# High School Student: Any College Advice? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 16, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627 "2013-07-16T01:51:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/61 "2013-07-17T11:58:58Z")
Oh, hey- OP, spend a couple minutes thinking about a military academy. Prestigious school, prestigious degree. Top notch instructors and equipment, leading edge curriculum. All expenses covered, plus you get a salary. Zillions of different fields, all with unlimited employment potential. Benefits include health insurance and extreme datability- cadets are in high demand. Do twenty-five years, retire before you are 50 with lifetime pay and no debt. Home paid for, cars paid for, kids’ education covered, no worries at all. You can sit back and relax- or tackle that business consulting idea with a whole world of knowledge behind you. Just sayin’. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/62 "2013-07-17T14:40:13Z")
> [@Connor](#): > > Do you or your friends have any knowledge of an International Business degree? I’d really like to capitalize on my German. But is this even a strong degree? First and foremost, **msmith** offered a very good look at the type of consulting you’re inquiring about. I know three who majored specifically in international business. One is doing law school abroad in Europe, another is applying to law school domestically, and a 3rd is in China doing something or other (probably mostly translating). I will say this though… your degree matters, your school matters, but most importantly of all your grades matter. You walk out of a top 50 school with a 3.8, or even a 4.0, not a lot of firms are going to turn you down regardless of your major - especially if you have the math to back it up. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/63 "2013-07-17T14:52:23Z")
> [@Connor](#): > > There is no way I would skip college. A paycheck is not my number one priority. That is completely out of the question. Several years ago, there was a program on NPR where they were talking about this guy who went to trade school to become a welder with the intention all along to go to college after finishing trade school. He made it into college, of course, but was able to work a side job as a welder making Union wages rather than waiting tables for minimum wage + tips. He was living like a damn hell ass king in the dorms with his $25/hr job when everyone else was lucky to make $10. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/64 "2013-07-17T14:55:00Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > … > > That could be a huge benefit to a company that does lots of business in Germany, or a German company with a US division. BMW, for instance. If you’re really serious about maximizing that, make sure you try to study abroad in Germany. You could also join the Amish. I know an American guy who can speak German and can write software - he got a job working on machine translation software. Knowing another language did help. ---
**Author:** ![thisishowwepray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@thisishowwepray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thisishowwepray)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/65 "2013-07-17T14:57:10Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > I will say this though… your degree matters, your school matters, but most importantly of all your grades matter. You walk out of a top 50 school with a 3.8, or even a 4.0, not a lot of firms are going to turn you down regardless of your major - especially if you have the math to back it up. I second this. Your undergraduate grades matter a lot, whether you want to enter the job market right away or go to grad school. The level of rigor matters for two reasons here: 1. A 4.0 from a top ten known for its rigor is harder to get than a 4.0 from a school with weaker academics. 2. If you can’t get good grades at a school because it’s TOO rigorous or you hate it and don’t feel like doing the work, you shouldn’t go to that school. Future employers and graduate admissions depts will look at your application in a relatively holistic manner, but you have to have the grades. You also have to keep up activities, like you’re doing now in high school, get good GRE or MCAT or other test scores if you go to grad school, have the right personality type for the job or program, have skills that ultimately cannot be taught in most cases (people skills, organization, goal setting, and so forth)… You want to keep your options open and improve your chances of being able to do ANYTHING you want after undergrad. I’ll also put in one more plug for avoiding getting too fixated on SUPER long-term goals because they will change. It’s great to have them, but why not start with some goals for where you’d like to be your junior year of college. These should include non-academic goals. Your happiness in much more important than getting a certain job or going to a specific school. This things can contribute to your happiness and sense of self but they really aren’t everything. I would REALLY encourage you to consider the kind of life you want and whether you can have it at the schools you’re considering. In my experience, most students who stay in their home state near their parents do not feel good about this decision, as college is a great time to learn some things about being an adult in a somewhat controlled/safe environment. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/66 "2013-07-17T16:53:04Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > This this this. I don’t know why everyone is talking about MBAs and how that is all that matters. The good management consulting firms do recruit out of some schools–the tier I schools, obviously,and other select schools. Often, as I said above, the honors programs at good state schools. This is true. One of my good friends in college majored in business, worked for a good consulting firm for a few years, then started working for one of the clients she met through consulting, and now her new company is paying for her to get an MBA. See what you can find on the “career center” websites for any of the schools you are thinking about, and maybe that’ll help. > [@thisishowwepray](#): > > I’ll also put in one more plug for avoiding getting too fixated on SUPER long-term goals because they will change. It’s great to have them, but why not start with some goals for where you’d like to be your junior year of college. These should include non-academic goals. I agree with this. My friend started school as an engineering major and had great plans for how her engineering career was going to go. But then after two semesters she realized it wasn’t for her and transferred to business. A lot of people in college learn about different opportunities and change their goals, or realize that their current goals aren’t quite right for them. It’s good to have plans, but also allow for flexibility. I also agree with others who have said you need to visit schools to see how you’ll like them. It won’t help you to go to the most prestigious school possible if you end up being miserable there. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/67 "2013-07-17T22:21:58Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > What type of person? Let’s just say that Chicago is at the absolute bottom of the list of party schools. It has no real football team - when my daughter took weights in gym, the football coach spotted her. The UC football coach does not make a million bucks. In fact, PE involves heavy reading. Chicago is the place where it is normal to take a class on reading cuneiform for fun. And then there is [Scav Hunt.](http://scavhunt.uchicago.edu/lore.html) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/68 "2013-07-17T22:27:42Z")
> [@Connor](#): > > On a sort of unrelated note, I will be fluent (as fluent as you can be w/o constantly being abroad) in German in a few years. I love the language and the country. This will also help me with college (I have a few German accolades). > > Does anybody work with German? How could this language help me in the professional world? My other daughter took German in high school, and then did some in college, and then decided to spend a year at the University of Tubingen. Her German got a lot better! After graduating she got a Fulbright to teach English at a high school in southern Germany, did that for two years, and since she wasn’t allowed to work many hours got a Masters in International Business at a small German university. It was very cheap! She met a boy and is living in Frankfurt now. It is still too early to say what good it is going to do her, but it did broaden her horizons. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/69 "2013-07-17T22:36:06Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > I agree with this. My friend started school as an engineering major and had great plans for how her engineering career was going to go. But then after two semesters she realized it wasn’t for her and transferred to business. A lot of people in college learn about different opportunities and change their goals, or realize that their current goals aren’t quite right for them. It’s good to have plans, but also allow for flexibility. This is why I think it’s important to select a school with a broad range of schools and majors. I went to an almost purely nerd school and knew many people who decided or learned partway through that engineering or science was not for them. However, typically, this discovery comes after one or more semesters of terrible grades. That makes it difficult or impossible to transfer to any other university of relatively decent quality. We called this status “failing in” (instead of failing out, obviously). But you can generally transfer to another school or department within the same university without too much difficulty. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/70 "2013-07-18T00:29:46Z")
> [@Connor](#): > > I plan on getting into consulting as an adult. So a strong Management or Economic program would be ideal. I think I have a really fair chance of getting into some competitive schools. I have a strong GPA, course load, standardized test scores, and community leadership roles. Whatever you’re planning on now, the chances are infinitesimal that you’ll still be into it by the time you graduate. Pick the school, not the program. > [@](#): > > My major dilemma will not be getting into a good school, but it will be paying for said schools. I live in Florida. Our best in-state public is University of Florida. I could go there relatively cheap. I’m just not sure if it’s the best I can do and it’s just too familiar (my mom is an alum and we always head up during football season). > > Alternatively, I could go out of state (public or private) and take on some debt. But I believe my earning potential will be much higher at these schools. My number one school is Michigan’s Ross business school. I’m going to also throw a few applications out there and see if I could possibly get into Columbia. Unless you plan on moving to New York or Chicago, your earning potential is pretty much unguessable regardless of where you go. > [@](#): > > So, in your humble opinion, should I try and take on some debt or play it safe and stay in-state but potentially miss out on some opportunities. It’s important to remember that colleges are full of kids who were the cream of their high schools. You’re going to be a smaller fish in a bigger pond now matter how smart you are, even if you go to Shitty Forprofit U. If you hunt around the web you’ll find thousands of articles about people whose great college educations have qualified them for barista jobs - which are difficult to pay off student loans with, as you may have guessed. It’s almost always a bad idea to ignore the enormous cost benefit of in-state tuition at public universities, especially in an economy like this. Anyway, on a value-for-money basis you might consider going [even closer to home](http://today.ucf.edu/princeton-review-ucf-education-among-nations-best-values/) (I’m guessing), unless you need to be out of town to be out of the house. Whatever you decide, best of luck! Being a doper won’t hurt. 🙂 -RNATB, UCF graduate ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/71 "2013-07-18T01:56:20Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > I also agree with others who have said you need to visit schools to see how you’ll like them. It won’t help you to go to the most prestigious school possible if you end up being miserable there. Who do you think companies want to hire? The guy who hated Harvard or MIT or the guy who loved Jerkwater A&M? Fact is you will probably find stuff to love and hate about any college you go to. Plus the point of going to college is to grow as a person. It’s tough to do that if you go to a school that’s as close as you can find to your high school. I think you are better off basing you college on objective criteria such as rankings, course of study, location, city vs suburban, size, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Connor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Connor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Connor)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/72 "2013-07-18T02:02:26Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > This is true. One of my good friends in college majored in business, worked for a good consulting firm for a few years, then started working for one of the clients she met through consulting, and now her new company is paying for her to get an MBA. See what you can find on the “career center” websites for any of the schools you are thinking about, and maybe that’ll help. > . This is EXACTLY the type of thing I want to do. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Connor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Connor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Connor)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/73 "2013-07-18T02:07:28Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Whatever you decide, best of luck! Being a doper won’t hurt. 🙂 > > -RNATB, UCF graduate I live in Tampa, a ton of my friends end up going to UCF, it’s an awesome school! Thanks for the advice. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/74 "2013-07-18T02:44:40Z")
I know two people who got into top M.B.A. programs (Wharton and Harvard). Both of them got very good grades (one at a top college, one at a very good college). Both of them worked for business consulting companies (one for five years, one for three years) right out of college. They then got accepted at business school. They had done undergraduate majors that weren’t business or anything very close. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/75 "2013-07-18T06:50:48Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Who do you think companies want to hire? The guy who hated Harvard or MIT or the guy who loved Jerkwater A&M? MIT students make a point of hating MIT - IHTFP ans the Institute screw were popular when I went there. Some people really hated it. But you are right, especially since few people are going to tell interviewers they hated their college. And it is a lot easier to transfer down than transfer up. > [@](#): > > Fact is you will probably find stuff to love and hate about any college you go to. Plus the point of going to college is to grow as a person. It’s tough to do that if you go to a school that’s as close as you can find to your high school. I think you are better off basing you college on objective criteria such as rankings, course of study, location, city vs suburban, size, etc. This is excellent advice. It is very easy to want to stay in your comfort zone, It’s a bad idea. This is the perfect time to get away from where you grew up, especially since dorms mean that half of the difficulty of living on your own is done by the school. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/76 "2013-07-18T12:23:10Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > MIT students make a point of hating MIT - IHTFP ans the Institute screw were popular when I went there. We called it the “Tute screw” at RPI. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/77 "2013-07-18T12:36:51Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > MIT students make a point of hating MIT - IHTFP ans the Institute screw were popular when I went there. Some people really hated it. But you are right, especially since few people are going to tell interviewers they hated their college. And it is a lot easier to transfer down than transfer up. > This is excellent advice. It is very easy to want to stay in your comfort zone, It’s a bad idea. This is the perfect time to get away from where you grew up, especially since dorms mean that half of the difficulty of living on your own is done by the school. At the same time, pick a school you can be successful at. Not everyone is successful at a big public university where your core coursework is often 600 people in an auditorium and your professor won’t bother to know your name - even if you bother him during office hours (and at a school like that, it often appears that the undergrads are indeed a bother). But not everyone is successful feeling like they got stuck in Northfield, Minnesota either. (Carleton is an awesome school, though - so is Grinnell - but you are stuck in Iowa). ---
**Author:** ![Connor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Connor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Connor)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/78 "2013-07-18T15:50:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > A career in management consulting is not one of them. > > The downside is that you have to work for Accenture or Deloitte.😉 > > I’ve worked in consulting for most of my career, so I can probably answer some of that for you. > > If you want to get into a top-tier strategy consulting firm (typically considered to be McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group), you pretty much need top grades at one of the colleges they actively recruit at. > > As Dangerosa pointed out, if you expand your search to firms like Accenture, or IBM or advisory or consulting practices in the Big-4 (Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, E&Y) or smaller boutique or niche firms like Navigant, AlixPartners or Huron, you only have to be reasonably smart and talented. [Vault.com](http://Vault.com) can give you a list of top firms. > As a manager/director, I’ve done a lot of interviewing of candidates. The vast majority of candidates either come through a) campus interviewing or b) employee referrals (which usually mean former school mates, sports team mates, fraternity brothers, family of clients or partners, or former coworkers from other consulting firms). So bottom line, you want to go to a good school where top consulting firms actively recruit at. > > While you’re there, you probably want to study something like accounting, finance, computers, economics, statistics, engineering of any kind. Pretty much anything business, technology or math related. > > It doesn’t hurt to have some extracurricular activities like sports, clubs, anything demonstrating teamwork and leadership. Consulting’s all about teamwork and leadership. > > Also have excellent communication skills and high enthusiasm. > > Oh yeah, there’s also the case interview. These are like “how many golf balls fit into a 747” or “why are manhole covers round” questions. They sound stupid, but they are supposed to test how well you break down a complex problem into it’s components and account for assumptions. They aren’t looking for a factually correct number. > Also, be sure you will actually like it. Working for a Deloitte or Accenture type company can be really cool when you are right out of college in your 20s. You make good money. Work with bright, career minded young people who will probably want to get drunk after work. Lot of responsibility and interesting projects. > > But it can also be extremely demanding. Long hours. Living out of a suitcase Mon-Thurs for weeks on end. Extremely competitive “up or out” cultures. Demanding assholeish partners. Not making as much as d-bag half-wit I-bankers. > > Also, every consulting engagement isn’t 6 weeks in Amsterdam or San Francisco (although I’ve had those). A lot of them are months working at some Podunk office park, living in a Marriot Courtyard and eating wings at Hooters every night because that’s the only restaurant for 20 miles. This was very helpful. Do you know of any way my German could help me? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/79 "2013-07-19T20:44:23Z")
> [@Connor](#): > > This was very helpful. Do you know of any way my German could help me? Apply for a job at Roland Berger? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627/80 "2013-07-19T20:59:24Z")
> [@Connor](#): > > This was very helpful. Do you know of any way my German could help me? My daughter in Germany’s boyfriend is working for a management consulting company in Germany - a US company. Knowing German well might give you more opportunities to work there. It might not be as good as knowing Chinese these days, but it is still a differentiator. There is a joke about two guys camping. They are awakened by a ferocious bear heading for them, a bear who is hungry. One guy starts lacing up his shoes. The other guy says “Why are you doing that? They won’t help you outrun the bear.” The first guy says “No, but they’ll help me outrun you.” That’s all you need to know about applying for jobs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-school-student-any-college-advice/663627.md?page=5)