UCL Economics vs Ivey AEO

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UCL Econ will be enough to get you FO interviews in London (or Europe, languages permitting). Unlike LSE and Imperial, it actually has a decent - albeit overcrowded - campus, and is a multifaculty university where not every student is concentrated on their careers. It's not a bad place to study, although obviously costs are quite high. Can't speak for Ivey though. 

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Take Ivey in a heartbeat and don't look back. It's honestly a cheat code. Based out of London, Ontario, but you have firms like Thoma Bravo, Ares, Silver Lake, etc who do on campus recruitment at Ivey and take 1-2 kids a year. And then you have Evercore which takes 5+ Ivey kids a year, you had KKR which takes Ivey kids out of undergrad. And then GS takes a bunch, and you can pretty much land wherever you want out of undergrad, be it buyside or sell side. They've landed kids in the Point72 academy as well. I got in 2 years ago, didn't think much of it because I was international and wasn't into finance at the time, and now I regret not going. For the tuition you pay, it's just crazy how many US opportunities you get, and I would definitely take the Ivey offer. 

For consulting, Ivey places 2-3 kids into each of the MBB, Tier 2 firms that recruit include Monitor Deloitte, OW, Kearney, ZS, Roland Berger, Accenture, KPMG. All take multiple people per year. There are also boutique firms as well. 

I heard in the UK that MBB consulting is heavily geared towards Oxbridge (unlike Investment banking where there's more of an even focus on the targets)

You’ll be in London either way haha

Before I get ms for this, please know that I recognize Ivey is still probably Canada’s top (if not, 2nd) target for both US and Canadian recruitment. But, their pipeline to super elite positions has began to fade. Wether because of the dire VISA situation since 2016 or just the quality of students, US IB/PE placements have fallen to about 1/4 of what they were only 5 years ago. If you have a chance to go to Queen’s, take it. They are approaching Ivey 2016-17 level of US high finance placement.

Oh, and before you guys say ‘bUt IvEy PLacEs aT ArEs’ yes they do place into elite firms but with the size of the program rising from 300-600 since 2015 and the general rising competitive nature of Canadians getting VISAs to US from Ivey and beyond, the sure fire ‘cheat code’ to elite US positions is just outdated.

Still has good reputation for producing creative and intelligent students tho.

Can’t speak for UCL on any fronts.