Tallying faculty publishing is almost meaningless when it comes to assessing undergraduate liberal arts colleges. Those schools are what they are because of the teaching, rigor and personal attention the students get from the professors.
@philbegas - I would suggest you decide what type of school you want, and then apply to a few that align.
Swarthmore and NYU Stern are about as opposite as you could find (although geographically close). Stern is in the center of the universe, Swat students struggle to find food locally after about 10pm. Stern will have classrooms with hundreds of students, Swat will have economics classes of a dozen. You will be a number at Stern…People will get to know you at Swat. Both are great experiences if that’s what you’re looking for, but most people don’t see themselves equally happy in both environments.
I’d be surprised if all your credits would transfer to Swat. They don’t have offerings like managerial accounting, and you would need to understand their policy on that.
@EyeVeee I’ll be pretty happy at anything that’s not community college tbh. Besides that, the only thing I really care about is that a school not be overwhelmingly conservative.
However I was curious, when you say Stern classes have hundreds of students is that just the basic econ 101 type classes or is it even upper division classes?
@intparent That’s true, but sometimes misc. credits transfer as electives depending on school policy and Swat does have fin. accounting.
In general: Let me try to rephrase. If you had to pick a reach school that was either a business school OR had economics, for transfer, which would you pick? Given a geographical restriction of being within a 30-45 min drive of Boston, Philadelphia, NYC, or Providence.
So far it seems like:
NYU Stern
Haverford
Swarthmore
Brown
MIT Sloan (4.5 transfer acceptance to MIT in general so this really doesn’t seem worth it)
Based on everything you have posted, NYU Stern.
You probably want to apply to more than one anyway. Get in, then decide.
Do you think with my stats and work experience that I’m competitive enough to consider more than one? I figure a 3.7 at CC isn’t necessarily impressive, it really depends if they pay attention to the fact I work full time too.
You NEED to consider more than one. I don’t know what schools are on your total list but the ones you’ve listed here are all reaches based on your previous stats. Swat includes your HS info. http://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-research/CDS%202015-2016.pdf As does NYU https://www.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu/institutionalResearch/documents/CDS%202014-2015.pdf
@“Erin’s Dad”
Yesterday I was looking through the 2015-2016 CDS for most of the schools on my list and based on their overall transfer selectivity I’d say the reach schools on my list are:
NEU: 36.18%
NYU: 27.65%
Villanova: 38.51%
Clark: 38.72%
That being said, for some of these the business school selectivity for transfer may be higher or (in stern’s case) lower
What about Carroll School of Mgmt vs Stern for a high reach? I was having trouble locating transfer admission stats on BC so I was curious if anybody had knowledge about it.
Are you still planning to have your parents cosign loans so you can go to these schools? If they can’t/won’t pay much maybe you should consider colleges closer to home. Don’t any CA universities offer the major you want?
I have cheaper colleges on my list, this is just for a super-reach school.
Do LAC’s generally have less required courses that are non-major? For example, at every business school I’ve looked at there’s really strict requirements about the courses you have to take. But when I reached out to Swarthmore about their required economics curriculum it seemed as though there was a lot more freedom about the non-major courses.
It all depends on the school. Some have a hard core while others just have some distribution requirements.
I know I’m kinda all over the place but what about georgetown instead of nyu as a reach? Stern says their transfer acceptance rate is <10% and I feel like McDonough can’t be any lower than that
Georgetown says that they admit 10-20% of their transfer students each year. In the last 3 years, the transfer acceptance rate has been below 15%. The general admissions office handles transfer admissions for McDonough, and they don’t seem to have separate stats on getting into the business school specifically. Georgetown also considers your high school record and SAT or ACT test results.
Have you considered Columbia’s School of General Studies? It’s sort of made for students like you - that is a school that would value your work experience and your story. The acceptance rate is somewhere around 23-24%.
If you were asking me, my answer would be based on my personal preferences and personality. I love liberal arts colleges - I like their emphasis on undergraduate education and on integrating several different parts of the curriculum. I like smaller class sizes and discussion based classes. I love the social sciences - I like writing papers and engaging with material from a social scientist’s perspective. I’d have the option to take classes like Behavioral Economics, Urban Economics, Global Capitalism since 1920 and Economic Poverty and Inequality - and examine how economics and economic policy affects the lives of people (which is how I’d be interested in it). I love math, and particularly the application of statistics and math to solve human problems, which economics uses heavily. The quirky intellectual intensity of Swarthmore sounds attractive to me. So I, personally - were I 18 again - would rather study economics at Swarthmore than finance at NYU.
I think that’s one thing to keep in mind. The schools themselves are very different - NYU is going to be far more pre-professional. At Stern, you will be around lots of graduate students and undergrads, in bigger classes, with the classes much more focused on applied topics. But moreover, the areas themselves are very different. Economics is a social science. It has elements that are directly applicable to business, but it’s still a social science. Do you want to study economics? Given your interests, I’d say it sounds like a good fit for you - especially with interests in economics, the financial side of politics, and nonprofits.
Swarthmore also does actually offer a class in financial accounting through the economics department, so they may take your Financial & Management Accounting class for credit. The rest of your classes shouldn’t be an issue.
Swarthmore is a small liberal arts college where the overwhelming majority of students are traditional-aged college students that come straight out of high school. They don’t seem to have any specific programs for non-traditional students, even as many of Swat’s peers do. So I’m not sure whether or not they would put an emphasis on your work experience or give you a boost for it. I would imagine it would depend on how you told the story.
@julliet Thank you for the super thorough response. I had no idea that the Columbia school of general studies existed. You are correct I do like economics, but I also like how finance is more focused on the applied aspect of it. Between Econ & Finance it’s a toss up for me. However, I’m entirely uninterested in other business majors like marketing, accounting, etc.
With regards to Swat v Stern would you stay that Stern is a lot more competitive in between students vs Swat being more collaborative. I’ve heard that the business schools in some of the more elite universities are very competitive (Wharton for example).