Help me choose: Duke vs. UMich Ross vs. Carnegie Mellon

College Search & Selection
1

Looking to go into finance: IB/PE/HF

Duke Pros

  • higher ranked (basically t10)

  • smaller school → more focused profs and smaller clases

  • amazing alum network

  • great weather and beautiful campus

  • great greek life scene

  • better recruiting and opportunities for internships/ft offers

  • i can easily double major across multiple disciplines

  • durham is an amazing town with great restaraunts, nightlife, etc

  • great school spirit and vibe

  • basketball.

Duke Cons

  • literally no financial aid (82k)

  • i heard duke has tough reqs and gen eds (but ap credit helps here)

Carnegie Mellon Pros

  • amazing quantitative department (stat/ml/math/cs)

  • small school - more connections w profs

  • easy to get into clubs

  • pittsburgh is a growing city, pretty close/central to nyc and chicago

  • community of geniuses

  • amazing connections wih quant firms and HFs (quant trader roles)

  • really interdisciplinary

  • beautiful campus

  • very quantitatively focused business education

CMU Cons

  • no nightlife at all

  • community kinda lacking - no sports, no spirit

  • meh parties

  • cant get into IB easily, its mostly only quant roles here.

  • not as much as duke but still pretty expensive (77k)

UMich Pros

  • great opportunities through ross

  • great campus life, lot of greek life, parties are good

  • great football and basketball atmosphere (sports in general really)

  • target for IB recruiters

  • ross is a collaborative community inside the larger umich one

  • great campus

  • also an amazing alum network

  • cheapest on this list (70k)

UMich Cons

  • bleak weather

  • not as good buy side (PE) opps as duke

  • huge classes (at least the non-ross ones)

  • large school - may feel suffocated/drowned out

  • can’t double major (takes 5 years apparently if you do a cs + ross major)

So all in all, these r my top 3 options. I am leaning towards duke and umich ross rn because they are a lot more prevalent on wall street. If the costs of duke and mich were clsoer i would commit to duke in a heartbeat.

My heart is with duke, but costs are holding me back.

2

How are you funding college? Would the cost difference place burden on your parents, or require them to take out loans? (the max you can take out in loans is $27K over the 4 years of undergrad)

2 Likes
3

my family is pretty well off, we don’t qualify for financial aid at all. obvisouly 80k per year would place a dent but my parents say that they are willing and able to pay. It’s gonna be a mix of my parents paying and me taking a few loans. and is the 27k per year, or is it over all 4 years?

4

The Federal Student loan limit is $27K in total ($5.5K frosh year then $6.5K/$7.5K/$7.5K). Any loans above that will be on your parents, either directly, or as co-signers.

How much in total loans will you/your parents have at the end of undergrad for each option? IMO the $27K student loans are reasonable for these schools, for sure.

5

yeah most likely in addition to the 27k in federal loans im thinking of taking on another 15-20k total in private loans, while my parents cover the rest.

and please correct me if any of my logic and thought process are incorrect, i am not too familiar with this process and need to do a lot more research.

6

$47k in debt for Duke with the intention of IB (HF and PE straight out of undergrad is rare so don’t bet on it) is not unreasonable. I’d recommend Duke over UM based on your listed pros and cons.

1 Like
7

^^^ I agree with all of this!

8

got it. thank you