CORNELL(70% fin.aid) vs UPenn(0 fin.aid) vs YALE(65% fin.aid) vs UCBerkeley(0 fin.aid)

Hey guys, so recently I have been admitted to all 4 and now I am struggling which one to choose. So, I am planning to study business or business-related major(management, finance, accounting). Unfortunately, Yale does not provide any business-related majors during undergrad. , UC Berkeley starts to teach business only after sophomore year, and Cornell’s business program isn’t the best as I heard from others. Wharton is clearly winning; however, I have financial aid package both at Yale and Cornell. I am from a mid-class family, which means I can afford full tuition, but I am not super rich. 50000$ a year is a lot of money.

If I choose Yale, I would have to study economics. I am not sure what I’d be and where I’d work as an economist…

GUYS PLEASE HELP ME, I HAVE UNTIL MAY TO FINALIZE MY DECISION

It’s not that Berkeley doesn’t start teaching business until after sophomore year, students aren’t guaranteed admission to the business program. If they are selected to study business, they’ll study business after their sophomore year. If not, they’ll typically study something like econ. On top of that, you’ll be paying $60,000 a year with no financial aid.

I don’t know much about Cornell’s Dyson, but it ranks well.

Wharton is obviously Wharton.

Yale doesn’t have undergrad business.

For Berkeley, there’s a chance you’re not studying business and you’re back to econ. Yale you’re doing econ.

In my mind, Cornell makes the most sense. It’s a well-ranked program at an Ivy school and it offers the most financial aid. Berkeley makes no sense. Yale doesn’t make much sense if you’re not interested in econ. Wharton, while a great school, seems like a touch choice given the drastic price difference between it and Cornell.

Oh, and economists work everywhere.

Not to sound skeptical, but how do you have acceptances and FA offers from 3 different ivies and a public when Ivy release date and Cal’s release date is March 30th at 5pm?

There’s no way that you could have RD acceptances from all of these places – did you apply SCEA and ED to these schools breaking all of the rules for Single Choice Early Action and Early Decision in so doing?

Does it matter to you more what you learn or where you end up working?

If it’s between Yale Econ and Cornell Business, and you really want the breadth of a Business degree, then go with Cornell.

If, on the other hand, you don’t really care whether it’s Business or Econ, and you just want to end up in a nice Corp Finance/IB/Consulting/VC job, then either Yale or Cornell can get you there… and given roughly the same FA, you should then decide on other fit variables: academic calendar, curriculum, housing/food, social vibe, environment, etc.

I left out Berkeley and Penn because, IMO, neither is possibly worth six figures more than Yale or Cornell.

Are you admitted to art and science or Wharton at UPenn? if art and science, i think you should go to berkeley, if Wharton, Wharton is a apparent choice

I think the only early admits for Cal are Regents scholars - as they aren’t throwing money OP’s way, I too am wondering about whether OP has actually been admitted yet.

@Undercrackers You can get the early invitation to apply for Regents at Cal and know from that that you have been accepted, but you don’t find out until later whether you are actually going to get Regents.

Throw out the ones with no financial aid and then decide between the other two.

You can write your own ticket with a degree in econmics from Yale. You can work on Wall St amongst many other things.

There shouldn’t be that big a difference between Yale/Cornell and Penn. None of them give merit aid so we’re only talking about need-based. Is it just that Penn hasn’t announced aid yet?

This is fake. Either you broke the rules on EA or you are lying

Wharton is the only choice. You come out of there and you have the golden ticket.

Assuming you can afford it. If not, then this discussion really does not matter. You can only attend the school that you can pay for.

Congrats on your acceptances. Great Job! Most impressive.

If you have acceptance letters with the FA offers, send a copy to Penn and ask if they will match Yale and Cornell. A friend managed to get an additional $10,000 a year from Penn that way.

I share the skepticism mentioned earlier - how did OP receive these admissions prior to everyone else?

Cornell’s FA award will not be more generous than Yale’s and Penn’s should land in the same range.

Did you get into all these schools? I wasn’t aware that RD decisions went out? Also I’m not sure why the financial packages from Cornell and Yale are so different from Penn. Is it just that Penn’s package hasn’t come in yet, or did you get nothing? I’ll also assume for purposes of this post that you are OOS for Berkeley making the cost high.

All of these schools can get you where you want to go in life.

Here are my comments:

–I’d probably take Berkeley out due to a combination of the cost and the fact that there are no direct admits to the b-school.

–If Wharton is affordable, it is a great choice. If Penn is unaffordable without hardship/debt, I’d look hard at the other wonderful options you have. But I have to respectfully disagree with @MassDaD68 – IMO no school provides a golden ticket – it is what you accomplish while you are at the school (academics, internships etc.) that will provide the impetus to get you where you want to go in life. And starting life not being saddled with debt will give the OP much more flexibility and opportunity when he/she starts out life after college. For full disclosure, I’m a Wharton alum and love the school.

–Cornell’s Dyson school has a very fine reputation as a b-school. I’m not sure where you have heard otherwise. (not that I’m a ratings person but USNWR has Dyson ranked #9 on the list of undergraduate b-schools)

–Econ majors out of the top schools (such as Yale) can do well in terms of job placement. You can try to talk to someone in career placement (or in the econ. dept) at Yale to get a sense of where their graduates are placed in terms of jobs.

–The choice between Penn (if affordable), Cornell and Yale should be a matter of if you want economics or business undergraduate. If you go to Berkeley you’d have to be comfortable with both paths. As you seem to know economics and finance are very different majors. Economics is a liberal arts course of study and gets very theoretical at the upper levels. In contrast if you go to an undergraduate business school you will take a business core with introductory classes in subjects such as accounting, finance, IT, marketing etc. and then you will major in one of those disciplines. Take the time to look online at the coursework for both majors at the schools and see if you prefer one path to the other.

Congrats on your many wonderful opportunities. There are clearly no bad choices here!!

@MassDaD68: Disagree strongly.

Wharton would give hardly any advantage over Cornell AEM, if at all (Cornell alums are on the Street in multitudes) and no advantage over Yale.

But I think this scenario and post is fake anyway.

Since 3 or 4 have been asking me why did I receive my decision earlier, I will copy/paste a letter that I wrote to a person who actually pmed me the question:)

Hello,

First of all, I want to introduce myself xD My name is Ace and I am almost 20. I finished high school one year ago and since that time I have been working and preparing for college. Last year I applied to a total of 16 schools: 4 that are located in the UK (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL) 2 that are in China (Tsinghua, Peking) and 10 in the US (Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Cornell, Duke and UChicago). By the way, I forgot to mention that I applied for a fin. aid everywhere.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I dream to become a business analyst or a business consultant, and as you probably know there are only 2 colleges in the US that offer business undergrad programs - Cornell and UPenn. Well now, there are 3, since MIT opened new majors last year (business analytics, finance and management)

So I applied ED to UPenn, and guess what happened. I received a deferral. By April 2016, I received 10 or 9 acceptances (Columbia, Stanford, Yale, Cambridge, UCLA, UChicago, Cornell, Peking and LSE). Got waitlisted at UPenn after a deferral. I accepted a spot on the waitlist, while also paying a deposit to Stanford :frowning:

On June 3, I found out that UPenn already filled all of their spots for the class of 2020. I got super disappointed. Btw, (this is my second btw, sorry ^.^) I am an international student (I am from Kyrgyzstan, a country in Central Asia, and I hold dual citizenship (Swiss and Kyrgyz). When I had my interview at the embassy, they denied me. TBH I never got upset, because I treated this rejection as a sign that I belong at UPenn, not at Stanford or any other university, and that I needd to apply again. So that is what I did.

I changed my essays and decided not to apply for a fin.aid (Berkeley and Penn since they rejected me last year). I applied RD everywhere including UPenn. I had my interview, and the women said "I have interviewed for 3 years and I have talked with a lot of applicants, and I can assure you that this time they will definitely accept you).

Sooo, NormalSeniorGuy this is my crazy but rewarding story:)

I know I said that I already got accepted in my previous post, I just did not want to confuse everyone with my story. + I knew that probably no one would actually read the entire thing. I needed the advice that is why I kept the post as simple as I possibly could.

Right now, I am waiting for my UPenn decision and I am really nervous, yet excited : )

I hope I answered to all of your questions, and if not, then I would be more than happy to answer them. Next time, introduce yourself first, it is a very good manner .^-^.

thank you for helping me out! I really mean it. I think I am going to go with UPenn and if rejected again( lol) I would probably go with Yale!

“and as you probably know there are only 2 colleges in the US that offer business undergrad programs”

There are many, many, many colleges in the US that offer business undergrad programs.