Hello All,
I am a junior in high school right now beginning to go through the college admission process. I am looking to play basketball at a d3 school and have the ability to play at the top schools. I am looking to go into finance/private equity/venture cap after college. My stats are good (1450 SAT and my grade average is a 95), but I don’t want to go to a school with an overly intellectual environment.
I guess what I am asking is what are some highly rated d3 schools with great business placement and students who aren’t overly intellectual (I am okay with some intellectuals but moderation would be nice).
It’s the unusual college with the intellectual environment- Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Cal Tech, U Chicago. If you’re planning to major in business I can’t think of a place that won’t be a fit for you. The PE/VC piece is a little complicated- since those places love to hire from MIT or Cal Tech or Yale which is not the environment you are looking for. But a regular finance major leading to a job in finance- go online to the recruiting section of the website of any financial institution you’ve heard of and see what their recruiting calendar looks like and where they go. That will give you a pretty robust list of schools and then you can verify basketball/D3, make sure it’s affordable, and knock off the schools which attract the deep intellectuals.
D3 Schools that don’t have that a highly intellectual/grindy vibe with successful job placement into high paying financial industry careers, just to name a few: W&L, NYU, Baruch, Trinity, Bowdoin, Williams, Middlebury, really most of the NESCACs. That’s not even counting the non-elite schools with great financial industry placement, like SMU (which is DI, but that’s not really important).
There are many different types of jobs that need different skill sets within the financial companies. Many of the highly successful financial industry people have highly developed sales and communication skills in addition to good quant skills.
OP, I think you can consider Bates and Colby in Maine. Both have connections to the world of finance, and while the students are intelligent, I wouldn’t say the vibe is of intellectualism. There’s a lot of school spirit and sports are popular. They are academically rigorous, but also relaxed and fun colleges with friendly people.
In addition to W&L, check out Emory and Wash U. Fordham has an excellent business school and connections but the basketball is Div 1 so not sure that fits you.
Some ideas of NCAA Men’s D111 schools with a business degree. Many of these will NOT be target recruitment schools for ‘big finance’ though, but could place well regionally. Check their careers office as suggested above. You will have further choices if you would go for Economics/Math as this will open up more highly regarded liberal arts colleges, esp in NE.
The College of New Jersey
Emory
Wash U
NYU
Rochester
RPI
Ithaca
Wooster
Babson
RIT
Allegneny
Case Western
Franklin and Marshall
Drew
Muhlenberg
Scranton
Ursinus
Brandeis
Wheaton MA
WPI
Washington and Lee
Chapman
Puget Sound
Babson, has always been more focused on application than “intellectual” type learning. I think it’s great he knows he doesn’t want an “intellectual” type place. Some programs lend themselves more to applied learning and some are more broad.