Columbia vs Wharton

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>well i posted this on the upenn discussion board...what are your opinions here?</p>

<p>Hi, I just found out I have been offered a place at both Wharton and Columbia. The problem is I am really confused now as to which one to choose..I would just like any advice or information about the two that would aid me in making a decision.. Obviously, it's business at wharton and i intend on majoring in economics at columbia. </p>

<p>What are the pros/cons of both?? how is the location/sense of community/job prospects/ease of getting into a masters program at both??</p>

<p>any help would be greatly appreciated!! thanks!</p>

2

<p>Wanna make money? Go to Wharton. The cradle of Warren Buffetts.</p>

3

<p>If you want to go for business, Wharton is obviously the place to be. Columbia does not have an undergraduate business major, but I’m sure any of the economics majors along with the core would be an excellent foundation for a job or graduate program.</p>

4

<p>If you want to go into business, especially finance, wharton blows columbia out of the water (based on where new recruits at BBs). there are some areas academically where columbia > wharton though.</p>

5

<p>ironic that warren buffet dropped out of wharton only to graduate from columbia business…hmmm johngrantee.</p>

<p>wharton has a great reputation, but it alone isn’t a reason to attend penn. you have to want all of it - the culture, the life of west philly. there are few schools that have as much in common as columbia (urban, large scale university) and seem to be as different (penn being on the fratastic side). </p>

<p>i will let my penn friends speak for penn, it is a great place, but it wasn’t for me. i’ll give you a columbia run down. </p>

<p>but honestly - a lot of things regarding placement in jobs, or into master’s programs (are you talking about mba?) are going to be somewhere in the same range. wharton might trump columbia in name for biz stuff, but not by a lot, columbia on the other hand trumps penn overall in a lot of other circles. so it means you should in fact not try and treat this as i have to choose between a better or worse option, they are about the same.</p>

<p>this let’s you start to look at the two more based on feel - do you want a biz education, do you like columbia’s more classic approach to pedagogy, penn’s more sprawling campus, the cities are different, the connection to the cities, and above all do you like your potential peers.</p>

<p>students at columbia are for the most part down to earth, smart, intense, direct (like new yorkers), independent (not afraid to leave campus) but also very territorial (we take care of our own. the school trends liberal, but of late there hasn’t been any major manifestations (a quiet year) and there is an emerging and stronger conservative presence on campus. academic and social lives usually intermix with each other, especially because of the core and the common form it takes on (you’ll never joke so much about kant in your life), but columbia definitely breeds a strong intellectual aspect. social fun is not contained to campus, and involves going out to bars, parties, museums, theaters, a lot of pr groups will actually give away tickets to openings of major movies. the city becomes like a playground of sorts, but everyone ends their night in morningside, and it is often that you share your own experiences with friends so though you may have gone out with just a handful of people, it becomes almost as if everyone came along with you.</p>

<p>columbia’s advantages are very much related to the academic culture it fosters and the incredible superiority of nyc to every other city, particularly when it comes to opportunity. i think columbia is special because it demands that you be a critical thinker through your core classes, that you become aware and self-aware through this intense process of discussion based classes. it is something i feel is missing in most universities - and it is why the core is really a centerpiece to columbia - it is what makes the university not just good, but incredible. when you add that to the other advantage - columbia as a hotbed for anything you could ever imagine wanting to do, makes columbia almost unbeatable. you can wake up and go see the president of france speak, and later on that evening go to a comedy club where chris rock just happens to show up to do a set. it is exciting and exhilarating. it is also educational - to be in a city that has such great extremes of wealth and poverty, it makes you aware of issues and problems, and not cloistered from them. its an eye-opening experience that will make you better.</p>

6

<p>Go on revisits and where your heart tells you. You can’t go wrong with those choices, and it just depends on your personal fit. If you are very pre-prof, go to W. But for me, I would choose Columbia you get more liberal-arts and less cutthroat competition, and virtually the same career opps (assuming you do equally well at both places). Ok, so maybe W recruiting is probably a little better than Columbia, but honestly, everybody at Wharton is competing for the same jobs, so the competition is fierce, whereas not everybody from Columbia wants to go into business. Plus, you get to be in NYC!!</p>

7

<p>@admissionsgeek…did you attend both universities?? is philly really not a nice city?? i heard it had a nice community feel that columbia apparently lacks (is it really small?) i’m an international so there’s no chance of me visiting and i have been to neither places and therefore have no firsthand experience!!! the location of columbia appeals to me yet the business program at wharton is also an attraction. Does the economics course at Columbia actually equip one with the skills to go into the corporate world?? </p>

<p>and thanks for your responses!! they really are very helpful except i am finding ways to love both and just become more torn!</p>

8

<p>and i meant small as in comparitively to the other ivies…it looks pretty big to me!</p>

9

<p>hi moonbug, didn’t know you were int’l.</p>

<p>i attended columbia only, and as i mentioned, i can’t really speak for upenn besides visiting it a few times, and having friends that went there.</p>

<p>columbia has a strong community, but it is different than penn, which is heavily concentrated in the sporting and fraternity life. so columbia is more about the intellectual community, about venturing off into the city together, and about sharing experiences with people who live in very close proximity to you. columbia is about 5500 ugrads, and most live on campus (i think penn is north of 6k?) so not that far off from each other in terms of numbers, but 5500 students makes columbia the second smallest ivy.</p>

<p>and to answer your question, the econ program definitely will give you the necessary quantitative background to do well and a lot of students at columbia go on to work for banks and other things in the finance/consulting world. you can also take some biz classes to supplement the work in the econ department. and most students who are interested in a biz life, do internships. i had a friend who worked for a private equity group as a junior, kind of unheard of, but they need interns during the school year, and that is something you can do at columbia that you can’t in philly.</p>

<p>and a note on cities - philly is not the same scope as nyc, it is smaller, it isn’t as integrated in the sense that public transportation is not as good. and doesn’t have nearly as much opportunity. there are great things there (fantastic places of learning, sports, culture, etc.) but there are fewer in number and less variety. like if you are interested in music - you can see something in philly, but you can see everything from the next big group to a concert at carnegie hall when you live in new york.</p>

10

<p>I’ll have to concur on that fact that living in NYC will open up internship opportunities in finance that you will be thankful for. Not only do many students get to intern at major banks part-time during the school year, but summer internships are so much easier to interview and work in when you already live in manhattan. Moving during the summer can be a pain in the butt!</p>

11

<p>come to columbia!
[YouTube</a> - Columbia University!](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZG7gThoGME]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZG7gThoGME)</p>

12

<p>If you really want to do business, then you shouldn’t even be thinking about this. Wharton is the obvious choice. You can major in econ at columbia but econ isn’t the same as biz. NYC will open as many doors for (if not less) for internship opportunities as the wharton name will. </p>

<p>for IB and consultancy wharton blows columbia out of the water (now people will say that’s due to more people interested in those jobs at wharton blah blah but it’s just a justification) </p>

<p>If you actually want to study business go to wharton. Its a much better bet. If you just want to get into biz AFTER college and are more interested in arts and sciences then you should go to columbia. </p>

<p>Penn also has a bigger campus and is a little more like the traditional college experience. I also hear that its called the social ivy. Columbia on the other hand has a very small campus (20 acres) and so its a different type of experience. all depends on what you want.</p>

13

<p>Just wanted to add my two cents and I agree with a lot of the posts here. In terms of the financial services, there is no comparison between Wharton and Columbia. I’m not sure if the students posting here realize the kind of opportunities available at Wharton versus those found at Columbia.</p>

<p>1) For Consulting, no Ivy League does as poorly as Columbia. We placed 1-2 students into McKinsey, and hell, Boston Consulting Group (one of the top consulting firms) doesn’t even recruit here for undergraduates anymore. Our undergraduate placement for consulting is not competitive compared to other schools.</p>

<p>2) For Investment Banking, the top schools that are recruited anywhere are Wharton and Harvard, though Barcap, Credit Suisse, and Merrill Lynch have an affinity for Columbia students. However, Wharton takes the cake for the best recruitment. The Morgans and the Goldmans are filled with Wharton and Harvard grads. Even big private equity firms (the paradise of all investment bankers), recruit at Wharton. For example, of 4 students Blackstone hired globally from undergraduate bodies, 2 were from Wharton.</p>

<p>3) Big banks do not hire students during the school year. The only firm that does that is UBS in their private wealth management division. Investment banking roles are not filled by part-time students. If anything, working during the school year means building up your resume at a small hedge fund or UBS so that you can land a bigger internship your junior year. Unless you have connections, JPM, MS, GS, BAML, etc. will not hire an undergraduate for part-time work, though BAML (before the shotgun marriage) had a night analyst program.</p>

<p>I’ve heard that Penn has a bigger traditional social scene and campus life. I don’t even know if Columbia has a campus life, to be quite honest. People tend to go out into the city and have fun together, so it’s difficult to get a cohesive campus dynamic. If you want to work in the financial services, Columbia is definitely only a step down from Harvard and Wharton. That said, it’s a pretty steep step.</p>

14

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<p>Mck hired 3 students and interviewed 32 on campus and while BCG does not recruit on campus, Booz interviewed 42 on campus and hired 5-6. We also get tons of quantitative consulting firms recruiting on campus. Our undergrad consulting recruiting is not as good W, HYP but it beats Brown, Cornell.</p>

<p>2) Nearly every top division at every top bank recruits from Columbia. Columbia is one of the few schools (along with H, Princeton, Penn) which does really well in investment banking + trading + wealth management. Again I’d give H and W the edge, but Columbia students have tons of interview opportunities open to them. Have you been in the loop about the summer offers for the class of 2011? I was blown away, an MD at a Bulge Bracket bank throwing in an extra 3-4k for the summer to attract a Columbia student he thought was exceptional for example. But even people with mediocre gpas - 3.2-3.5 were landing interviews and offers at BB sales & trading and investment banking divisions. Good friend of a friend got a summer p.e. offer with Blackstone, which is nearly unheard of even at W or H. From talking to friends at Wharton, it doesn’t seem like Columbia lags much behind at all.</p>

<p>3) You say that banks do not hire during the year, yet there are tons of ambitious and middle class (so no connections) kids who do round the year internships at bulge bracket investment banks. I even had a close friend work for KKR (elite private equity firm) during the year, he is now doing investment banking for a top 3 bank, this kid again is nothing extra-ordinary, he just took the initiative and busted his a$$. Many others work round the year at small hedge funds, small boutique investment banks and small private equity firms, this significantly bolsters their resume.</p>

15

<p>concoll, from what I’ve seen so far I’d tend to agree with beardtax. I’ve never even seen a posting for any BB part-time other than UBS. How are your friends getting these internships if not through connections?</p>

<p>(feel free to pm, btw)</p>

16

<p>shrugging, i know a lot of folks that go through the company itself, through alums they randomly run into, or other non-official means. these are not recruit for/interview with kind of opportunities (or at least most are not).</p>

<p>but i’ve heard folks working at goldman during school year, mck during school year, and especially folks that are on the jp morgan scholarship - working at chase. though agree with concoll - a lot more hedge funds, privaty equity groups, small time trading firms. these actually tend to be listed on lionshare. but consider that experience speaks volumes when you apply for the real deal.</p>

17

<p>I can name more than a half-dozen 2009 Columbia College and Engineering graduates working at McKinsey. Those facts are just not true. Beard Tax, do you go to Columbia?</p>

18

<p>I do attend Columbia. I’m talking about per year statistics. It’s great that you know 5-6 people who graduated in the past and work at McKinsey but we’re discussing how many people work there in the summer per year.</p>

<p>In the end, it doesn’t matter how many people the firms interview. They’ll always try to cast the greatest net, especially in the interview phase. It’s about how many students they accept into their summer analyst program, which isn’t many compared to other schools. Then again, consulting is much more rarefied field, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that Columbia does not have a large presence in that area.</p>

<p>This discussion is about Columbia vs. Wharton and I’m trying to make the point that Wharton is the top choice if you want to work in the financial services. Columbia does have good recruiting and it’s a step down from Wharton and Harvard, but that step is large. The top firms’ summer analyst classes are filled with Wharton and Harvard students. For example, in the class of 2010, there was only one summer analyst at Goldman Sachs IBD from Columbia.</p>

<p>It’s great that you guys can pull anecdotal evidence about how it’s “possible” to get this and that at XYZ firm. There is however, a difference between what is possible and what is probable. It is improbable that you will work for KKR, Blackstone, GS, MS, etc. during the school year, especially if you guys use anecdotal evidence of 1/1600 or 15/1600, still less than 1%.</p>

19

<p>confidentialcoll, could you tell us more about how your friends were able to get internships during the school year at BBs? Exactly how hard is it to get an IB internship as a freshman/sophomore? Thanks!</p>

20

<p>I’ve discussed a lot of this stuff here, you will find that what I have to say about Princeton also applies to Columbia (if not more so):</p>

<p>If you want to get the best jobs possible, go to Wharton. Coming out of Columbia, you will almost certainly be able to get a BB IB, S&T, but more so MBB (consulting) jobs if you have a high GPA and show some basic knowledge of the industry. Obviously, you get all of that at Wharton too, and Wharton places a hell of a lot more kids than Columbia does into those jobs. Going to Wharton also gives you in-depth knowledge about these different career paths, (far more than you could learn over a summer internship) so you will know exactly what you are getting into. Wharton MBA students who have already gone through the process can also be useful guides and chaperones for you. </p>

<p>However, the cream of the crop at Wharton have options that Columbia kids don’t, thanks to their in-depth business knowledge. That includes Private Equity (the pay is almost twice that of the jobs mentioned above and is a lot more interesting. Half, or more than half of most firms PE jobs will go to Whartonites - some Columbiaians do get in right out of undergrad but it is not nearly as common as at Wharton since Whartonites have a much better finance background), VC (which some Columbia kids do get into, it is just rare), and Hedge Funds (which Columbia places fewer kids into). Some firms recruit exclusively at Wharton - like Silver Lake. If you want to have the widest possible set of jobs in the financial industry open to you, go to Wharton. If you want to have the widest set of jobs in all industries open to you, go to Wharton, but double major and get a liberal arts degree from Penn’s college. </p>

<p>The rankings on the street of so-called “target schools” are:</p>

<p>Wharton and Harvard at the top rung, and then the rest of HYPSM follows, only then does Columbia appear (along with some other non-ivy schools). </p>

<p>If these schools are so close in your mind, why not just go to the school that has an alumni network in finance that is probably 5 times the size? We have already established that you can get a superb liberal arts education at both institutions. We have also established that, for your chosen career path, Wharton outstrips Columbia (especially if you count getting a PE, Venture Capital, or a hedge fund gig). Both schools provide for amazing undergraduate experiences. We have also established that going to Wharton means that you do not have to get an MBA, whereas the necessity of one at Columbia is far far more likely, if not almost always necessary. </p>

<p>But Wharton has one advantage that Columbia does not, the largest network on Wall Street. Only Harvard’s rivals Wharton for power. Ask anyone in the industry, they will tell you that networking is perhaps the most important thing when looking for a job. Wharton helps you there far more than Columbia does since it has a vast, far more powerful, alumni base. That, in turn, provides for better job security since even in London or Hong Kong, there will be plenty of Wharton alums to help you out. This gives you more options to work internationally. </p>

<p>But you are choosing from two of the best schools on earth. Revisit both, talk to some professors at both Columbia and Wharton if possible. There will be a lot of Wharton kids that turned down Columbia for Wharton, approach one and ask them why they did that. Do the same at Columbia. Ask both sets of kids what the career options are at both schools. You really cannot go wrong. Two of my cousins went to Yale, both loved it. Another went to Penn, he loved it as well. All would agree that you are in a superb position. Congratulations and good luck. I hope I get to see you on campus!</p>

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