<p>Hi</p>
<p>I'm an international student from Korea who's planning to major in economics.</p>
<p>I'm having a really hard time choosing between Cornell and Duke. </p>
<p>If I am to study economics, which would you recommend? or </p>
<p>what are the relative advantages of each school?</p>
<p>Duke advantages- slightly better recruiting opportunities in Banking/Consulting fields.
Cornell’s advantages- the ivy name tag (might be important if you are looking for jobs at Korean companies, although I heard that some of them resort to published rankings) and a slightly broader range of courses (since it’s a bigger school).
If you are interested in Econ because you wanna do banking and what not, Duke probably has an edge because it’s more widely recruited and because the econ department is trying to offer more courses related to finance. On the other hand, if you are interested in other sub-fields of econ like industrial/labor economics and so on, Cornell might offer you more choices. It just comes down to what you want.</p>
<p>On an additional note- if getting recognition from random people next door (like yupjip ajumma) in Korea is important for you, choose Cornell. If not, go with the school that best matches your interests. I chose Duke between the two because I was sure that I wanted to go into finance after graduating.</p>
<p>As an applicant, I have no personal experience with either Econ department. I’m speaking only as a prospective econ major. </p>
<p>1) Apply to both and see what you get. If you’re talented/able enough to get into both and are confronted with having to choose between the two, I believe you’ll be able to make the decision on your own judgment instead of relying on what you hear on an online forum.</p>
<p>2) If you’re talking about ED apps, think about which school will be better for you during the time you spend there, not about what your post-graduation plans will be. Those are important too, but if you do well at either institution, your prospects in the job hunt will be nearly equivalent. So as far as ED goes look into things like social atmosphere, the colleges’ locales, the extracurricular opportunities and so on. If you find yourself unable to decide, just apply in the regular round.</p>