Need Help Choosing: NU, DUKE, CORNELL

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
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<p>Spend some time on the lake fill (go for a walk). Go have some deep dish pizza at lou malnatis. Walk through the fraternity quad. Walk through the sorority quad. Check out the library.</p>

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<p>and save some time to see Chicago. You might well find yourself spending a school term or two interning given your interests.</p>

<p>(the library, arbiter ??? :))</p>

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<p>Instead of trying to compare minute differences in the curricula of these three schools and hypothesizing which of them job recruiters prefer, why don’t we just look at the composition of the top business schools and see which of the schools are better represented over others? After all, getting into a top 10 business school requires having good work experience so this figure essentially is a proxy of how good these undergrads are at getting their students the best jobs.</p>

<p>Harvard Business School
[Top</a> Feeder Colleges to Harvard B-School | Poets and Quants](<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/15/top-feeder-colleges-to-harvard-business-school/2/]Top”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/15/top-feeder-colleges-to-harvard-business-school/2/)

  1. Duke: 23
  2. Cornell: 14
  3. NU: 10</p>

<p>Wharton Business School
[Top</a> Feeder Schools To Wharton’s MBA Program | Poets and Quants](<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/07/top-feeder-schools-to-whartons-mba-program/]Top”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/07/top-feeder-schools-to-whartons-mba-program/)

  1. Cornell: 19
  2. NU: 18
  3. Duke: 17</p>

<p>Chicago Booth
[Top</a> Feeder Colleges to Chicago Booth | Poets and Quants](<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/10/06/top-feeder-colleges-to-chicago-booth/2/]Top”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/10/06/top-feeder-colleges-to-chicago-booth/2/)

  1. NU: 24
  2. Duke: 17
  3. Cornell: <5 (not one of the top 28 colleges represented)</p>

<p>Columbia Business School
[Top</a> Feeder Schools To Columbia B-School | Poets and Quants](<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/07/top-feeder-schools-to-columbia-business-school/2/]Top”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/07/top-feeder-schools-to-columbia-business-school/2/)

  1. Duke: 20
  2. Cornell: 15
  3. NU: 8</p>

<p>Tuck Business School
[Top</a> Feeder Colleges To The Tuck School | Poets and Quants](<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/14/top-feeder-colleges-to-dartmouths-tuck-school/2/]Top”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/14/top-feeder-colleges-to-dartmouths-tuck-school/2/)

  1. Duke: 9
  2. Cornell: 5
  3. NU: <3 (not one of the 17 colleges represented)</p>

<p>At 5 of the top 7 (M7) business schools in the country (missing Kellogg and Stanford), there are a total of 86 Duke alums, 60-62 NU alums and 53-57 Cornell alums enrolled. Duke is represented well everywhere with top 5 finishes at Booth, Columbia and Tuck while it is top 10 at Harvard. NU is the top represented school at Booth while Cornell seems to do fairly well at the elite East Coast business schools.</p>

<p>All 3 schools have about the same level of pre professionalism so that’s not an issue. As you can see, despite its larger size, Cornell is not as much of a feeder to the top jobs as NU and especially Duke.</p>

<p>I can do the same exercise for the top law schools if you wish. Good luck with your college visits and I hope this information can help you make a well reasoned choice!!</p>

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<p>Wow… goldenboy that is some fresh perspective you got there.</p>

<p>I am increasingly convinced towards narrowing my choices down to NU and Duke.</p>

<p>I suppose the Kellogg Cert+MMSS will only help in B-School admissions right?</p>

<p>As of now, I am still torn between Duke and NU/MMSS/Kellogg Cert.</p>

<p>Is there anything else (other than personal fit) that will tip the choice over to one side and seal the deal for me?</p>

<p>Oh and goldenboy8784, I would appreciate Law School Stats as well (Although I am pretty sure that Duke and Cornell rock in this aspect.)</p>

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<p>I promise promise PROMISE you that where you go to undergrad does NOT influence where you will get in to law school. The ONLY thing they care about is your GPA and LSAT score.</p>

<p>I also reiterate law school is not a good plan.</p>

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<p>lienad, PM me with your dates that you’ll be visiting.</p>

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<p>just pm’med you Viviste</p>

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<p>I agree with arbiter213 generally speaking but here are some statistics I have available to me.</p>

<p>Yale Law School
<a href=“Welcome | Office of the University Printer”>Welcome | Office of the University Printer;

  1. Duke: 18
  2. Cornell: 11
  3. Northwestern: 7</p>

<p>Harvard Law School in 2005-2006 (most recent information made available)
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/656128-schools-harvard-law.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/656128-schools-harvard-law.html&lt;/a&gt;

  1. Duke: 55
  2. Cornell: 40
  3. NU: <30</p>

<p>UVA Law
[Class</a> of 2014 Profile](<a href=“http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class14.htm]Class”>http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class14.htm)

  1. Duke: 27
  2. Cornell: 7-15
  3. NU: <12 (probably far less)</p>

<p>Michigan Law
[url=&lt;a href=“Admissions | University of Michigan Law School”&gt;Admissions | University of Michigan Law School]faq-charts[/url</a>]

  1. Cornell: 30+
  2. Duke, NU: 20-29</p>

<p>Chicago Law

  1. Northwestern: 8
  2. Cornell: 7
  3. Duke: 4</p>

<p>Beyond Harvard and Yale, law school undergraduate representation is extremely regional and state schools have a huge advantage in absolute numbers. At Chicago Law: Wisconsin, U of C, University of Florida, Berkeley, UCLA, and Penn are the most represented schools. At UVA Law: Princeton, William & Mary, UVA, Duke, UGA, and Florida are the top represented schools.</p>

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<p>^ That most likely means there are more people gunning for law school at Duke. In the end though, your chances will come down to your LSAT and GPA. Where you go to college is largely irrelevant UNLESS it’s Harvard (or maybe Yale or Princeton).</p>

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<p>Goldenboy, I would argue strenuously that’s an effect of self selection. If you look at the actual numbers for application and results ([Welcome</a> to LawSchoolNumbers.com | Law School Numbers](<a href=“http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com%5DWelcome”>http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com)) there is no discernible effect on school for any school but Yale.</p>

<p>Yale is special.</p>

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<p>

I don’t think that’s true. There are just more super smart pre law kids at Duke rather than NU since it attracts a slightly stronger student body as a whole. I would generally agree that where you go to college doesn’t matter too much for law school admissions.</p>

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<p>Hmmm… NU not bad in law too? Right now, I am split between NU and Duke.
I haven’t been to either but I will next week to get a feel for each school.
In terms of financial aid, though Duke gave me full whereas NU requires 4k a year, which, though not a problem is another thing to consider…</p>

<p>I personally am favoring NU academically right now (econ,mmss,kellogg). Also I like the location in Chicago. By the way does being next to Chicago represent a direct advantage as opposed to being in Durham?</p>

<p>I mean, Durham is warmer and Duke’s campus is arguably prettier with those brick castles. But still those shouldn’t be my absolute tipping factors should they?</p>

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<p>No, absolutely not, but the fact that Duke is $16,000 cheaper should be. Even Northwestern alums would agree that these are peer schools so I don’t see why you’d want to spend more money to attend it over Duke when you have no clear personal preference for one or another. Evanston has a higher COL than Durham by the way.</p>

<p>MMSS and the Kellogg certificate sound wonderful but there’s no guarantee that you"ll be admitted to these programs while Duke has no restrictions of any kind on its students with regards to pursuing areas of study or applying to jobs. You can feel free to study really whatever you want.</p>

<p>I would pocket the 16 K which will be enough to cover all incidental experiences while at Duke (entertainment, food, groceries, etc.) and probably allow you to afford rent in DC, NYC, or Chicago after college for half a year as well.</p>

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<p>^He’ll know about MMSS prior to matriculation (though he can try again if he’s not in).</p>

<p>I think it’s a tossup. 16k is nothing to sneeze at though.</p>

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<p>Of course goldenboye is using something that has been debunked on CC numerous times.</p>

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<p>The whole WSJ “study” is faulty from the start b/c it primarily uses schools from the East Coast.</p>

<p>Stick NU, UM along w/ UC for B-school and take out 2 EC B-schools and one would get quite diff. results.</p>

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<p>Actually no, since NU has the larger student body and thus likely has more “super smart” students.</p>

<p>And based on stats for the 2014 class, I’d say the 2 schools are pretty much even altho one school has less “less smart” students (and that’s despite having schools for music, journalism, education, etc. - which are looking for students w/ specific talents/interests).</p>

<p>SAT
700-800 CR/M - 60%/68% - 57%/71%
600-699 CR/M - 34%/27% - 34%/24%
500-599 CR/M - 6%/5% - 8%/5%
400-499 CR/M - 0/0 - 1%/0</p>

<p>ACT
30-36 - 87% - 79%
24-29 - 11% -19%
18-23 - 2% - 2%</p>

<p>Once again, goldenboye makes a claim that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.</p>

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<p>Well, if you believe this argument (which is not true…Duke’s and Northwestern’s stats are the same), you will have LESS competition at NU, which positions you even better to get into a top law school. I would like to reiterate though that your LSAT and GPA are what will ultimately matter in the end, not the school you attended. There are people who are regretting attending a top college instead of their state school altogether because they got a lower GPA there.</p>

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<p>I did not consider Duke when I was applying to college, but I’ve heard great things about it and my friends who went there love it. I’m not going to tell you to not go there if it turns out to be a better fit for you, so find that out during your visits. </p>

<p>Chicago, though, is a huge plus in terms of giving you a better quality of life in college. I went to Chicago every week when I was in school. NU has fancy social events throughout the city all the time. The socials/formals are held in fancy hotels, museums, clubs. The bar scene is fantastic and caters to all subgroups. I even took a class at the Field Museum and the transportation was provided by Northwestern. My friends had internships during the year at prestigious firms/orgs Downtown. Northwestern Football played in Wrigley Field and we pretty much had a block of Wrigleyville reserved for Northwestern. Obviously, the shopping/dining/entertainment options are amazing. When people go to Chicago, people usually go with their dorm/student club/friends. However, you can definitely go exploring it on your own as well and choose to study at a coffeeshop in the city, for example, if you want a change of atmosphere. This kind of freedom is amazing. </p>

<p>Northwestern provides a complimentary shuttle about 2-4x per hour between Evanston and Downtown (where the law/med schools are) in the prime shopping district of Chicago. However, the downside is you might find yourself spending more money in Chicago so take that into account. Many people are perfectly comfortable staying on campus where there are literally multiple options of things you can do (e.g. theater/arts/music performances) every single night. I’m actually amazed by how students manage to put on these high-quality productions/performances every single day/night. The Northwestern campus community is definitely tight-knit, but students do like to go exploring Chicago quite often.</p>

<p>I don’t know if 16k is a substantial difference for you, so I can’t advise you on that. However, it’s worth appealing to the FA office. I think they will increase your FA if you present a competitor’s offer.</p>

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<p>One more time, with feeling. Recruiters recruit from certain schools not because they believe “gosh, there are measurable differences between students at these schools and my company will only go to the very best.” They recruit from certain schools because it’s convenient for them to have a “thick pool” of high quality applicants. If a company recruits at Duke, Cornell and / or Northwestern - part of that decision is based who from their company wants to travel there to interview, part of that decision is based on how much they have to entice people to relocate (for example, if I were a company based in Atlanta, I’d recruit at Duke first because chances are more of those people would be interested in staying in the south). But what is most important as our hypothetical Duke, Cornell and NU students walk through the door is how they present themselves at that point. No one is going to be distinguishing between these schools at the minute levels you think they are. Honest. All of these schools are fine choices; you can’t go wrong with any of them. It comes to personal preference at this stage in the game.</p>

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<p>Gosh, I wonder how that number would change if you added Kellogg - you know, the business school of NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY. Talk about cherrypicking!</p>

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<p>Agreed.</p>

<p>Those type of statements/questions are asked by people who haven’t done any recruiting.</p>