Im looking for universities (preferably in the midwest or south) where i as an introvert who also likes to have a lot of fun with friends would feel comfortable. I got a 28 on my 1st ACT, have a 3.6 weighted and 3.45 unweighted at a competative catholic high school in wisconsin. I want to major in supply chian management, but its ok if they dont have that major if the school is a good enough fit otherwise. Thanks for your help!
Any cost constraints?
1 Like
UTK = the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Tough to assess schools based on a type of personality (introvert). My best guess is that you might want to avoid small schools that have both a high percentage of athletes and high participation in Greek social societies. in short, avoid schools which facilitate cliques.
The larger the school, the more likely that you will find people and activities with which you are comfortable.
Better to focus on your major than on your personality in my opinion.
2 Likes
What is it that you need as an introvert to be comfortable? The answer is different for everyone, but if you can identify specific needs, we can come up with a better list.
Think about housing, classes, activities, environment and how far out of your comfort zone you are willing to go to meet people.
4 Likes
For strong supply chain management in the south, yes, U of Tennessee Knoxville. If southwest also works, look at Arizona State too. Both are campuses with plenty of fun available!
One thing that can be tough for introverts is putting themselves out there to get internships and work experience. If that’s you, a school with a co-op program might be a good choice. U of Cincinnati pioneered this approach, and their business school “offers an innovative approach to business education that we call PACE. The PACE framework allows students to create a customized roadmap for developing proficiency in Professionalism, Academics, Character and Engagement to ensure they can successfully pursue the personal and professional goals they are passionate about.” They have a co-op based Operations Management program, which includes Supply Chain content but is a little broader. https://business.uc.edu/programs-degrees/undergraduate/majors/bba-operations-management.html Their First Year Experience includes small-group Learning Communities that are good for building social connections. First-Year Experience | University of Cincinnati
Coming from a Catholic high school, would you also like a Catholic college? U of Dayton could work Operations and Supply Chain Management (Bachelor's) : University of Dayton, Ohio especially if you’d like a mid-sized school (about 8000 undergrads) rather than a large public. Closer to home, Marquette (7500 undergrads) could also be a good fit Operations & Supply Chain Management Major // Undergraduate Admissions // Marquette University Maybe Loyola New Orleans, although their Business School doesn’t have an operations/supply-chain specialization for undergrads; great social environment, though!
What are your extracurricular interests? Sometimes this can be a good way to narrow down - look at campuses that are particularly strong in a non-major activity where you’d find your people, whether that’s a marching band, or an outdoor recreation club, or a great club team in your sport, or whatever.
2 Likes
UW-Stout would give you in-state tuition. U-MN Twin Cities would give you tuition reciprocity. U-MN also has the benefit of belonging to National Student Exchange. NSE is a group of ~200 schools across the US and Canada. You can do up to a year of exchange at any of the other partners paying no more than the home-institution tuition, and credits transfer seamlessly. A lot of interesting schools participate:
4 Likes
I don’t think Minnesota would be a slam-dunk admit for an OOS student with a 3.6/28, especially if business majors like Supply Chain & Operations Management are more competitive than the university as a whole, which they well could be. But it could be a great one to try for!
Another terrific midwestern flagship for business, where a WI student would get the MSEP discount, is UNL. (Supply Chain major)
4 Likes
The first two thoughts I had were…Marquette and University of Dayton.
2 Likes
When hearing that you’re an introvert, my first recommendation is to look for schools that have more intensive forms of orientation. Perhaps students take a class on-campus before the regular semester starts, or students go camping or do a community service project together. Anything that will get you into a more extended amount of time besides an afternoon or a day of orientation so that you can get to know people and start building a social network. When there’s an activity in place (i.e. hiking/volunteering/taking a class) it also makes it easier to start conversations, because you’re actually doing something together.
One program I know of is the Intensive First-Year Seminars program at Indiana University which has a very well-reputed business school (Kelley).
I don’t know what the first year experiences that are so notable at these schools, but they were nominated by college administrators for their programs, so there might be some worth investigating here:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/first-year-experience-programs
Additionally, see if there are special cohorts that interest you. For instance, many colleges have living learning communities where students will take a certain number of classes together and live in the same dorm. Alternatively, there might be some thematic commonality between students and activities that are organized around that, even if they’re not taking classes together (perhaps an interest in the outdoors, or volunteering, etc).
So finding schools that have special orientation opportunities, living learning communities, and other ways to get to know people more easily would be my suggestion for someone who views themselves as introverted.
Below are some additional schools that you may want to take a look at in terms of their supply chain management programs:
- Bowling Green State (OH): About 14k undergrads
- Grand Valley State (MI): About 19k undergrads
- Iowa State: About 25k undergrads
- John Carroll (OH): About 2400 undergrads
- Marquette (WI): About 7500 undergrads
- Texas Christian: About 11k undergrads
- U. of Arkansas: About 26k undergrads
- U. of Tennessee: About 27k undergrads
- Western Michigan: About 14k undergrads
3 Likes
I’m going to disagree with this. While I’m pretty average on the introvert/extrovert scale (I remember taking a test to determine where I was, and I was right in the middle), I went to both a 50,000 student university and a 3000 student university. It was a lot easier to make friends at the smaller school because you’re around the same people so much more often than at a larger school. You get to know them better.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.