Advice Needed - Point72 / Millennium vs GS / MS

I work at millennium for l/s equities & we didn’t offer any non intern undergrads FT this year

Similar position as you;

1) don’t take millenium as an undergrad, probably the only outright wrong decision here or closest you can get to one

2) if you 100% want to do MM long/short as a career take p72. If not take IBD

Agree with above. Millennium outsources their training to UBS for a year and then gets placed into a pod but these people tend to be looked down upon within the industry and even at UBS. Point72 has the best training program out of the MM that hire out of undergrad since it's been established longer than the others and personally, I would choose this in a heartbeat over Millennium. In terms of whether or not you should choose MM over IBD, it's personally up to what you want to do with your career. If you're truly passionate about l/s investing and can see yourself doing well down the line, choose MM. If you want a little bit more of variety in terms of career path, choose IBD. If you choose IBD and decide you want to pivot to MM after your analyst stint, you can always transition especially with the GS/MS name on your resume.

Have a close friend who joined Citadel/P72 after going through IB/PE, he strongly suggested against joining a MM right out of college due to the career volatility and limited exit optionality. Out of the big four only P72/CAP have structured training programs. Without the proper brand recognition you’ll find yourself in a miserable spot in 2 years if things don’t work out.

point 72 academy? with a freshly minted BA in history you are more than ready for the markets. you don't need more training.

Millennium you are basically beholden to your PM, if he does a bad job and gets fired your gone too.  

just pitch them on the benefits of the chinese real estate market and how the fears of country gardens being fraudulent are overblown.

also pitch them on how tech valuations are not even that inflated yet, and that VC firms have really honest marks on their unicorns. 

The comments above about ‘the industry’ looking down on the MLP program in whatever way are ridiculous. For every investment professional in ‘the industry’ who themselves came from a citadel/P72 training school and tends to skew to the younger and less experienced side, there is an older generation professional from ‘the industry’ who looks down on these programs that stray closer to group think/a school of thought that is by no means always right. 
Most HF professionals especially older more successful and experienced didn’t go through one of these programs themselves and had to drink from a firehose at some point and quickly develop a personal framework that could develop to personal approaches to the market vs point72 academy for example. The rest is mentorship, not an academy. There is an advantage in every disadvantage.
In ‘the industry’ at the end of the day what matters is who your PM is/who you’re learning from, and your ability to ask good questions, generate good insights and provide value. Not your ‘pedigree’ even if it is an academy, literally nobody cares or even asks about it point72, millennium, citadel or anywhere else. As MMs get sexier in current market of course WSO monkeys are going to start focusing on this pedigree away from the previous target college/IB/PE pedigree nonsense. At the end of the day once you join a pod the person who cares least about your training program is your PM, anybody can sit in a classroom. But from that day you need to be useful and generate value, in whatever way

Part of millennium’s culture and ethos is autonomy, they give you resources and you give back returns. The UBS program reflects that, you get out what you put in, you can take away little or a lot, it’s definitely a unique program that puts you in a HF analyst seat quickly, with a sell side network in place and ER experience. 
It doesn’t work for everybody, and nobody is holding your hand. For some that is a bad thing and that is okay, go to P72. But if you like asking questions vs being given answers, the MLP program might appeal more to you. 
It’s not perfect, it’s much newer and is still developing year to year. And yeah, it’s probably a riskier path on average, but there are unique advantages too
TLDR nobody will ever attribute their success in the market to their academy/training program. It depends on your PM and yourself. ‘The industry’ could not care less about your training program. Your ability, drive, intelligence will be exposed quickly in the market, and no academy/training will protect you. (If anything your PM will, as with everything at MMs, it depends on your PM)