<p>I got into Berkeley (spring admittance), NYU Stern, and USC Marshall's school of business but I'm not sure on where I should attend next fall! I am from the suburbs near Chicago so none of these are really "close" to home. Money won't be an issue either. I want to get into finance, working at some kind of investment banking or a boutique after graduation. </p>
<p>I'm leaning towards NYU and Berkeley because NYU is ranked #2 and UC Berkeley is ranked #4 in undergraduate finance. While USC is still a great school, especially in business, I don't think it would provide the best opportunities for what I want to do. But at UC Berkeley, I'm not guaranteed a spot into Haas School of Business while at NYU, I'd already be in their Stern school of business.</p>
<p>Also, I hear that Berkeley, being a public school, has an overflowing amount of students and thus graduating in four years might not be possible, along with the fact that I'd be starting school in spring. </p>
<p>I also plan on attending graduate school too. I'm not sure if choosing one school over another would be an advantage/disadvantage in terms of getting a better GPA to enter grad school.</p>
<p>I posted this already in the NYU forums, but I wanted to post in both forums to avoid any bias point of views. </p>
<p>Thank you! Your comments are greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Hey OP, congrats btw! Let me clarify some of the things you mentioned.
Although NYU might be higher ranked in Finance, UC Berkeley Haas undergraduate business program is ranked higher than both NYU and USC.</p>
<p>Secondly, Haas requires that you graduate within two years after you been accepted, so graduating within 4 years is not a problem. Lastly, I feel that UC berkeley has a more prestigious reputation/brand around the world. </p>
<p>But than again NYU breeds bankers, it depends on what you wanna do and where you wanna be after you graduate. (Although it is not hard for Haas and Econ majors at Berkeley to get into banking)</p>
<p>Congratulations on those admissions! I’d agree with your decision to prioritize USC third among those three choices since USC isn’t as highly regarded for moving into finance as Berkeley/NYU. That being said, you could argue that may be easiest to get a job (especially in Southern California) after graduation due to the “Trojan Family” (an extensive alumni network eager to help out Trojan grads). </p>
<p>I’d interpret Berkeley’s budget situation in the following way: you shouldn’t have any trouble graduating in 4 years (especially with any type of pre-requisite AP/IB credit, such as in Calculus, Language/Literature, and Economics). The only place you may encounter difficulty getting your most preferred courses (but still leaving you the ability to get applicable courses) is in your first two years for you breadth (general education) requirements only. I would not let this significantly influence your decision since they aren’t critical to graduating in 4 years and can be largely avoided by smartly planning your schedules.</p>
<p>Both programs do allow for smooth transitions into finance careers, I agree that it comes down in part to where you want to work: if you prefer the East Coast (such as Wall Street), NYU has an edge; if you prefer the West Coast (think San Francisco, Silicon Valley - though relatively less for finance there, Los Angeles); Berkeley has an edge.</p>