<p>Hey, Thanks everybody in advance for the help. I'm currently a junior at a very competive public school. Recently, I have decided that I would like to major in business or economics to persue a career in either investment banking or international research. I'm new to the college search and would like some feedback from current or graduated students with an opinion on which degree to persue for a finance career. </p>
<p>Would you recomend schools like NYU Stern, UPenn, or Emory for busniess or UChicago for econ?</p>
<p>If you can get a direct admission to the Business School in one of the colleges you mentioned then take it. You'll have access to internship and career placement opportunities that may not be available to freshman/sophs in Pre-Business programs who then have to apply to an upper level only Undergrad Business program.</p>
<p>If you're 100% sure of doing finance, go to a business school. If not, study economics. An econ degree (esp. at UChicago) gives almost as many advantages in the world of finance and is better preparation for other careers, including law and medicine. An economics degree should be better for international research.</p>
<p>Many in finance work 100 hours a week. So if you earn 100k a year to start in finance, it's like getting two 40 hours/week jobs (plus transportation time) that pays 50k each.</p>
<p>In the end, however, choose the school based on fit and how much you like the culture and environment of the college.</p>
<p>Actually Chicago econ has no edge over the econ at any Ivy when it comes to recruiting. When it comes to econ and business recruiting the overall prestige is much more important than the department rank. Places like Williams excel at placement into I-banks as an example, because the SCHOOL is prestigious. In my experience the best schools to get into banking are:</p>
<p>Econ at: Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Duke, Penn, Columbia, Williams, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, and a couple of others.</p>
<p>Business at: Penn (Wharton), MIT (Sloan), Michigan (Ross), NYU Stern, Haas</p>