<p>I hear econ, I hear math. I hear Chicago.</p>
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<p>I hear </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I hear…</p>
<p>“UChicago, its reputation as a super intense, somewhat suffocating intellectual environment is intimidating.”
(Duke wins, more chill)</p>
<p>“atmosphere and stuff?”
(Duke wins, more campus based life)</p>
<p>“comment on what the facilities are like.”
(Duke wins, beautiful campus)</p>
<p>“arbitrary distinctions some companies make”
Duke wins much larger reputation, presence in business.</p>
<p>For me the combination of a nicer campus, more social campus, more traditional college experience, and desire to go into business as opposed to the nobel prize winner route all point to Duke. Chicago is an AWESOME school but it isn’t the best fit for everyone and clearly not in this case to me. I would definitely suggest Chicago over Duke in some cases, just not this one.</p>
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<p>Finance is not my thing so I cannot judge the accomplishments of a retired Morgan Stanley CEO v. the youngest Goldman partner in history, or a Carlyle Group founder v. a Wall Street Journal publisher. Is Chicago alumnus Joe Mansueto a financial lightweight? In the scheme of things I really don’t know, but from the company he founded out of his home on $80K (Morningstar), he has amassed a fortune of $1.2 billion and donated $25M of it to build a new state of the art library at the University of Chicago. To me, this does reflect rather well on his alma mater and certainly on him and his family. </p>
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<p>I’d be a little surprised if Chicago began turning out as many Wall Street traders as other T20 schools. Nothing against that career choice, but it’s just not the signature career ambition of your average U of C undergraduate, and I doubt that Wall Street placements is the first yardstick many Chicago people would choose to measure the school’s success. If that’s your consuming ambition at the age of 17 or 18, then yes, I’d probably recommend you consider another school.</p>
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<p>My sentiments exactly.</p>
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Agree with the former, not so much the latter.</p>
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I’ll give you that.</p>
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<p>Duke doesn’t win, it has more campus life but there doesn’t seem to be much of a life outside the campus. From what I saw (and granted, I only went to Durham once a year ago), Durham seems a bit far from a major city. Chicago, on the other hand, is an excellent place to live in and explore. UChicago does lack school spirit, but it’s like Columbia in that regard. So that’s the OP’s choice - school spirit, campus life (Duke) or a big city life (UChicago)?</p>
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Business =/= economics and math. Chicago, Harvard, Princeton and Cambridge are highly regarded as the 4 best schools in the world for mathematics. Since the OP is an econ and math major, Chicago has a strong economics and math program whilst Duke, as you (and many others on this thread) is a business powerhouse.</p>
<p>If the OP decides that he likes math later on, math at Chicago will help him with grad school (more opportunity for research and whatnot). If he likes econ, he will still have a strong chance of going to the econ field.</p>
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<p>Only Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Columbia and maybe Duke come to mind when seeing where the big business Ceos went to college. I am hard pressed to know what Ceos went to the other schools.</p>
<p>muahaha…Andrew Alper interviewed me for Goldman coming out of UChicago. I apparently did not meet expectations!</p>
<p>They ended up taking a buddy of mine (who is now massively wealthy…lol).</p>
<p>Duke>Chicago</p>
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<p>According to a Wharton School survey done a few years ago, about 10% of Fortune 100 CEOs had an undergraduate degree from any Ivy League school as of 2001 (dunno about Duke). By contrast, 48% of F100 CEOs had undergraduate degrees from state schools.</p>
<p>As of 2004, about 11% of Fortune 500 CEOs had been educated at Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>Of all Fortune 1000 CEOs hired in 2004 and 2005, none had undergraduate degrees from either Chicago or Duke (although 3 had MBAs from Chicago). None had undergraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale, Penn, or Columbia either. Alma Maters of CEOs in that cohort included: Providence College, Hiram College, the University of Nebraska, Oklahoma State, the University of Akron, Iona College, and Slippery Rock.</p>
<p>[USATODAY.com</a> - Wanted: CEO, no Ivy required](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-06-cover-ceos_x.htm]USATODAY.com”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-06-cover-ceos_x.htm)</p>
<p>^Yes, but most DID have MBAs from Ivies/Top 10 schools. </p>
<p>Many CEOs don’t have undergrad Ivy degrees - that’s because they don’t count for crap in the business word. The Ivy League MBA, on the other hand, is much more important.</p>
<p>UChicago has no business major for a reason. A Chicago education is based in theory instruction. If you’re the type of person who frequently wonders where they will use a given piece of information in real life, Chicago may not be the place for you.<br>
Chicago also, however, offers an outstanding overall education. You will be very well educated in things outside your chosen major. Its reputation carries the same weight as the Ivies, and the “where fun comes to die” thing is meant to be taken sarcastically. Yeah, it’s very rigourous, but it’s not suffocating.<br>
Also, if you dislike the American college sports establishment (aren’t a big fan of having the campus getting wrapped up in sports), you may want to steer clear of Duke. I would take Uchicago over Duke any day because a) I’m a University of Maryland fan (It has a major basketball rivalry with Duke) and b) because UChicago is an amazing place.</p>
<p>Wow so much incorrect information here its ridiculous. 10% of fortune 500 CEOs have Ivy leage undergrad degrees, do you realize how overrepresented that is? Think about it the entire Ivy league is composed of about 45,000 students, or roughly ONE state school like Ohio State. So if .1% of the US college population (Ivies) is 10% of CEOs, thats being overrepresented 100X.</p>
<p>Also remember almost no Ivy league undergrad graduate wants to work in actual industry. Most work in Venture Capital, High Finance (hedge funds, etc), or are in high level consulting. So being the CEO of a company in Minnesota usually isn’t the goal. A better list is US billionaires which is flooded by Ivy Leaguers. The average salary at Dartmouth 10 years out for those without a terminal degree is 130K. That’s NO grad degree. Take grad degrees into account and I would guess the average salary for an Ivy grad at age 45 is at least 250-300K if not more. The avg at a place like OSU is probably closer to 80K.</p>
<p>Slipper, the Ivy League has 55,000 undergrads. Only 5 or so public universities have over 35,000 undergrads (PSU, OSU, ASU and probably two more), and none have more than 40,000. Most public universities have between 10,000 and 30,000 undergrads.</p>
<p>At any rate, Harvard, Penn and Columbia have many Billionaires…mostly inherited, not self-made. The remaining Ivies aren’t necessarily more prolific at creating billionaires. For example, Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth (with a combined 23,000 undergrads) combined have approximately 20 billionaires, mostly inherited, worth roughly $40 billion. Michigan (with 25,000 undergrads) has roughly 15 billionaires, mostly self-made, worth roughly $50 billion. Cal, Texas-Austin, UCLA etc… have also produced more than 10 billionaires each. Chicago, Duke, MIT, NYU, Northwestern, Stanford and USC have also produced many billionaires.</p>
<p>As for average salaries of alums, it is impossible to tell for sure. I think it is unfair to compare schools in this regard because different universities have alums with very varried interests and living in different geographic locations.</p>
<p>Alexandre what I’m saying is that </p>
<p>1) the Ivies are 100X represented on the fortune 500 list.<br>
2) Not many Ivy leaguers want fortune 500 jobs.</p>
<p>Look at the list of any VC firm or private equity firm. Look at McKinsey’s partners. Ivies dominate, I mean its almost hard to find someone who didn’t go to an Ivy (or Stanford, Duke, MIT etc) at one of these firms.</p>
<p>Take this list for example:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-03/techs-29-most-powerful-colleges/[/url]”>http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-03/techs-29-most-powerful-colleges/</a></p>
<p>Why is it that EVERY time there is a list of graduates success this emerges. Every single list of success can’t have a “midwestern bias”. From this list, to the WSJ survey of graduate placement, to the payscale salary study the Ivies absolutely dominate. Its not even close. Look if you graduate from an Ivy the world just becomes a little easier to navigate. True story. In my world (business/ finance) I run into 5 Ivy (or Stanford, Duke, MIT, Williams, etc) grad for every non Ivy grad.</p>
<p>Again, that list is for undergrad degrees. MANY CEOs have their MBAs from HBS/Wharton/whatnot.</p>
<p>slipper, you are narrowing it down to two minor industries that are shrinking in significance. IBanking and Management Consulting are losing their luster. But even if they were of any value, I would agree if you included public powerhouses like Cal, Michigan, Texas-Austin and UVa, each of which place dozens if not hundreds of undergrads into the top 10 BB IBanks/VC/PE firms and top 10 Consulting firms annually. The link you provide in post#18 shows that 60 members of the top 6 PE firms completed their undergraduate studies at those 4 public universities. That’s comparable to schools such as Brown, Chicago, Cornelll, Columbia, Duke, MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>Threads like this on CC are crack me up to no ends…Countless debates about Wall Street placement, CEOs by institution, Nobel prizes, etc. Both Chicago and Duke are great schools and neither will give you a considerable advantage over one or the other. Anybody who tells you otherwise is, frankly, misinformed. While I’d agree that “conventional” wisdom says that UChicago is better for economics grad school placement, and Duke is better as a pipeline to Wall Street, in the end it’s going to matter 1000% more about what you do and how you perform rather than what institution you chose to attend. Yes, UChicago has great economics and math faculty who have won numerous prizes (more than Duke’s). You really think Duke’s faculty is chopped liver? Of course not; they’re still incredibly impressive and you WILL be prepared and learn from great economic minds. i have two friends getting Econ PhDs who went to Duke. Where are they at? Stanford and UPenn. You think Duke really held them back? Conversely, yes, Duke probably has a few more high-profile CEO’s and a larger i-banking presence, but you really think a recruiter is going to turn down a high quality double major from UChicago because there aren’t as many UChicago grads as Duke ones? That’s a complete joke. They’re both AMAZING institutions and you would be well served at either.</p>
<p>In my opinion, focusing on all this minutiae is misguided and instead you should focus on general fit. I think a lot of high school seniors are completely engrossed in department/major rankings and recruitment, when they should take a larger picture. Most likely, based on statistics, the OP is not going to be an economics/math major. That’s just the nature of the beast. College is a time to grow and many people’s interests change. It’s quite common.</p>
<p>Having said all that, I’d ask the OP where does your gut tell you to go? Where do you think will challenge you socially and intellectually? Do you like sports? Is being in a major city one of your main criterion? Is weather important to you? **Where do you think you will be happiest?<a href=“And%20while%20I%20think%20this%20is%20exaggerated%20based%20on%20stereotypes%20that%20no%20longer%20hold%20true%20as%20much%20as%20they%20used%20to…Do%20you%20see%20yourself%20at%20an%20intellectual,%20quirky%20institution%20or%20a%20more%20pre-professional,%20outgoing,%20party%20and%20sports-heavy%20school?”>/B</a></p>
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<p>You seem to be very well-versed in industry and certainly know a lot, but those numbers are ridiculous. You think over 500 Duke students a year go into IBanking?!? I’d say 25-35% of Duke students go into finance and consulting in total, they are just the more high profile students/recruiters on campus so it seems like a lot more. Duke’s #1 employer? Teach for America…(Although #2 I think was Goldman Sachs…)</p>
<p>FIT is key in this decision. I wouldn’t decide based on major(s) in this circumstance. I would choose the place that would make me proud to say “I’m a graduate of there.” And give me an experience I’d never forget. Now the OP just has to decide what that place is.</p>
<p>bluedog’s advice is spot-on, imo.</p>