Hey! I just got accepted by all three of them but I just can’t decide. I’m oos but money is not a big deal(altho spending less of my parents’ money can never hurt). I really want to do finance like IB, HF, or VC after graduation, but Berkeley didn’t guarantee a spot at Haas while Stern did. CMC is great at finance but I’m not sure if i can get in IB after it. However, after reading all those negative comments about stern, I just can decide which one to choose. Any advice?
NYU:
Stern is a highly respected business school located in the Finance capital of the world. If you do well and pursue IB/VC/whatever in Finance, Stern gives you the most direct path of the three schools. But there isn’t really an NYU campus – students all just live in New York City and “commute” to classes spread throughout the city. You can tell the buildings by the purple banners on them. So if a sense of campus community is not important to you, you can afford to shell out $60k+ per year (terrible financial aid), and you want the Manhattan experience, then NYU might be for you.
CMC is a top-ten LAC with a strong leadership/business vibe. It very much would present quite the community feel – it is by far the least populous, most compact choice. Excellent teaching, though I’m not sure about IB contacts out east.
Berkeley is a behemoth of public education: large, suburban, and high-quality. But it does have a campus, and some school spirit, and name recognition out east; Berkeley us well known and respected all over the planet. If your plans changed from Finance to, well, any other major, Berkeley would be the place to be: tons and tons of programs, all of them quality.
So for an individualistic/free vibe and putting yourself right in the Big Apple, and the most direct line to Finance jobs, NYU is best.
For the traditional, big state school – with lots of great programs, name recognition and school spirit – Berkeley is best.
And for the small, outstanding, lots-of-personal-attention LAC, CMC is the answer.