Hi, I got a conditional offer to study in UCL (University of London), and was accepted to NYU Stern.
UCL would be significantly cheaper, but costs aside (purely from a social/academic/job opportunity/student life point of view), which university would you recommend? As far as I understand, UCL is usually in top 5-10 in world rankings, but I would study Management, whilst UCL is mainly known for social/natural sciences and medicine. I would probably double major Finance and Econ in Stern, which I hear is great.
I don’t mind living in London or NY (like them both the same), and aim to work in consulting, IBD, or something of the like (would actually prefer to get on a start-up, but until that happens the above stands true).
Do you think one would regret choosing Stern over UCL in terms of future, international opportunities and university experience?
Any input appreciated
Thanks in advance!
Are they both within budget or would your parents have to take on debt?
Are you a US citizen or a European citizen?
Where do you hope to work after you graduate?
Whether or not someone would regret choosing NYU Stern, I think, depends entirely on their own personality and preferences. Someone who really wanted to go into Wall Street banking and finance - and who was successful in doing that post-college because of internships they did while at NYU - probably wouldn’t. Someone who was unsuccessful pursuing that career and who really wanted to live in London for 4 years, but was pressured to do otherwise, might.
So the decision is going to be based partially on finances/what your family can pay for, but the rest should be about where you want to go. Both of those are highly respected schools; UCL is one of a handful of UK universities that, I would say, are just as respected as some elite universities here in the U.S. So I don’t think you’d suffer any disadvantages having gone there instead of NYU. If you’d like to work in New York after college, going to NYU might give you the advantage of term-time internships and part-time opportunities that can help you network your way into a job - but the same is true of UCL if you wanted to live in London.
The American college experience is somewhat different from the UK college experience, too. As I understand it, American students are encouraged to explore and use their college years as time for personal discovery and improvement and not just career and academic learning. European studies are more concentrated and specialized, and less emphasis is put on the “college experience.” However, I will say that NYU mitigates that somewhat - it doesn’t have a traditional campus and its students tend to have a different outlook on the college experience than the kind of students who chose more “traditional” places like Columbia or Princeton or Penn State or what have you.