UChicago vs NYU Stern

College Search & Selection
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<p>(For undergraduate school): please compare the merits between these schools for the following programs:</p>

<p>UChicago: Economics OR Math with a focus in Economics</p>

<p>NYU Stern: Finance and Statistics</p>

<p>1) Which school's program would offer better feeding to top notch financial firms (bulge brackets, elite boutiques, private equity, hedge funds, trading shops)?</p>

<p>2) Which school's alumni network is more coherent?</p>

<p>3) Which school would offer better placement into graduate school immediately after college (i.e. Columbia/Carnegie Mellon/MIT for Financial Engineering or Computational Finance)?</p>

<p>4) Which school would offer better placement into graduate school after 2-5 years of work experience (Financial Engineering at the same schools mentioned in #3 or MBA at Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton)?</p>

<p>5) Which school has happier students?</p>

<p>6) Which school provides better financial aid, and to what extent?</p>

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<p>1) Which school’s program would offer better feeding to top notch financial firms (bulge brackets, elite boutiques, private equity, hedge funds, trading shops)?</p>

<p>Chicago, although NYU is not horrible considering its lower ranking and reputation. Chicago is a top 10 university with a fantastic reputation. NYU has a decent graduate school reputation, but it doesn’t have the reputation at the undergraduate level.</p>

<p>2) Which school’s alumni network is more coherent?
Chicago. It is a much better undergraduate program. If you were thinking about an MBA, then considering NYU makes sense. However, NYU’s undergraduate program is not on the same level as Chicago.</p>

<p>3) Which school would offer better placement into graduate school immediately after college (i.e. Columbia/Carnegie Mellon/MIT for Financial Engineering or Computational Finance)?</p>

<p>Chicago, although likely because the caliber of students at Chicago is higher than the caliber of students at NYU. </p>

<p>4) Which school would offer better placement into graduate school after 2-5 years of work experience (Financial Engineering at the same schools mentioned in #3 or MBA at Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton)?</p>

<p>Same as above.</p>

<p>5) Which school has happier students?</p>

<p>Debatable. I’d rather live in NYC than Chicago for four years, but others may like the midwest culture.</p>

<p>6) Which school provides better financial aid, and to what extent?</p>

<p>Both are expensive private schools that will cost a lot to attend. NYU may be more expensive given the high cost of living in NYC.</p>

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<p>The U of C math degree will find you surrounded with math geeks - not future financiers. Given the grad school plans you indicate, that may be a fine choice. The NYU program is probably going to feed you a little more directly into the working world of finance, but the recruitment from U of C is strong and you’ll get “real world” experience soon enough. The U of C econ degree will have you surrounded by future financiers, although the work of the degree will be intellectual and not so much career preparatory. </p>

<p>So in summary: Pros of U of C: rigor, prestige, stronger graduate school placement. Pros of NYU: more fun (happier), location in NYC (proximity/internships in finance)</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>This is the only one of the OP’s 6 questions that is easily answered, objectively and without too many qualifiers or caveates.</p>

<p>Chicago is one of about 60 schools that claims to cover 100% of demonstrated need. NYU is not.
Chicago claims that, of students determined to have financial need, it fully meets the need of all those students.
(Source: US News, UChicago entry, “paying for school” section.)
Of course, it is the university that determines need, according to its own standards.</p>

<p>According to US News, NYU entry, “paying for school” section, NYU fully meets the need of only 4.3% of students determined to have financial need. On average, NYU meets 54.6% of determined need.
These must be among the worst financial aid numbers for any private university in the US News top ~50.</p>

<p>As for the OP’s other 5 questions, they are much harder to answer because:

  1. There don’t seem to be any standardized, national statistics to support apples-to-apples comparison of financial firm “feeding”. What counts as a “top notch financial firm”? For how many years after college graduation should a hiring action count as a “feed”?
  2. What makes an alumni network “coherent”? How should we measure “coherence”?
    3 & 4. There don’t seem to be any standardized, national statistics to support apples-to-apples comparison of financial grad school “placement”. What target schools should we count? How do we get statistics for the number of applications and acceptances? The Wall Street Journal did do a “feeder school” study a number of years ago, but by now it must be rather out of date.
  3. What is happiness? If you go to the University of Chicago, maybe you’ll skim the surface of this problem in a few of your Common Core classes. </p>
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<p>@tk21769 Brilliant post. You really nail the difference between U of C and NYU in the final line.</p>

<p>“What is happiness? If you go to the University of Chicago, maybe you’ll skim the surface of this problem in a few of your Common Core classes.”</p>

<p>^:)^ </p>

1 Like
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<p>1) Which school’s program would offer better feeding to top notch financial firms (bulge brackets, elite boutiques, private equity, hedge funds, trading shops)?</p>

<p>-- NYU Stern, definitely.</p>

<p>2) Which school’s alumni network is more coherent?</p>

<p>-- NYU Stern, perhaps.</p>

<p>3) Which school would offer better placement into graduate school immediately after college (i.e. Columbia/Carnegie Mellon/MIT for Financial Engineering or Computational Finance)?</p>

<p>-- NYU Stern, definitely.</p>

<p>4) Which school would offer better placement into graduate school after 2-5 years of work experience (Financial Engineering at the same schools mentioned in #3 or MBA at Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton)?</p>

<p>-- NYU Stern.</p>

<p>5) Which school has happier students?</p>

<p>-- I don’t know. Maybe NYU Starn.</p>

<p>6) Which school provides better financial aid, and to what extent?</p>

<p>-- U of Chicago, definitely.</p>

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<p>Chicago is a special university and provides undergraduate students a unique experience. In terms of FA, Chicago will likely be more generous, but it varies from case to case. Chicago and NYU are not exactly known for having exceptionally coherent alumni networks. However, when it comes to Wall Street placement, I would give the edge to Stern. Overall, I would recommend Chicago over NYU, but if your only goal is Wall Street placement, Stern would be a safer bet.</p>

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<p>Both schools will get you where you want to go. The better question to ask, however, is this: do you want your college to be a vehicle for placement, or are you open to having a broad (not directly practical, in the very short term) liberal arts-based education? </p>

<p>If you want the former, go to NYU Stern. It’s not even close on this front - if you want a college experience that will give you very practical skills, and will feed into your professional interests every step of the way, NYU Stern is the answer. You’ll be swimming with other like-minded individuals every step of the way. </p>

<p>On the other hand, note that at Chicago, you will be force-fed a liberal-arts education. Whether you like it or not, you’ll be taking rather intensive humanities/history/art history etc. classes. You can go through 4 years of NYU Stern without ever being exposed to such strains of thought. You could certainly CHOOSE to take some of this course work, but it’s not mandatory. At Chicago, it’s mandatory.</p>

<p>In terms of actual placement, alumni network, etc. after that 4 year college experience, it’s a wash. If you really want Wall Street, you can get it at either school. I strongly disagree with RML on this point. NYU Stern has about 2500 undergrads, all focused on business careers. Stern alone is nearly half the size of Chicago undergrad. So in terms of raw numbers, of course Stern will have higher placement across the board. That aside, both schools give you enough horse power to get where you want to go. The experiences at the two schools, though, are very different. Don’t forget that. </p>

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<p>I’ve done random check on where both Stern and Chicago grads go after college, and found out that Chicago has a terrible job in placing grads to IB and/or MC, specially in WS. It’s a great school with a solid name. But for some unknown reasons, it’s nowhere near Stern and such b-school in terms of WS placement. Stern, on the other hand, has a fantastic placement in WS. I’m talking about undergrad here. </p>

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<p>RML,</p>

<p>Do you have some specific numbers/links to provide? Also, how did you conduct your search? Finally, as I imagine both schools are valued comparably on the street, but Stern probably has double the raw numbers of finance-inclined undergrads than Chicago, how does this all shake out? </p>

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<p>Also, RML, some additional data:</p>

<p><a href=“Post-College Outcomes | CareerAdv”>https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/about/outcomes-data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For the past few years, UChicago’s placement to finance/consulting has been quite constant. Each year, about 1200 students graduate from UChicago, with about 50-60% (~600 students) employed at graduation. About 30% of those employed (~200 students) have jobs in finance/consulting. It’s reasonable to say a fair share stay in Chicago for these jobs (in contrast to NYU).</p>

<p>Now, I don’t know if a ton of Chicago kids who want finance/consulting get shut out of this industry (e.g. real demand for these jobs is ~30% of the class, but only ~15-20% of the class end up in this industry). I doubt that’s the case. It looks more like a relatively small (compared to its peers) subset of Chicago students seek finance/consulting jobs. Whereas at Harvard or Princeton, maybe 30-35% of the class goes into this industry, at Chicago, only about 15-20% of the class is interested in this space. </p>

<p>So, if you factor in those finance/consulting folks who stay in Chicago out of the ~200 student pool in this industry, it makes sense that very few (esp. in comparison to NYU) are heading to New York. I’d say maybe 100 or so UChicago grads head to NYC to work in finance/consulting after graduation. </p>

<p>With this data in mind, for comparable levels of placement, I’d think NYU should place about 5-6 times more students at top firms/jobs in NYC. So, for every 1 UChicago grad going to X bank, there should be 5-6 NYU Stern grads at the same bank. </p>

<p>This data doesn’t imply that Chicago places “terribly.” Rather, it shows that demand for jobs/industries at Chicago is very different than what’s present at NYU Stern. </p>

<p>Interestingly, on another metric - undergrad origins of PhDs - UChicago is the only major research university in the top 8, and NYU isn’t in the top 50 (<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/&lt;/a&gt;). So, again, this demonstrates that the overall student populations may be different, and goes back to my first point - both schools can get you where you want to go, but the experiences at each school are very different. </p>

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<p>^Kudos. Very well reasoned analysis.</p>

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<p>Actually, in terms of general employment outcomes, the top schools are all quite similar:</p>

<p>UChicago: <a href=“Post-College Outcomes | CareerAdv”>https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/about/outcomes-data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Brown: <a href=“http://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/class-2013-immediate-postgraduate-plans”>http://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/class-2013-immediate-postgraduate-plans&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Dartmouth: <a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~csrc/docs/12stats.pdf”>Center for Professional Development;

<p>Penn (CAS): <a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/files/2013CASFinalReport.pdf”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/files/2013CASFinalReport.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>At all these schools, roughly 30% of the class goes into finance/consulting. I imagine, though, that Penn, Dartmouth, and Brown are VASTLY more NYC-centric, so the bulk of their 200-300 future bankers/consultants a year head to NYC. At Chicago, I imagine many more stay in the city of Chicago.</p>

<p>Of note, the biggest difference between Chicago and the rest of these schools is that, at Chicago, significantly more students show an interest in the PhD (about 30-40% of those going to grad school at Chicago choose the PhD, and at the other schools, it’s more like 10-20%). </p>

<p>So again, these differences in inclination (and geographic preference) can lead to very big variations in actual placement. </p>

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<p>‘about 30-40% of those going to grad school at Chicago choose the PhD, and at the other schools, it’s more like 10-20%’</p>

<p>To be specific, 15% of Chicago grads eventually go on to earn PhDs, which is a very high rate indeed.</p>

<p>What is the point of comparing these schools? Going to Chicago just because you think it would be a stepping stone for a prestigious finance job could cause you to have a very miserable college experience.</p>

<p>edit: Does it need support? Isn’t Chicago’s brand as a “life of the mind” institution not established enough? </p>

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<p>^You really have done nothing to support the assertion in your last sentence. Can you elaborate?</p>

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<p>

Caltech and MIT are not major research universities? More specialized, certainly, but major research universities nonetheless. Looking purely at ranks also distorts the numbers involved. There is a much larger gap between #1 Caltech (35% receive PhDs) and #7 Chicago (10-15% receive PhDs) than between Chicago and schools much further down on the ranking, for instance. </p>

<p>In any case, that’s not the case for econ majors. The number of econ PhDs per capita (per 1000 students) places Chicago at #15, behind Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Yale, and several LACs. The number of econ PhDs per undergraduate econ degrees places Chicago outside the top 25. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/workpaper/vu06-w11.pdf”>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/workpaper/vu06-w11.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Chicago has averaged about 8 PhDs in econ per year in the last 5 years. According to IPEDS, it produced 223 primary majors in econ last year, and no doubt quite a few more were secondary concentrators. </p>

<p>Chicago econ majors seem no more intellectually inclined than their compatriots at similar top universities. Where the two differ is a somewhat greater willingness, pressure, and/or ease for, say, an art history major to go into consulting than academia at Harvard than at Chicago. Given that Chicago’s student body is increasingly indistinguishable from those of peer schools, I expect even these small differences will shrink.</p>

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<p>Warblersrule:</p>

<p>My mistake, certainly MIT and Caltech count too (although they are much more specialized). </p>

<p>That aside, especially now, there is probably more correlation between specific majors and outcomes at Chicago. The numbers seem to bear that out - there are probably around 300 econ/math/stat majors per class at Chicago, and each year, around 200 go into finance/consulting. </p>

<p>The bigger disparity currently is that the the art history or romance languages major at Chicago may be more likely to eschew finance/consulting, whereas at Harvard (or maybe Brown or Dartmouth - two schools who are closer to being Chicago’s peers), they could veer toward f/c. </p>

<p>Again, this is changing at Chicago. Nevertheless, just given Chicago’s placement in the midwest, the school just won’t be as NYC-centric as many of its east coast counterparts. </p>

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<p>Doesn’t Chicago have a very prominent financial sector as well (particularly on the buy-side)?</p>

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<p>Just a clarification, this is for undergraduate programs.</p>