<p>I never realized how stressed out I would be trying to decide where to go next year and I've finally gotten to the point where I just need a lot of different views.</p>
<p>My situation is basically what the title says: I can't decide between going to USC Marshall or NYU Stern.</p>
<p>I know Stern is an absolutely fabulous b-school, but I heard that they focus mainly on finance majors and I'm hoping to lean more towards marketing and management related fields. I don't really know how good Marshall is in comparison to Stern. There's also the fact that I know a lot of my friends would love to go to Stern but didn't get in, but got into Marshall, so it seems a bit silly of me to carelessly toss aside Stern.</p>
<p>StressedOut is correct in that Stern undergrads are very successful in landing wall street internships, and that the school is ranked second in terms of finance.</p>
<p>However, the quality of stern's finance department comes at the expense of pretty much all the other business disciplines. Stern isn't known for any discipline other than finance, and is in fact a very narrowly focused school.</p>
<p>If you're planning on going into investment banking, then Stern would be a wiser choice, however if you're looking to study marketing and management, then i would actually suggest Marshall. Marshall isn't nearly as dominated by finance as is Stern, and is more known for its management and entreprenurship programs.</p>
<p>Overall, USC is also a much stronger university than NYU, which is pretty much only known as a backdoor to wall street.</p>
<p>And in addition to what bicoastal07 said, you really should figure out whether you want to in LA or NYC for college and, potentially, where you want to be after college.</p>
<p>I've got to believe that Stern has more than finance classes that are good (no offense, bc07), but it sounds very likely based on what's stated here that most of the people there are thinking Wall Street. Are you sure you want to be in such a narrowly focused environment? </p>
<p>Both of you really got me thinking, bicoastal07 and bedhead. LA and NYC are such different cities. I've always thought I would end up in California so the sudden idea of going east is awfully daunting.</p>
<p>I hear it's really difficult to end up back on the west coast after committing to the east, internship wise and all that. So I'm guessing it's pretty common to end up stuck on Wall Street after graduating from Stern?</p>
<p>If you want to go into finance:
NYU Stern is BETTER than USC Marshall</p>
<p>If you want to go into business (other than finance):
USC Marshall is BETTER than NYU Stern</p>
<p>Having had most of my family go to Stern, I can attest to the notion that Stern primarily focuses on finance at the expense of other business majors. In fact, Stern nowadays is associated almost completely with finance. And yes, if you go into Stern FINANCE, you will have many job valuable opportunities on Wall Street/NYC. But the rumors are indeed true... Stern neglects non-finance majors! So if finance is not your thing, I would SERIOUSLY think twice about Stern. bicoastal07 pretty much hit the nail.</p>
<p>One thing that I found interesting was how Stern was ranked higher than Marshall, but when you compare NYU with USC, USC actually ranked quite a bit higher.</p>
<p>Ah, lovely, now i'm leaning towards Marshall. I'm not a finance fan...then again I'm not really sure either. </p>
<p>I found that quite surprising too. I would think holistically Marshall would be a better b-school, but I'm not very sure about that either. I'm just one confused mess.</p>
<p>There are also some other things to consider here. NYU, as you may already know, is not really a school with a campus. Some will argue that Washington Square Park is a de facto campus, but the truth is the school is truly integrated into the city. Some people will love that, personally I hate it. I've always envisioned my college experience as a place where you walk through the gates, and your on the campus and in a truly academic environment. But that's just my personal tastes. </p>
<p>I would point out that NYU as a school is not just "a back door entrance to wall street," because it does have extremely strong performance and fine arts programs, and other strengths. People don't go to the Tisch school so they can work on Wall Street.</p>
<p>The other thing to consider is how much "spirit" you want your school to have. I live in New York City, and frankly Columbia gets more coverage for their football team perennially sucking than NYU gets for any of its sports teams. Sports admittedly can be a major factor in driving spirit and connection with schools. At USC they talk about the "Trojan Family" and their is huge support and passion among students for their school. You will see nothing remotely close to that at NYU. They may like NYU and New York a lot, but the connection won't be in any way similar to the one Trojans have with their school.</p>
<p>Marshall is a joke. I transferred to Wharton as a Sophmore. SMU has a higher rated Business School than USC..check out Business Week's Best Businees Schools on their website If you are truly serious about business school, then go to Stern. If you want a Jock-Frat college life, then stay at USC.</p>
<p>primo, if you were only at USC for freshman year, you couldn't know much about Marshall anyway. Freshman year is dominated by GE's and business pre-reqs. Few students take more than one or maybe two Marshall classes during their freshman year.</p>
<p>If you will be at Marshall for only one year, I would only care about writing and social studies for GE requirement. I won't even look through science since few colleges require "scinece" rather than "math/science."</p>
<p>USC's general requirements and Cornell's GEs are different so I wouldn't worry about USC's GEs that are not Cornell's GEs. Writing is a GE for nearly all universities.</p>
<p>US News ranks USC 27th overall, and NYU is 34th</p>
<p>You can get amazing job opportunities graduating from either school, NYU has a great reputation.. and as part of the Trojan Family you'll have connections anywhere in the country (My mom went to Marshall and it helped her get her job here in Boston).
I think your decision really comes down to what you want your college experience to be overall.. because that's where USC and NYU differ the most.</p>