Big 4 audit or Goldman operations?

Honestly, I would say go for the Big 4. For lateralling, it seems less like a "I couldn't get this, so I settled for ops" and more of a "I wanted to do this, but now I'd like to get into finance". The skillset would probably be more valuable from accounting too.

Big-4 Audit is so much better than any Ops job. If you decide you don't want front-office, you have your CA and will have lots of options.

Go for big 4 audit. You can never lateral from GS ops to GS front office. it's so dark in the back office that there's really no light at the end of the tunnel.

go big4 audit, do two years, transfer to TAS/TS/corp fin group, get deal experience and then go from there.

With finance drying up for college grads and big 4s not really hiring (for anything) at the moment, how would one feel about taking a top 20 accounting firm offer in audit over ops in terms of exit opportunities?

If this is a GS SA opportunity for ops, I would most likely take the ops gig. GS offers SAs the opportunity to interview at the end of the summer program so that you can go for mid-office or front-office.

BUT... You won't get the FT offer in ops. Lateralling into front-office is nearly impossible. Mid-office transitions are a bit easier.