Harvard, Princeton, or Columbia for undergrad?

Got into all three with full financial aid. My interests lie in computer science/entrepreneurship/finance; I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing with my future yet, but I think there is a solid chance that I will end up pursuing some kind of career on Wall Street. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 
Best Response

for starters, drop Columbia unless you have a serious reason for being married to NY and you can't wait until after college.

Harvard and Boston are generally better for being able to, e.g., work at a local startup, meet VCs at networking events on-campus and at MIT (General Catalyst, Spark, Battery, Highland, Cue Ball, and many others are local and super involved), and immerse yourself in the tech scene. there's also much better access to student-focused startup funding at Harvard through the Experiment Fund, Rough Draft Ventures, the i-lab, etc., and I'd say it's a much better place to be a student founder, or founder in general. you can also take classes at MIT if you want to.

Princeton has a substantially better CS program, but lacks essentially all of the above, being in a completely empty suburb of New Jersey. you're close-ish to NY, but in practice it's much more difficult than you'd think to consistently get out there, especially to spend time working at a NY startup. Harvard's invested a ton of resources into CS and engineering (and entrepreneurship) lately and is slowly closing the gap, but it's definitely still there. both get plenty of OCR from Google, FB, Twitter, Square, Box, Dropbox, Snapchat, etc.

Harvard's slightly better for finance, but I wouldn't really worry much about the difference. my recommendation is you forget about finance -- if you really end up wanting to do that after a couple of years, it will be easy to transition by joining a club or two and networking with alums and recruiting teams on campus -- and focus on tech, and decide whether you honestly have what it takes and are likely to found a company and/or be in the startup world vs. being an engineer or whatever at an established tech giant. I was in the same situation you are (plus a couple others) once upon a time so feel free to PM me if you want more detailed advice or have specific questions

 

Lately, acceptance rate at CU has been 1 of the lowest out of the Ivies. 2nd, tech startup screen in NYC has had more VC inflows than Boston on yearly basis.

You can't go wrong with any of those schools. It should really come down to where you want to experience college: Boston, Burbs or NYC.

 

acceptance rate means absolutely nothing to anyone. the difference between NYC and Boston in terms of VC money is negligible and close to 0, and they constantly battle for 2nd place in the US. NYC is a phenomenal place for tech and is growing faster than Boston on that front, no argument there, but for a student and prospective student-founder Harvard absolutely gets the nod.

maybe you "can't go wrong" with Columbia, and it's a fantastic school, but Harvard and Princeton are meaningfully better still, and virtually no one would argue that. it's not about not going wrong, it's about going the most right. or something.

 

While all this is true, if there is a meaningful financial difference (i.e. john jay scholar at CU), I would take that into major consideration. At any of these schools, no one will doubt your intellect, and coming out of school with no debt is a huge boon.

 

Princeton for CS, Engineering, ORFE, or Econ; Harvard for most other majors. (Econ is a little more debatable. Princeton has a lot of Fed chairs and CCAPM, so it deserves to be in the running, however).

If you can handle the math, go to Princeton and study ORFE. It's basically a math-heavy finance degree that's in the engineering department. It will set you up well for most roles on Wall Street and also give you options for PhDs from Econ to Engineering to CS.

I'm doing an MS in Finance at Princeton; prior to this I worked in trading at a major bank for five years. Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

 
John-Michaels:

Got into all three with full financial aid. My interests lie in computer science/entrepreneurship/finance; I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing with my future yet, but I think there is a solid chance that I will end up pursuing some kind of career on Wall Street. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

nice humblebrag

 

Some things to consider:

1.Princeton has a required Senior Thesis for everyone 2. Princeton is in the middle of nowhere. You'll say to yourself "I'm not too far from NYC so I can visit a lot" but you almost never will. If you want to be near Manhattan a lot, then live in Manhattan. 3. The way Harvard (and Yale) do housing creates a lot of fun and pride in the house you live in. At Harvard your laat three years will be in the same Res hall. 4. Columbia is half college, half New York. You may or may not like it.

My opinion: Harvard by a mile. Best network in the world, Boston/Cambridge is pretty cool, best of both worlds. Then Columbia, then Princeton.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." --Abraham Lincoln
 

This is definitely a decision between Princeton and Harvard. I think there's only a negligible difference between the two schools in terms of opportunities. I would definitely choose whichever school you feel more comfortable at.

Harvard focuses more on their graduate program, whereas Princeton is more undergraduate-focused. This is subjective, but Princeton is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than Harvard in my opinion. Princeton has grade deflation, while Harvard has tons of grade inflation. This is definitely something to take into consideration though; the average grade at Harvard is an A-. I have a friend who goes to Harvard and says that even the kids who don't even try have 3.6 GPA's. I know someone else who went to Princeton and talked about how tense and competitive everyone is because of their harsh grade deflation policy. If I had to choose, I'd probably go with Harvard. But you can't go wrong with either.

 

Thanks for the detailed replies. I am personally not a demanding or quirky individual, I just want to go where I will get the best possible education and the best opportunities to get my professional life started on the right track.

At this point, I do have an interest in going to graduate school for science or business. Should this influence my decision in any way? Is it wrong/discouraged to do both undergraduate and graduate degrees at the same school? Also, when comparing Harvard and Princeton, it seems that Harvard offers slightly greater prestige and business connections while Princeton offers a slightly more genuine and rigorous education: do I have this right?

 

To OP, I am undergrad at Princeton just got an IBD offer and I would say that grade deflation (30% of class gets A or A- rest get B+ or less) sucks balls and is the sole black mole on the cheeks of an otherwise decent looking lady. Hence if I had to do it over I'd go Harvard, not that I could have gotten in but it's easy to get a good GPA there which is most important. GPA > All

That being said, in the end I would visit both of them and decide for yourself. For those ignorant mofo's criticizing Pton's location, it's a freaking beautiful campus in a decent upper-middle class town where it's never crowded. As a Yankee fan I discount Boston and Mass in general because they suck donkey dick.

I think my point of mentioning where I'm going is that actually finance is great to be coming from Pton. Lots of great networks at all the major banks and the opportunites to get what job you want are there for the taking. It depends what you think you need to weigh as important. Like I said, generally GPA is king and Harvard you're gonna have a better time of it in that department. Much better I'd say. Unless you actually want to get educated of course, in which case come to Princeton we do undergrad education 10x better. I know a ton of guys in financial engineering, they're learning next level strats. Shit's OP

"I did it for me...I liked it...I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive."
 

No idea if you're still deciding, but posted this on another thread and thought it might be of some help (H vs P):

I go to a HYP, and had a choice between the three when I was a high school senior. Here are my thoughts on H vs P:

1) Grades: You will, on average, have a higher GPA at Harvard than Princeton. There's no getting around that. On the other hand, having a high GPA at H (3.7+) is not really impressive to employers or grad schools, whereas I know that a 3.7+ at P is well regarded. In addition, grade deflation is probably going to be phased out at P in the next couple of years, so that's also something to keep in mind.

2) Prestige: negligible difference (if any) between the two. Some argue that Harvard is Harvard, and that it’s the greatest school in the world and no other school can top it. Others say that P is clearly the best undergraduate institution in the world, and no school—not even Harvard—can rival its prestige. This is backed up by US News (as arbitrary as those rankings are)—Princeton has been #1 for 8/10 years, whereas Harvard has only been #1 5 times. This year, the rankings go: 1.) Princeton, 2.) Harvard, 3.) Yale.

3) Educational experience: Harvard is undoubtedly less focused on undergrads. Basic example: Mankiw rarely teaches a full complement of ec 10 (i.e. often taught by people not named Mankiw) whereas at Princeton, Rosen or Blinder not only teach every lecture in eco 100/101, they also teach small sections of 10-15 kids. That’s on par for Princeton—much easier access to Professors, much less focus on grad schools/students, and a generally more focused undergrad environment. Money is also very easily available for internships, research grants, thesis research, etc. Per capita, Princeton’s endowment is far higher than any other college in the world, making it easy for undergrads to conduct research or travel or whatever. On the other hand, Harvard’s fantastic grad schools provide great research opportunities for undergrads in every field imaginable—and all of those grad schools are either the best or among the best in the world.

4) Finance and recruiting: I’d give the edge to Harvard here, but again, only very slightly. Every major firm—GS, MS, JPM, Lazard, Evercore, etc—recruits at both schools. Two major exceptions: Blackstone M&A/R&R recruits at H but not at P; and Greenhill recruits at H and not at P. Otherwise, all are the same—BX PE and Bain Cap recruits at both, as do all the MBB and boutiques of note. Honestly, recruiting differences between the two are negligible. You can pretty much go anywhere from these two schools—they’re the best in the world.

5.) Alumni – I only include this because Princeton alumni are insanely in love with their school and generally do anything they can to help out fellow Princetonian’s. Pretty sure alumni donation rate at P is the highest in the country, and reunions is evidence of that—25K people of all ages come to P at the end of the year and basically party for three days. Largest order of alcohol at any event in the United States. H alumni are proud of their school, but apart from Dartmouth, no Ivy League school comes close to the fervor/love P’s alumni have for their school.

Overall? You can’t go wrong. Princeton is more suburban, much more focused on undergrads, and has a smaller class. Harvard is in a major city, much larger, and has easier access to research and grad schools. Both have fantastically talented undergrads and Professors; both have tons of resources. Both will give you the chance to go anywhere you want in finance. Both send tons and tons of people to the best MBA (and for that matter, grad) programs in the country. There is no difference in prestige—both are, along with Yale, the best schools in the country. Pick whichever one you like more. You can’t go wrong. Good job, and good luck.

dollas
 

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