Dartmouth vs. Rice vs. University of Texas at Austin

I was accepted to Dartmouth College, Rice, and the Turing Scholars (Computer Science Honors) Program at the UT Austin. I’m interested in IB and would like to end up in the financial industry (hopefully a Wall Street job). I plan on majoring in CS or Math with an Econ minor or second major.
Technically money isn’t an issue for my parents, but I want to make sure there is a good ROI. Also I didn’t receive any financial aid.
I know Dartmouth clearly has the name, large alumn-network, and is a major pipeline for these banks, but UT’s CS program is well known too. But Dartmouth and Rice will allow me the freedom to double major across schools while UT (according to the professors I have talked to) will try to block me from doing that. But then again, many Turing Scholar students get great internships and $100k+ starting salaries, but I know I want a more finance related job than a pure tech/coding job.
Rice has that private school “prestige” down South plus the close-knit and small class size. I do plan on getting an MBA, though not until I have a few years of work experience.
I’ve also heard a lot about how private schools allow you to be with a bright student body ( not that UT doesn’t have many brilliant students - just that not all of them will be), and I’m trying to understand how big of a difference that makes for an undergraduate education and experience.

I’m very torn between these schools – partly for prestige, money, and of course my biggest concern is whether it will be worth it. I’d really appreciate it if people could share their experiences at these schools/opinions.

Thanks!

I know people who went to Rice who work in IB in Houston.

CS and IB don’t go together unless you want to get in on the programming side of IB. There are Rice CS graduates working for hedge funds.

Yeah I’m seriously considering Rice now. I’m pursuing CS because it’s a lot of math and problem solving and from the professionals I’ve talked to they highly suggest that I develop that skill in my undergrad

Hello. I currently attend the University of Texas at Austin so I think I can provide some insight and correct some misconceptions. I’m currently a student at the McCombs school of business (although I’m hopefully transferring out of UT). Something business students are taught very early comes directly from Goldman Sachs recruiters - they do not want five hundred finance and accounting majors. There are too many of those from all across the nation applying for the same IB position with Goldman Sachs, and as a result, the finesse of having the finance or accounting degree diminishes. However, Goldman, ML, and others have begun taking in a large amount of MIS (Management Information Systems) majors. This is the major that bridges technology and business interaction. The demand for non traditional majors to apply to IB is immense (to add on, one of my close friends who is a biochem major recently got an internship with Goldman). With you being a CS major, you will still need to learn the business aspects, spread sheets, discount flow models, etc. UT is amazing in that it has so many student organizations that will teach these aspects to you without you having to be an actual finance or accounting major (examples are USIT and TUIT). However, UT is definitely not for everyone. You should be very comfortable with the big city feeling even though Austin isn’t necessarily a big city, but UT is extremely densely populated within itself. Now, educationally, UT is superior to Dartmouth or Rice in regards to CS and about even with Dartmouth in regards to business (UT often get recruiters that complain about other schools in Texas and they always seemingly have issues with Rice students - that’s why I’m being so critical of Rice). Along with the dense population of UT, there are also some other factors to consider IF they are important to you. I eventually want to go into public policy to politics is very important to me and UT is an extremely liberal college. While I would say there are conservative groups that try to balance it, the type of liberal that I’ve only ever encountered at UT is very closed minded and very condescending towards attitudes that aren’t similar. I think that this can be a fair assessment considering I’m actively engaged in a variety of student organizations so I’ve met all sorts of people. That being said, it’s not a reason I’m trying to transfer. At all. I deeply disagree with UT regarding a lot of administrative decisions. For example, there’s a popular street that runs parallel to campus called “The Drag” where many homeless people reside. About a month ago, a student was murdered on campus by one of these homeless people. UT fails to in a way “contain” these sorts of people by allowing them to freely roam campus (which makes me very uncomfortable). Along with that, dorms are pretty sub-par (apartment is really the only way to go. Calloway if you have money Riverside if you don’t and everything in between). Overall, UT is great educationally, it just isn’t for some people. UT has always tried to tout how open minded it is, but I’ve seen just as much aggression and close mindedness. As a result, along with a lot of personally isolated incidents regarding numerous dangerous roommates, I’ve decided that I do not feel comfortable here, and I want something smaller and more close knit. If you feel like you want more of the liberal arts college feeling (which I personally do), stay away from UT. If your values align very well with the school administration and you like the sound of construction, by all means this is your dream school. If you want to know details on anything or have any specific questions just message me!