Brown vs Cornell vs Chicago

Lol this is like a kid saying should I apply to "Barclays/CS/Citi". You'll place well from any of these schools so apply to the one you like the most or why not just apply to all 3 (assuming the $80 or whatever application fee isn't an issue)

I don't think there is a huge difference, but I would still give Brown and Cornell the edge if you wanna end up on the east coast. Brown and Cornell are the weakest ivies in general and for business recruiting but still they have a better name and stronger alumni network on WS than Chicago undergrad.

Between the two I would choose based on fit. They are rather different.

If you are trying to add one out of Cornell, Brown, or Chicago.

I would take out U-Chicago, as Cornell and Brown are stronger than Chicago.

Unless you apply only for the Applied Economics path at Cornell then potentially Cornell is better.

In my opinion, I would choose Brown. I believe it is strongest out of the three schools.

Everyone is overlooking the most important fact that if you go to Chicago the curve will destroy you and you will be miserable for four years. I have literally never heard of anyone having any fun there. They don't even have real sports teams.

Brown on the other hand barely has grades. You can take any class you want to pass/fail. Grade inflation is wild. You could cruise to a 3.7 with little effort especially coming from a top prep school.

Cornell is probably someplace in between, but do you really want to go to Ithaca? Obviously, much easier to get into though so if you're already applying to Dartmouth/Penn/Harvard/Yale you might want to add Cornell to diversify.

Why don't you just focus on being a more interesting person? If you can't find a place where you can learn how to enjoy a beer with your friends, you won't go very far in any industry anyways.

Pm me, since I am in the same boat as you.

Check out Cornell SHA, has great Wall Street ops. Specifically look into the FARE concentration in the hotel school at Cornell

I see a more Cornell kids, at my BB, than Chicago and Brown.

Cornell places well in capital markets roles. There were a lot in DCM this past summer.

Chicago pretty much dominates bulge bracket IBD / hardcore M&A shop recruiting in that city, and has a better undergrad finance program than Cornell or Brown. I know a couple people who placed in NYC but generally had to take a downgrade from their internship experience (either bank to bank or to capital markets / risk groups). I do know a few people who placed directly into NYC out of Chicago but that may be anecdotal.

Brown doesn’t actually offer much in the way of coursework beyond intro-level corporate finance and accounting, your options are basically a fake (and demonstrably shitty) interdisciplinary business program with utterly useless sociology requirements or a bunch of stats/calc-focused classes more suited to applied-math majors. Also, banks have generally narrowed their target lists in the years following the financial crisis and Brown has definitely suffered from that disproportionately. Just not enough seats, networking is key. It’s worth pointing out that most Brown recruiting is done by alums and while your 3.7 might look great to outsiders, that’s probably the minimum GPA you’ll need to be competitive (barring a double in a hard science).

Don’t know much about Cornell other than 1) it’s in the middle of fucking nowhere 2) the suicide bridge / rate is somehow still a thing and 3) they place a horde of analysts on Wall Street every year, it’s a target for almost everyone.

If you’re in the somewhat-sad position of knowing with absolute certainty that IB is for you and college is mostly a means to achieve that end—and the Harvards of the world are a half-step out of reach—you should be shooting for Colombia with NYU-Stern as your fallback. Good financial education at both—Prof. Damodren at NYU is who you want to learn corporate finance from—and both are targets damn near everywhere. I can pretty much guarantee that if you do fairly-well academically, put the bare-minimum effort into networking and aren’t a giant fucking creep in your interview, at least one moderately-respectable shop will invite you to spend two years staring at Excel until your eyes bleed while giving handjobs to VPs under the desk.

If you’re sure that’s your thing, I mean. “What gets me into Goldman?” is probably the most misguided way to frame a college search I’ve ever heard.

Lots of NYC bankers had no corp fin in college. Most BBs say they can teach you what you need to know themselves. After all, it isn't rocket science. From my limited experience, Brown punches above its weight (based on enrollment numbers) in advisory. With majors ranging from Applied Math/Econ to History to Classics. Cornell shows well on cap markets side. No info on UChicago

Cannot believe people here think Cornell is that much better than Chicago. OP, if you care about being challenged during college (which I encourage to an extent), Chicago has a much higher academic rep in general. I also highly doubt the recruiting out of Cornell is significantly better, as some people here are saying.

Plus, Cornell is at the piss bottom of the ivy totem pole and it hardly even resembles an ivy (has public colleges, a college of agricultural sciences (wtf?) and a college of industrial labor relations (wtf?) and a college of hotel administration (wtf?)).

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