Which college am I looking for?

College Search & Lists
1

<p>I’ve come up with a few characteristics of what I’m looking for in a college. </p>

<p>Would you guys have any suggestions based on this?</p>

<p>4,000-10,000 students
Gothic architecture
Good food
Low(ish) student to teacher ratio
Small class size
Investment banking target/semi-target
Offers finance or economics
Average GPA relatively high
Near a large city
Average starting salary $50,000+</p>

<p>Any suggestions?</p>

2

<p>I believe the only schools that meet all your criteria may be:
WUSTL
Duke
UPenn
Princeton</p>

<p>These are schools that:
have average alumni starting salaries of over $50K (according to controversial payscale.com data);
have Gothic-inspired architectural style in many campus buildings;
have 4k-10k undergraduates (Penn has slightly more than that);
are in or fairly near major cities (Princeton is a bit outside);
are investment banking targets/semi-targets;
etc.</p>

<p>I’m not sure what you mean by “average GPA relatively high”. Do you mean the school has “grade inflation”, or that the average HS GPA of entering freshmen is relatively high? All of the above meet the latter criterion. The former criterion does not seem to be too well documented (but you can check gradeinflation.com).</p>

<p>These 4 schools are among the very most selective in the country. To have much of a shot at getting in, you’d ordinarily need near-perfect grades, SATs well above 2100, solid/interesting extracurriculars, good essays, good LORs, and some luck. If that’s not you, then relax some of your criteria (esp. the $50K average starting salary).</p>

3

<p>UChicago? They have 12k students but only 5k are undergrads.</p>

4

<p>Chicago’s average starting salary is ~$45K.
But otherwise, if you have the stats, yeah.</p>

5

<p>Duke University.</p>