<p>Hey,
I am a senior high schooler from the EU and I received a conditional offer for straight Economics at University College London. I am very likely to meet the conditions of the offer, but I am still waiting to hear from LSE and Oxford.</p>
<p>I have been thinking of applying to Wharton without financial aid, but would paying $144 000 (36k x 4 years) of tuition for a degree from Wharton really make sense if I can just do Economics at UCL for $15 000-$20 000 (£3300 x 3 years)? I hope to enter FO IB after graduation, but I do not really care whether I work on Wall Street or in London.</p>
<p>Well most people in the front office don't come from UCL so not sure if that's the best choice given your goals. Plenty of them in middle office and back office. Tough call. </p>
<p>But if you get into LSE or Oxford then there's not much point in paying several times more to go to Wharton since opportunities will be nearly the same.</p>
<p>Having interned at GS in a front office role, and a Warwick University student, I can say that there are a good few people from UCL in FO banking jobs. You just have to make sure you get onto spring programmes in first year, build your CV and be technically prepped. </p>
<p>The target unis that the City recruits from:</p>
<p>Oxford, Cambridge, LSE (equivalent to HYPSM + Wharton)
Warwick, UCL, Imperial (equivalent to Lower Ivies + Northwestern and UChicago)</p>
<p>Wharton will obviously look better on your CV due to its immense international rep. However, just to serve the purpose of getting a FO job at a bank, UCL will do the job at half the cost.</p>
<p>I think I would have to take loans to cover Wharton's tuitions, which is perhaps the most troubling aspect of that choice. Graduating with a $100k+ loan while counting on landing a high-paying job would be quite an enormous risk, a risk I'm not sure I'm willing to take. </p>
<p>nauru,
I haven't really decided yet. M&A and corp. finance seem interesting, though one of my main priorities is that the role would have PE as a plausible exit opportunity after a few years.</p>
<p>I also think your're underestimatin the cost of Wharton, which all in will cost well over $200K for 4 years. US kids could not borrow that much. Save Wharton for grad school.</p>
<p>hmom5,
I'm intentionally excluding all other costs except for tuition, since what matters in this case is the cost difference between Wharton and UCL. The other costs are more or less the same.</p>
<p>I'm beginning to lean towards UCL with this one. The straight Econ. course is probably the best course for IB at UCL, and on the UK equivalent of CC, many people argue that UCL Econ >/= softer degrees at LSE in terms of IB employability, at least in the UK. I somehow don't quite see why Wharton would be worth a $100k+ loan.</p>
<p>Roundabout, I didn't ask what you're interested in, I asked what role in GS you interned in. If it was prime brokerage, equity sales, or something of the like, I wouldn't be surpised to see UCL people there. If it was derivatives trading or M&A, or another non-sales area of fixed income, I would be very surprised.</p>
<p>Good that I didn't waste my time doing applications to the US, since a few days ago I received an offer from Oxford to do Economics & Management. </p>