<p>I am a prospective Finance major and I am choosing between VSB and SMU Cox. I was directly admitted into Cox under the BBA Scholars Program and also received the Hunt Leadership Scholarship which is full tuition. I was also offered admittance into the Honors program. </p>
<p>For VSB, I was deferred EA then admitted RD. </p>
<p>I want to go to grad school eventually because I know you need an MBA to get far in Finance these days if you don't go to a target school.</p>
<p>Which school would you say had the better finance program? And what would be a better choice on an academic standpoint comparing SMU with the Hunt Scholarship and VSB? Thanks.</p>
<p>I would choose Villanova.</p>
<p>I would choose SMU because they have a really strong alumni network and the full tuition scholarship alone makes it very appealing.</p>
<p>Thanks, anyone else? I’m still stuck in the middle.</p>
<p>SMU has some great undergrad finance options - alternative asset mgmt and an endowment fund that is managed by undergrad students. Dallas is also a great place for internships and JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Goldman, etc., hire SMU grads regularly.</p>
<p>To build on what the above post said about Dallas, I compiled a spreadsheet of locations of the top 8 investment banks and top 4 consulting firms (according to Vault) a little while ago and Dallas was tied for the 6th most offices with 10 of the 12 opening shop in town. The only ones that were better were Chicago with 11 of 12, and Houston, San Fran, LA, and NYC all had all 12. Only ten cities had a presence of at least half of these top companies, so that really says a lot that Dallas made it. It’s definitely a city full of opportunity since even if you don’t work in one of their offices, you know there has to be a lot of money in the local economy for them to open a branch.</p>
<p>Wow, thats awesome. I didn’t even know about that. Yeah, I’m pretty set on SMU. I can’t turn down the opportunity as a Hunt Scholars just to be a regular student at Villanova. Thanks guys.</p>