<p>I want to go eventually into International Business or Finance and plan to get my MBA after college.</p>
<p>Any suggestions on whether I should pick Stanford or Princeton? </p>
<p>Also, what is a good alternative if I want to study something more specific and less vague than economics for undergrad? computer science?</p>
<p>princeton has a great finance program</p>
<p>for CS, stanford all the way</p>
<p>Honestly, which school do you like more? They're both incredible schools. Princeton does have an undergraduate finance certificate that requires math and some economics. But they are both great schools. Pick one, I don't think you can go wrong.</p>
<p>hey, perpetualmotion, didn't you apply to yale? what was the decision? congrats on princeton and stanford btw.....that aside, if you want to work in finance, im assuming you want to do something along the lines of investment banking, asset management etc...i'd pick Princeton since its in the northeast and i think its more heavily recruited by financial firms than stanford (i maybe wrong)....</p>
<p>quag_mire: got flat out rejected by yale. LOL. long story...
i didn't really expect princeton at all.
anyways, after visitng, i'm really stuck b/t pton and stanford. well mostly because stanford is close to home and i'm not too happy about the distance issue for princeton, although i love their undergrad program. </p>
<p>i'm afraid that princeton's grade deflation will hurt my chances for grad school though. also, can anyone suggest some great majors (aside from econ) i should check out if i'm interested in international business/trade and there's no undergrad business program at stanford or prinecton?</p>
<p>No, like I said though Princeton has a Finance Certificate Program, which you have to take a little bit of econ and a good amount of math. They might have a financial engineering major, but I don't know if that's at the undergraduate level. I would suggest (if you go to Princeton) to major in something that interests you while taking these courses to fulfill the pre-requisites for the certificate program.</p>
<p>What kind of graduate school are you interested in? Also, why are you apprehensive about econ? I don't think you would be hurt by deflation coming from Princeton for an MBA...but at the same time, it's not like you can just mess around, you do have to get good grades. It's about work experience as well.</p>
<p>I would suggest something like anthropology, political science/government, history, or something. Personally, I would honestly suggest economics or a quantitative based major if you want to do finance. International business is just like knowing and understanding cultures in my opinion, it's not really a field that is taught (I mean it is taught, but it doesn't teach useful in the way accounting is). </p>
<p>You have to realize that these are drastically different experiences. Princeton is in the mid-atlantic, Stanford is in California. The weather will be very different. Also, Princeton is an Ivy League, there are different traditions and things like that come with that. Stanford is a legitimate Division 1 school. These are thing to think about.</p>
<p>I'd pick Stanford because it's close to home and your support group. That's the only real difference, and because of it Stanford will give you the best opportunity for success.</p>
<p>Also, east coast people are just weird. Oh, and when you are at Stanford the Fred's 2.5 pound sirloin at Schaub's meat market is the best meat to bbq... I use to work in Palo Alto, nice town.</p>
<p>I would pick Stanford, simply because I miss the weather and people back in California, having spent three years in UVA so far. You will hate the weather when you have to deal with muggy and snowy conditions. Trust me, it's not fun.</p>
<p>Princeton. Spend your time around a few over-entitled old money students, and not be associated with jocks/bay area hippies. California is great for middle-aged makeovers. Not for serious individuals in the financial industry.</p>
<p>I'd go with stanford. The weather here in the NE sucks.</p>
<p>Milton Roark wrote:
California is great for middle-aged makeovers. Not for serious individuals in the financial industry.</p>
<p>Seriously??
I guess I'll have to let all these new businesses being created by Stanford grads know that they aren't serious financial business contenders.</p>
<p>Sorry Google, Yahoo, Sun, Hewlett Packard, Seagate, Cisco, Oracle, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Macromedia, Juniper, etc. etc. etc.--but apparently (unknown to me) Princeton has some kind of hidden business environment that is known only to Milton Roark and a few of his friends that makes your $3 trillion per year revenues look like petty cash.</p>
<p>Oh, and all you young attractive kids down on the beaches and in the nightclubs of LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Pismo Beach, Santa Cruz, Carmel, Monterey, and San Francisco--I guess Princeton must have some kind of hidden recreational center I'm unfamiliar with also.</p>
<p>I'd love to stay and debate this--but it's now 5 o'clock and I have to leave to meet up with my friends for our surfing and sailing outing. Tomorrow night we'll be at the Sharks game cheering and (obviously) lamenting the fact that we don't live in the middle of New Jersey instead of here.</p>
<p>I was being sarcastic. It is occasionally enjoyable for me to not take this forum seriously. Moreover, almost all of the firms you listed are in technology. My comments were related to finance, which the East Coast is stronger in. Princeton will also have a stronger alumni base in that region (Stanford would have a similar benefit in technology related companies on the West Coast). I never doubted the attractiveness of LA's (or California's for that matter) population. However, there is also a large amount of attractive people on the East Coast.
A Shark's game? That's a good way to maximize the cultural comparative advantage of California; going to a hockey game. They also like to do that in … Detroit. Neither Princeton or Stanford are in particularly interesting places. However, both are close (by train from Princeton, by car from Stanford) to relatively large cities (New York and San Francisco). As we all know, San Francisco has a severe inferiority complex about New York, see #91</a> San Francisco Stuff White People Like, specifically “When talking to a white person who lives in San Francisco, it is best not to bring up New York City. Though they live in a world class city, San Franciscans have a crippling inferiority complex about New York and even hinting at that will make them very sad or very defensive.” Somewhat like mentioning the superiority of the East Coast to California/ the West Coast (in the case of finance it's true.) Of course, it’s fairly easy to say New York is much more of a cultural capital than San Francisco, It is also a more enjoyable city in most respects (nightlife, shopping, dining options are all better in New York, but San Francisco does work very hard to keep up). I would also add that LA’s contributions to the world have been less than superb. It’s status as the leading manufacturer of pop culture is nothing to be proud of. Luckily, California redeemed itself by electing the governator.</p>