Need Admission Decision Counsel and Perspective

puzzled123
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 04:04:53 +0000

I am a Math/CS student at UChicago interested in high tech/quant finance. For your questions:

1. Will his GPA get destroyed thereby ruining chances for top flight MBA school if he attends UChicago, given the caliber of students, academic rigor and a rigorous STEM department like Physics, Chemistry, Math etc. On a related note, will he have to be buried in books 80 hours a week to get a 3.5+ GPA at UChicago? That is what it takes to be a competitive Grad school applicant to the top MBA programs.

Not at all, many of my STEM friends and I have 3.9+ GPAs (We don’t study more than 40-50 hours a week). Chicago sends many students to top grad schools for pure physics, math, or chem, which usually require getting stellar letter of recs and a very, very, very high GPA. Getting into a MBA program won’t require nearly that much effort (although the Econ/liberal arts majors applying to these MBA programs do have it much easier for workload/gpa).

2. Is it better to be a big fish in a small pond, get a great GPA at a lower tiered school, work for a “decent” but not “prestigious corporate brand name” and then try and get an MBA from a top business school

Not sure, but I do know its best to be a big fish in a big pond, and it is ideal not to close that door early on.

3. Given that he can earn as much coming out as an engineer from a top ranked state school does it make sense to spend so much money on an undergraduate degree at Chicago.

This is a hard question. If he wants to do engineering, going to Chicago will not boost his chances at getting a high-tech job over a state school. I have done many tech interviews now, and interviewers don’t care at all about what school I go to; they are mostly interested in how well I can solve their coding puzzles. The extra benefits in going to an elite private school will be coming in getting a quality education, primarily because he will be surrounded by extremely bright peers and a culture where academic/professional goals are the focus. This higher quality education is probably not worth an extra 150k over 4 years for most families. However, the case for finance (incl. quantitative finance) and consulting is much different. The doors for those fields will be completely closed at state schools, excluding a few (Berkeley/Mich). I ended up picking Chicago over Berkeley, because they cost me nearly the same (actually, UChicago was cheaper). However, I am not sure I would have done that if Chicago was full price.

4. If he attends UChicago and our financial situation changes because of job loss or some such thing, will the school adjust our EFC? We can afford to pay full sticker price now, but not sure if we can for all four years.

Yes, they re-evaluate financial aid packages every year. So far, our experience with the FA office has been that they are very helpful, they are not trying to squeeze extra money out of you, and they structure the aid and scholarships in ways that are designed to help you the best.