<p>How is Duke's undergraduate econ program? How does it stack up to other schools like UChicago? Is it a popular major for investment bankers?</p>
<p>that's exactlythe quesiton I had before choosing Duke out of U Chicago, Northwestern, Cornell, London Schoolf of Economics, UC Berkeley, and etc.
Grad school rankings in Econ doesn't think too highly of Duke (usually placed somewhere between 15~30th place), but don't let that fool you.
Econ department is really, really good at Duke. If sth like investment banking is what you are interested in, there is no reason to pick UChicago over Duke. But if you are sure that you want to go to academia upon graduation (get phD, become a professor and etc) then UChicago might be more intellectually stimulating for you.
And yes half the Econ majors here wanna be investment bankers.</p>
<p>I think the biggest difference in the econ departments at Duke and Uchicago is in its focus. If you look at the course listings for Duke econ, you will see that many of the elective courses will be finance related ones. On the other hand, UChicago econ department (at least at undergrad level) seems to place heavy emphasis on theory and core econ. You should make your decisions based on what you want. Hope that helped.</p>