Business schools are so hard to get in. Should I follow my passion?

This is a story about a former Thinktown student. Let’s call her S. S is currently a sophomore at New York University. In the winter of 2019, with the help of Thinktown, she successfully transitioned out of applied psychology and got accepted by the highly competitive Stern School of Business.

Looking back at the transition, she hopes to tell students who are applying right now — how to strategize your college application if your intended major is really competitive. Here’s her story.

Why I didn’t apply directly to business school

Personally, I didn’t have a clear future plan in high school. Back then, there was no subject that I was particularly good or bad at, so I didn’t have strong preferences. So, when I chose AP Psychology as an elective course and found it easy and interesting enough, I chose applied psychology as my intended major in college. However, I soon found that I was not made for research and writing papers.

Another reason many people don’t apply directly is the large number of applicants and high competition for business schools. According to U.S.News, the number of applicants for U.S. business majors accounted for 24.3% of the total number of high school students applying for U.S. undergraduate universities. That is to say, out of every 5 people around you, one person wants to apply for business schools. Moreover, competitive business programs also have high requirements for standardized tests. Their average SAT usually reaches 1500; for international students, their TOEFL should be 108 or above 110.

Even if you get the desired scores, you still need to think about extracurricular activities, which are highly valued by business schools. Top 30 U.S. universities are concerned about whether students can show leadership when applying, usually from two aspects:

1. Whether students actively participated in clubs during high school or founded their own clubs.
2. Whether students have participated in prestigious business competitions in high schools, and whether they have gotten good results.

To achieve these two things, you need to start planning very early. For example, if you decide that you want to study business in your first year of high school, then in the next few years, you can plan your activities around that goal. If, however, you didn’t make that decision until junior year, then your time to rack up these experiences is significantly reduced.

Internal Transfer

My advice is, if your dream school is difficult to enter, especially the business majors, you can choose a major with a higher acceptance rate in this school first, and then do internal transfer.

There are two ways to transfer to business majors, one is the internal transfer that I went through. You can also do external transfer into a different school.

There are mainly three situations in internal transfer:

1. A business school where freshmen can apply directly.

When you fill in the Common Application, in the option of choosing a major, if you can select business majors like accounting or finance directly, it means that these majors of this school are open to senior high school students. For example, New York University’s Stern School of Business can enroll freshman students directly.

2. A business school that’s not open to freshmen

In that case, you need to apply again after being admitted to the university. For example, after enrolling as freshmen in the University of Michigan, you need to pass a Preferred Admission again to enter the business department. Of course, you need to ensure your first-year GPA is relatively high to be eligible for admission.

3. A school where business majors are not available when freshmen are admitted but allows them to declare directly after the first year

For example, at the Sloan School of Business at MIT, freshmen cannot find business as their intended major on the application form. After entering MIT, they can choose the business courses provided by the school and declare a major directly after studying for a period of time. Then they can graduate as a business student. So, you see, although a great school like MIT is hard to get in, there are still many perks for the admitted.

External Transfer

External transfer is basically going through the application season again. You need to provide transcripts, 1–2 letters of recommendation from professors and transfer essays. The topic is determined by the school, but usually, universities want you to explain why you want to switch, and what preparations you’ve made for this decision. Your reasons need to be sufficiently convincing — it’s kind of similar to writing the why school/why major supplement essays.

When writing transfer essays, you can start with this: write down which courses you have chosen in business-related areas; what kind of activities did you participate in that are of a business nature; what are your goals and why this school specifically will offer you the business education you need to reach them.

It should be noted that although students may have taken some business courses in the original school, their previous credits may not be fully transferred. Sometimes required courses with the same content and different rules need to be taken twice, so it may put off your graduation timeline. Finally, the chance of transfer admission is relatively low, so you need to take the process seriously and apply for more than one school.

Final Advice

Of course, if you are genuinely interested in business, you can still pursue business-related career paths regardless of whether you went to a prestigious business school.

I have many friends who did not declare business majors, but got great success in finance or other business-related industries due to their passion and perseverance outside of the academic world. So, I would advise future students to relax, mostly. Direct-admit, transfer, non-business majors, it’s all going to be okay.