Maybe you want to run a hedge fund or the next unicorn startup. Maybe you want to start companies, or maybe, you want to rise in the ranks. MAYBE you want to be a finance whiz or a marketing maven. Or maybe, you don’t even know exactly what you want to do, but you know you’re interested in studying business in college. If you’re stuck on where to start, don’t worry, we’re here.
Business is a competitive major. Business (and its counterpart, econ) is one of the most popular majors in the Ivy League and undergrad business schools like Wharton (UPenn), Ross (Michigan), Stern (NYU), McCombs (UT Austin), and Kelley (Indiana) all boast highly competitive acceptance rates and the competition is fierce. Lucky for you, we help students get into these schools every single year, and there’s no better time to start than your sophomore year.
Yep, you heard us right, it’s the best time to start college prep. No, not too early. That’s because schools want to see you be a niche-specialist in your topic of choice, and you need to start early to build that niche. Let’s talk about how to start building your business niche in your sophomore year:
Identifying the Niche
It would be awesome if you could just apply to college and say, “I love business,” and that would be how you got in. Unfortunately, that’s not enough. We meet with clients and help them identify the more specific topic within business they’re excited about. This could be entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, management, etc. And it’s not enough to stop at a subtopic like finance; you have to go even deeper.
Building a niche doesn’t just help you with applications, though. It does help you with applications, but it also helps you, as a student, figure out what you actually want to do. We love getting kids into college, but we also love helping kids figure out what they’re passionate about. And by starting sophomore year, you actually have so much time to figure out what you want to do. So, let’s dive into how we help you explore your niche.
Classes and Books
The first step in the process is homework. Don’t get mad at us, that’s just how it is. By homework, we mean reading books and taking online classes, but the bonus of this homework is it’s stuff you’re actually excited about learning.
If you say you’re interested in finance, we might start you out on some intro level books, and online classes about finance as a whole, but of course, there are deeper topics within finance that you might find more interesting than others. Maybe you become interested in the psychology behind how people utilize their money or the decisions that go into buying and selling stock. Maybe accounting is your jam. We’re here to help you figure it out! From there, we’d give you more books and more classes, and probably some in-person experiences that help you figure out if that’s your thing. We’re trying to take you down a funnel where business is at the big broad top, and your niche sub-sub-interest is at the very bottom.
Extracurriculars
The next step is extracurriculars. There are extracurriculars you can do inside of school, like joining clubs, being in student government, and writing for the school paper. There are extracurriculars you can do outside of school, like research, getting an internship, or starting your own business. We help students determine exactly what kind of extracurriculars they should pursue based on their specific interests. All extracurriculars were not created equally.
And we don’t like to load up students with a bunch of extracurriculars that don’t tell their story. It doesn’t make sense to join the investing club if your passion is with marketing! There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this process. We work with each student individually to create the plan that works for them.
Summer Plans
For sophomores, the next piece of the puzzle is planning the summer. Summer is the most important part of planning for college, which might seem paradoxical, but it is the largest uninterrupted block of time you have to pursue your passions without the stress of school getting in the way. We know you would rather play video games, lounge on the couch, or feel the sand beneath your toes, but this is more important.
We help students plan their summers each year, and just like the extracurricular plan, it’s tailored to each student and their own goals. A sophomore could start to explore business in their summer through summer programs. Wharton, Wake Forest, UCLA, Duke, and so many other schools and institutions offer summer programs that allow you to explore your interests in depth. The additional bonus of summer programs is that they can help contribute to demonstrated interest for the schools that care about that.
You can’t stop at summer programs because while they help you explore business topics, they don’t get as specific and detailed as you need to be. We might help you find an internship or paid job or help you reach out to professors to secure research opportunities. And our favorite thing for potential business majors? We might even help you start a business.
Starting this process as a sophomore is the absolute best time to do it. You have so much time to figure out precisely what you’re excited to study, and you have so much time to actually explore that interest and prove to schools that you’ve done the work to explore it.
If you want to start strategizing for college, sophomore year is the best time to start. Reach out to us today if you need help with your college prep plans.