Hello everyone! I would like some advice on college decision (undergrad).
Need to select from the followings:
Columbia Univ, NYU Stern, Univ of Chicago and Dartmouth College.
Will probably major in Economics, and would like to get double major (not sure which one besides Economics, could be computer science, political science, etc…). Not sure about the career goal (so not sure if wall street is a must after graduation)
Right now, tend to choose between Columbia and UChicago. (Dartmouth is kind of remote, NYU Stern may not be better than Columbia in terms of undergraduate studies).
These are great schools. Hard to choose.
Thank you very much in advance. Good luck to everyone!!
I think you’re on the right track here. Dartmouth is very remote - I personally would not recommend going there as I have a few friends who went and don’t speak well of it. That leaves Columbia, NYU, and Chicago.
You’re probably right that NYU is slightly lower ranked than Columbia and UChicago. The one thing I’ll say about NYU is that its culture is very different from the other 2 schools. It’s much more liberal, and much more integrated into NYC than Columbia. It’s very much a real NYC experience. If you’re interested in that, it may be worth a look still. Additionally, if you’re getting a business degree, NYU is actually higher ranked than the other two.
On the other hand, Columbia and UChicago are roughly equal from an academic perspective. You should look at non-academic factors when comparing the two schools, including:
- Do you prefer to attend school in NYC or Chicago
- Do you want to live in NYC or Chicago after school (where you attend makes a bigger difference than you think)
- Do you like the culture better at Columbia or UChicago
- Do you hate the cold (NYC is bad, but Chicago is brutal)
Hope this helped. I’d recommend at the very least visiting the schools and deciding off that.
These are all great choices. UChicago has a very theoretical undergraduate program. It’s known for its absolutely rigorous academics and known as not that much of a great school for social life since you will be very busy with academics. UChicago is also on the quarter system which is very intense for college and means you will be busy exams all the time as you will go through more classes in a year. If you go there and do well you will be fine. You run the risk of not as well due to the theoretical nature of the academics and for job placement UChicago for some reason is not on par with the other three. Maybe its grads come out too theoretical?
Columbia is known to have a terrible liberal arts core which eats up a significant portion of your time and can cause you to get lower grades. There are a lot of heavy reading / writing humanities, writing, philosophy, history classes that are mandatory as part of the core that you may not be interested in.
To be completely honest with you my choice would be between Stern and Dartmouth if I were in this position.
Stern provides an extremely practical education which you can apply directly to jobs / internships during and right out of school; this is one of the reasons Stern grad are so highly coveted in the finance industry and why so many firms are swarming with stern alums. In terms of curriculum, they offer the most flexibility out of most curricula I’ve seen. There are very few annoying requirements and you have full reign to take so many electives at NYU (either inside or outside Stern). And NYU is such a big school with vast majors and with some of the best professors in the world that taking a film / producing class at Tisch or getting an physics major is not a far fetched idea and is very easy to do. There are also a ton of amazing study abroad programs (I’ve traveled abroad 5 separate times as a result of Stern / NYU programs and visited 20+ countries during in my time here) including a free all expense paid business trip junior year as part of a mandatory class - no other school comes close to being able to do this. Lastly the opportunities of being in NYC is just unbelievable - I truly believe if I was at any other school I would not have had the success in recruiting I’ve had. The internships and the opportunity meet any person from any firm you are interested in at any time is a big resource and can work wonders for you professional life.
Dartmouth is a phenomenal school - it is probably the next best after Stern in terms of job recruitment. For some reason Dartmouth does extremely well on Wall Street and is one of those schools that constantly places its alums at top firms. The trimester structure also gives Dartmouth students a lot of unique advantages such as the ability to intern during a trimester in NY or elsewhere outside of the typically summer internship timeline. This serves Dartmouth students extremely well.
I would choose between Stern and Dartmouth and the choice is easy once you decide what sort of environment you want to be in (city life vs remote Greek life).
If you are not sure about your career goals, I would go to the school that has the best overall academics rather than the one with the best Wall Street connections. In this case, that would be Chicago or Columbia. Dartmouth is a great school, but not quite as elite (it is very connected on Wall Street). It is also very isolated. NYU is a step below the other three academically, and I would not choose it.
Visit if you can and talk to people, and then decide. Either would be great. If I thought I was going to study econ, it would be awfully hard to turn down Chicago, the place with all the Nobel Prizes in Economics. But Columbia is also very strong in econ. New York vs Chicago probably favors Columbia, but Chicago has a much larger campus and more of a “college” feel. Both have a rigorous core curriculum, and neither has a great campus party life. If you want frat parties to be a major part of your college experience, go to Dartmouth.
Really, you can’t go wrong.
I really appreciate everyone who offers suggestions. Will carefully read through all your suggestions.
THANK YOU!
My kid will also go to the admitted student overnight visit in a week or so.