (from hundreds of different undergrad programs) and they had NOTHING to make up for.
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I didn’t think you were bragging. Your son is very high stats. I was wondering if that was leading him to want the more selective environment (which is Gies).
I don’t think you can make a bad decision from the 3 schools. I would confirm that the kids coming out of Golder have the same opportunities as the kids coming out of Kelley workshops. My guess is that they do and that there’s less competition on the way into those programs. According to the last CDS, Gies gradauted 290 finance majors. Kelly is around 1,300.
Another interesting dynamic … I got the impression that finance was the major most likely to be filled with gunners at Kelley. I did not get that vibe from Gies. I expect there are going to be a whole bunch of 800 SAT math kids at U of I that are doing a Hoeft minor that aren’t interested in the typical finance pathways. But I could be wrong …
We had a few students tell us the same (didn’t use the word “cutthroat” though). They even told us getting into most of the business fraternities was quite competitive at Kelley.
I wrote “borderline cutthroat” and was a bit overdramatic. But, as you said, there is a perception out there among some Kelley students that the process of joining business clubs/workshops is intense and competitive.
To be honest, some are borderline cutthroat! (300 kids for 25 spots in a business fraternity each semester with intense interviewing process) but there are tons of other ways to get involved so I would advise to try for these but not count on getting into a frat or workshop and explore the many other opportunities available. Also, the business frats are more social than you would think - when rushing it’s more about personality than business background.
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One of the best things my older son did at Kelley was a 2 week study abroad to Germany in May of sophomore year which was preceded by a 8 week course specifically about the country (BUS-X272). I think many Big 10 colleges offer this type of program. He met new people and now can go to that professor for recommendation letters as they get to know each other on the trip. At Kelley this is offered Sophomore year - see link for the countries they go to: Global Business Immersion | Bachelor's Degree in Business | Indiana Kelley
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