Good GPA, better test schools looking for finance [NJ resident, 89-90/100 GPA, 1520 SAT]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Posting on behalf of my son

Demographics

  • US domestic: US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: NJ
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Private, rigorous, parochial all boys school
  • Other special factors: None

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.) None

Intended Major(s) Finance or Finance & Accounting

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores 95/100 weighted GPA. School gives plus 5% for honors, plus 10% for AP. No grades for gym, drivers ed, health, etc.

  • Unweighted HS GPA: Approx 89-90/100
  • Weighted HS GPA: 95/100 weighted GPA. School gives plus 5% for honors, plus 10% for AP. No grades for gym, drivers ed, health, etc.
  • Class Rank: School doesn’t rank but prob 13-15%
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1520 (770 math, 750 EBRW)

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: Honors 9th & 10th, AP lang 11th, AP lit 12th
  • Math: Honors Alg 2 & Trig 9th, Honors Precalc 10th, AP Calc AB 11th, AP Stats 12th
  • Science: Honors Bio 9th, AP Chem 10th, AP Physics 11th
  • History and social studies: Honors World 9th, AP World 10th, APUSH 11th, AP Gov 12th, AP Economics 12th
  • Language other than English: Honors Latin 1, 2 & 3 9th-11th, AP Latin 12th
  • Other academic courses: Required Theology all 4 years. Business semester long classes: Business Decision Making 11th, Business Ethics 11th, Bloomberg Certification 12th, Information Systems Management 12th

Awards

  1. Gold Medal, The Congressional Award
  2. National Merit Commended Scholar
  3. AP Scholar with Distinction
  4. NJ Seal of Biliteracy
  5. Highest Honors each semester 9th-11th

Extracurriculars

  1. Vice Prez, helped revitalize dormant club that arranges to have alumni come in an talk to students, engage in Q&A 11th & 12th
  2. Completed self study Babson College (edX) Fundamentals of Financial Analysis jan-june 2025
  3. Member of Investment Club - all years
  4. Summer camp counselor for underprivileged youth 9th-11th (250 hours total)
  5. 250 plus hours volunteering at food pantries and soup kitchens 9th-11th
  6. Farmhand - summer employment 2025
  7. NHS
  8. Big brother/little brother in school mentorship program 11th & 12th
  9. track and xc 9th and 10th

Essays/LORs/Other
Essay - 8.5/10
LOR1 - Latin teacher had all years, great guy 9/10
LOR2 - math teacher had for A2&trig and AP Calc AB 8.5/10

Schools
Early Action everywhere

  • Florida State
  • Fordham
  • Indiana @ Bloomington
  • Penn State
  • Rutgers
  • University of Florida
  • University of Georgia
  • University of Richmond
  • University of South Carolina
  • University of Virginia

Anywhere else? Open to suggestions. Student would like to gain admissions to the honors colleges specific to the business schools. This is what I am most concerned about for him specifically at Kelley & Smeal.

Appreciate feedback

2

What is the budget ?

What is the unweighted gpa.

Take out the weighting.

In fact use their scale - they’ll say 90 is an A or 93, etc. . Each A is a 4. B a 3. Take out out any +- and any weighted lift.

Take the points 3 As and a B = 15 points. Divide by # of classes - so 3.75.

Don’t just say Honors Colleges. All are different. Study what each offers..some fit some students while the others don’t.

Take out Honors, it’s usually not predictable.

But need to know the unweighted gpa on a 4 point scale.

Why not taking Calc BC ? It’s ok but would be better than Stats in my opinion.

Why this list - is there an end goal like Wall Street or just regular corporate finance type jobs?

Forgetting the ‘names’, what does the student seek in a college ? Weather ? Size ? Environment - ie rural or urban ? Sports ? Greek ?

Why Honors ? I noted they’re all different - is it just class size ? Most are some classes smaller whereas other non honors will be most smaller.

Rather than just picking names, let’s find the ‘right’ schools for the student - and your desired budget.

3

3.6 uw which looks so rough. But it’s a tough HS.

4

He’s not totally sure what he wants to do. He finds VC and IB interesting.

5

Ok. Asked more questions.

But just the school -

FSU - unlikely

Fordham likely

IU yea but Kelley an unknown - we haven’t seen their new methodology. But last year yes.

Penn State - Smeal unlikely

Rutgers yes

Florida - unlikely

UGA - unlikely - not direct admit

Richmond - target

South Carolina -leaning yes

UVA - not direct admission, unlikely

Is there a budget?

You said IB/VC maybe?

Does he have likes - perhaps a large school (IU Kelley is bigger than most universities) is something he doesn’t like.

To say, I want Honors - you need to look. Some give housing and early registration. Others have classes but they are Humanity based, etc. hence my kid applied to the one at Alabama but not Purdue, etc. So it’s not just - I want Honors - and most offer zero advantage job wise - they are for the student experience. There’s not even a place on a job app.

Given the potential interests, I might suggest Bentley and Arizona State - but obviously VC comes different ways.

If the budget is high (he can go for $25K or $95K), schools like Providence and Holy Cross if religion is ok.

Other publics with solid B schools that are less competitive - Arizona State Carey (has the IBIS program if you can get in), Miami of Ohio Farmer, Alabama Culverhouse, Minnesota Carlson, Ohio State Fisher, UMass Isenberg, Va Tech Pamplin, Colorado Leeds, Wisconsin (reach).

You could look at TCU and SMU. U Denver carries above its weight in finance. Elon seems to be getting more popular.

You should see which are direct admit and which aren’t (you have to transfer in) from another part of the college.

Mainly - your budget and type of school the student wants, to me, should drive the decision. If you say $40K, the list is different (as is yours). If you say $95K, you’re ok.

Best of luck.

PS -if it’s accounting he wants, you can do it anywhere - literally - like Rutgers would be great as would most other state schools and Bentley, etc.

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6

I agree Smeal is unlikely but you can try because Admission is 2/3 (GPA×rigor) – with 3.6 being below average but rigor is good and test score is good too. So, worth a try keeping in mind it’s a reach.
There are solid business majors outside of Smeal, such as Energy Finance or Agribusiness - in case he is admitted to a branch campus and not UP, and wants to try for reconsideration (a 2nd chance). Checking “Summer” if you can afford to send him, would increase his chances.
Admission to Schreyer is almost entirely based on the essays - the selection is drastic: out of 9,000 UP freshmen, only 300 are in Schreyer. Sapphire requires students to be admitted to Smeal before they can apply.

Seconding Bentley, you can add Babson as a reach. Fordham + Honors would be worth it. What about SUNY Binghamton and Albany (the latter, with Honors college)? Elon?
Fairfield, Providence as mentioned above, would be great targets.
I’ve also heard good things about UNCC and finance, for a safety in the South (weather-wise).

Unless he’s in the top 5-10% of his class, I don’t think UVA is within reach and UGA or UF are probably unlikely (of course he can try if he still has time).
Seconding SMU, TCU if he wants business/affluent.

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7

He wanted to take the classes he has on his senior schedule and didn’t have room for BC.

He wants a bigger school and has toured UF, UGA, Indiana and others not on the list.

He doesn’t know if he wants greek life yet. He doesn’t know a lot about what he exactly wants and that’s ok because he is only 17.

Honors for some schools at least because he knows they open doors to clubs, business frats, workshops, etc.

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8

Ok - I have you a big list. Most are not going to be competitive for clubs etc.

You can apply Honors - just saying some get in and hate.

Pitt might be another, on top of the many schools I noted above.

9

He’s at a parochial school so his counselor can probably tell him which of the following are safe/targetish, all good for finance-

Villanova
Fairfield
Stonehill (strong reputation in accounting circles)
Fordham (which I think would be a solid target, as you have noted)
Providence

He’s got a good list!!!

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10

Scranton and Saint Joe’s (Philly) are great schools and offer very good merit.

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11

The OP wrote the following (bold on their answer I added here):

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.) None

@timsn4CC does this mean that you can and will pay the full costs at any of the colleges you have listed?

If so, I think you have a good and varied list.

ETA, if you are able to pay the full costs to attend at University of Richmond, I would suggest you look at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

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12

Being full-pay I would consider taking a few shots at reach schools just outside the top 20. It seems like he has some large public schools on his list. Those are fine but not all are direct admit for business. He also won’t receive much individual attention unless he gets into an Honors program. Some B schools like Kelley have 10k students.

UVA would be a hard pass. Holistic secondary admission into the business school. You could do everything right and still not gain admission.

Richmond, Fordham, SMU, TCU, Villanova, Wake and Miami(FL). Aside from Richmond these aren’t small schools. They offer big-time sports. Some are urban or have other, larger schools nearby.

Is his HS Catholic? His GPA is on the low side but Maybe Notre Dame as a reach?

13

I could be wrong but seems like OP wants a large, flagship type.

14

At this juncture he says he wants a big school and he has liked the big schools he has toured. He has not toured a medium sized school so I would be interested in putting a few in front of him to consider. At this point he is not deciding where to go to school, just where he wants to consider going to that school and have it as an option to consider next spring.

As for cost, of course money is an issue. I love a good value. DD23 goes to University of Florida and I feel like it is a good price. I would prefer to pay UF’s sticker than Richmond’s but there is more involved with making that decision which we won’t know until next spring. Each opportunity will be viewed in lights of any honors or capstone or LLCs he is invited to join, any merit money awarded and what other colleges he has been accepted by.

As I mentioned, my DD23 is a junior at UF and had lower course rigor, lower SAT scores, lower AP scores and attended a different, less rigorous HS. She did have a higher GPA though.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to comment.

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15

I think UF has gotten more difficult. Their goa is relatively easy to calculate. The standard 4-3-2.

Plus .5 for Honors. +1 for Ap.

The 25/75 for Goa is a 4.5 to a 4.7 so a 3.6 will likely be below unless 90% of the classes they took were APs.

Even FSU has a sub 20% OOS rate.

Frankly, given his desires, Rutgers may be the best school on the list.

Again, with Honors, they are all different - don’t just say - if get Honors. A lot don’t like the required courses, especially those laden with humanities. Research them.

16

Just because one says cost is not a constraint doesn’t mean they want to pay the cost As you know, many full pay families ultimately have a budget figure in mind
even if they can afford the full pay. In this case, it sounds like Richmond likely isn’t a go without merit or some kind of special program.

That is why it’s worth getting OPs to think about - what they’re truly willing to pay vs. what they are able to pay. Stroking a big check 2x a year is never easy.

17

Providence or Fairfield should be easy to visit for mid-size.
If he liked Penn State, VTech shouldn’t be seen as just tech, it has a great business school worth checking out and easier to get into than Smeal while providing the same environment of big school/big sports/college town/happy undergrads.

His school should be a “known quantity” at Rutgers this giving him a better shot - you may want to ask where his school sends lots of graduates because it means these universities will understand the rigor and factor that in.

He should think of switching languages for college graduation unless he loves Latin, since in business a spoken language can be useful, especially in fields related to one’s interests, even if the student ultimately does nothing with it (ie., if car industry and motors = German, if aeronautic industry or gas = French, if textiles an Asian language such as Bangladeshi or Vietnamese, if energy Chinese..)

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