<p>MIT vs. Yale for business/mathematics/finance?</p>
<p>to be completely honest, MIT has a stronger Math department. If you want to go into finance or ibanking or business, Yale gets all the top recruiters.</p>
<p>Othello has summarized the pro’s and cons accurately. MIT is better at Math, but Yale Math is tied with Caltech in US News graduate department rankings so it is definitely a very strong department. (People who tell you Yale is weak at Math are wrong!) Yale will also be better for ibanking recruiting and business; it has a very strong alumni network and Wall Street connection. However, similar to how Yale isn’t weak in math either, MIT is fairly good alum network in ibanking as far as I know. In terms of business school admissions, Yale does better than MIT at HBS etc.</p>
<p>I think that MIT is better for math and Yale is better for finance by a relatively significant margin. I think business is more up in the air, but I think there’s something to Othello’s assertion that Yale gets more of the top ibanking recruiters.</p>
<p>MIT is slightly better at Math; Yale does not have much business, and Sloan (MIT) is one of the best b schools. I personally am a fan of Yale, but MIT is better at these programs.</p>
<p>I agree with you that MIT has Sloan but that’s irrelevant. Undergraduate institutions and business schools simply do not interact much if at all. Yale does have the Yale School of Management – an alternative type of b-school that focuses more on nonprofits etc – but it is not worth selling any b-school. Why? The only way that you’ll be going to b-school as an undergrad is if you’re at Wharton undergrad.</p>
<p>Rather, some of the questions you should ask yourself are:
a) Where can you get a strong undergrad background and, of course, enjoy your undergrad experience?
b) How easy is it to get recruited into finance w/ just an undergrad degree from said institution?
c) How easy is it to get into top business schools from said institution?</p>
<p>-Part a you’ll need to answer on your own. MIT has great pure math programs; Yale also has great econ/math programs. They are both top 10 in Math and Econ.
-Parts b/c are objectively based on stats, however. A higher percentage of Yalies are accepted into top business schools than MIT students. As for the recruitment, someone will have to find stat evidence to confirm, but I know many many many ppl here who have gotten offers at Blackstone Group, UBS, Goldman, Credit Suisse, Boston Consulting Group, etc and they say Yale made it very easy.</p>
<p>Go to Yale, if you want to become the president of the nation. Otherwise, MIT hands down.</p>
<p>I’m a huge fan of Yale and all, but I would be stunned if it had a significant Wall St. recruiting advantage over MIT. No one with half a brain would turn up his nose at recruiting MIT students for finance jobs.</p>
<p>If you are NOT naturally a quanty person, Yale would certainly be better. If you feel you would fit in well at MIT, going to MIT could be a real advantage, because you would come out with significant expertise and contacts in non-finance technology areas, and over time that would translate into a real leg up in the investment/finance world.</p>
<p>Both are really great options. Strong academics at both, for all of the fields you mention. Yale’s business school is superb, and undergrads can get involved in their top-tier quantitative finance work. MIT has great institutes and research opportunities as well, though there may be slightly more students competing for each spot than there would be at Yale.</p>
<p>My advice is to go to the school you will be happier at. I have spent a lot of time at both campuses, and have alumni friends from each, and I would say that Yale hands-down has the better undergraduate social life and also a bit more attention paid to the undergrads, though again, for a motivated person, you can make the connections with faculty no matter whether you are at Yale or MIT. Neither are huge, impersonal schools like Berkeley. </p>
<p>Students are objectively happier at Yale - MIT’s unofficial motto is “IHTFP” whereas Yale’s is “best undergrad experience in the USA”. Yale is also more diverse, especially if you consider how students actually interact with one another, not just paper diversity. The college system, the campus-focused social life, and the fact that everyone takes very small seminars and classes for four years, creates that atmosphere. I love MIT, and stop and get out of my car on Memorial Drive to admire Baker House and the chapel every time I pass by, but that’s just how things are in my opinion.</p>
<p>Whether that all translates to you doing better while you are in college for 4 years, is up to you. Visit each school for 2-3 days, talk to students and sit in on tons of classes, and decide for yourself. It is an important decision that will affect you for many years to come.</p>
<p>Also consider that at MIT, you’d have to be more hardcore with the science/lab requirements/classes than at Yale, so that might make a difference.</p>
<p>Would an econ major be closer to math or business? Would it be easy to double major in econ/math or econ/business?</p>
<p>I had the choice between MIT and Yale. I chose MIT, and regretted it during the time there, but after graduation it has provided much more credibility in the working world. </p>
<p>Legacy and connections can get you in to Yale, but they count for nothing at MIT. If you do not deserve to be there, there is every possiblity of failing out. They have no shame in handing out F grades. Research for yourself the proportion of students who fail out of MIT and you will see why it is not a good idea to go there if you are not smart enough to “cut it.”</p>
<p>mitgraduated, did you find many students at MIT who were admitted without the apparent qualifications to succeed?</p>
<p>@mitgraduated
I think connections do have a pull at MIT (although legacies do not).</p>