Undergrad UCLA vs USC vs Rice vs Tufts vs UVA

I am a senior in high school and consulting seems like a career path that fits my personality and interests well.
I am specifically interested in transportation and real estate and planning.
WL at AEM (Cornell) - if I get off the list, I will definitely go to Cornell.
UCLA
UVA
UCB
USC - World Bachelor in Business program with a year in HK and Milan, end with three degrees
Rice
Tufts
CMU - seems like a very quant focused school, not really sure if I am considering it since I like the humanities and social sciences as well as math and biology
Some other schools that are cheaper, but don't really seem like a great fit, socially and in terms of career prospects.
Thank you all for any guidance.

 

If you're a CA resident, definitely consider UCLA/Berkeley. The academic experience seems to suffer due to massive class sizes, but recruiting is pretty good (though competitive) and the social life is great.

I wouldn't go to Tufts, period. Also, you're right about CMU — it's a fairly quant school.

But otherwise, if you get off the WL at Cornell/Brown, the choice is pretty clear.

 
Best Response

Probably because people don't know much about liberal arts schools.

I'd do UCLA, UVA or Tufts.

UCLA has opportunities to go into pretty much all banking/consulting and it would be a ton of fun to be in LA, especially coming from the east coast. UVA also has great placement and I really like Charlottesville as a town. Tufts seems to be the odd guy out, but coming from a liberal arts background I'm a strong proponent for a diversified education.

CMU is a weird school and unless you're an engineer it probably won't be much fun. Berkeley is a great school, but its a real grind. Lots of grade deflation and kids killing themselves for jobs. Rice and USC are fine, but not better than any of the other schools you got into.

 

I'm basing this off of interviews I've done and the finance professionals in my network. I've seen (and know) plenty of people from UCB, CMU and a decent # from UVA in finance jobs but none from Tufts (looking at NYC & California Offices only).

UCLA I don't think has a business school and I haven't seen as many people from there for finance as USC Marshall or UCB Haas. I haven't seen any finance professionals from Rice, I think UT - Austin is preferred in TX though lower ranked.

Not saying Tufts isn't a great school, but it is just my observation that other schools on that list place more students into the finance world.

 
b774:

Well I am not too interested in the finance world, but I do appreciate all the advice you guys have shared with me. It is going to be a difficult decision to make but I have a few more weeks to decide. Thanks for everything!

It's tough to say what you'll be interested in a few years, but if consulting is where your heart's at (and you don't care about location) - figure out which school has OCR with MBB, OW, ATK, LEK, Strategy&, etc.

 

First of all, if you check out the elite schools and check professors' CVs, you can find that most of them elite professors are from these schools. With that said, often the first tier is: UCLA, UCB, Cornell CMU for quant fields. UVa, USC and Rice are like 1.5 tier...... Second tier: Rice, Tufts

I think if you could, first tier is definitely great; however, you should also consider outside things---campus life, tuition/financial aid, job placement

 

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