<p>I think you should major in whatever you are passionate about. Your interests should dictate your graduate degree and your eventual career, not the other way around. Besides, you may later decide that you don’t want to go to graduate school - not everyone does - and then you can use whatever your undergraduate major is to do work.</p>
<p>The upside is both of those undergraduate majors are highly employable, with some of the lowest unemployment rates of all majors Math has the lowest, I believe. Math will be the “best” for finance in particular, not simply because it’s a less popular major (and graduate schools don’t pick like that - “Oh, who’s unusual?” They pick who is best prepared to complete the work at their school) but because finance involves a LOT of math. However, even if you major in computer science, if you follow a math-heavy curriculum you should be okay should you still choose to go into finance.</p>
<p>You should also not pick your college solely on how it “looks” to graduate schools. There’s a chance you may not even go to grad school, and besides, you have to spend 4 years there. It’s not just going to be a line on a resume. All of those universities are great schools, and where you went to college matters a lot less than what you did with it.</p>
<p>Lastly, do not assume that prestige has an inverse relationship with your GPA - that you will get a higher GPA at a lower-ranked school. It doesn’t exactly work that way. Even between schools, some classes are harder than others, and some top schools are known for grade inflation. Even without grade inflation, though, just because a school is “lower-ranked” in USNWR’s eyes doesn’t mean that 100% of it’s classes are easier than 100% of a higher-ranked school. You all should also realize that <em>no one</em> cares about USNWR-type rankings after high school, except the parents of college-bound seniors.</p>