Brown Vs Northwestern for IB (ED)
I'm a HS senior debating whether to apply ED to either Brown or Northwestern. I have legacy at both schools, go to a 'feeder' school, and have really strong stats/extracurriculars so I'm quite confident that I'll get into either through ED (don't mean to sound arrogant). Before I discovered this forum I intended on EDing to Northwestern, but I saw a few posts that said Brown was strong for finance and Northwestern students didn't really go for IB, so I'm not sure what to make of that.
I feel like I would prefer Northwestern because of a combination of location/campus, social life/student body culture, and well roundedness in case I end up not wanting to do finance, but I think Brown has great perception because it's an ivy and since it's strong in finance. Should I ED to Northwestern over Brown for the reasons I mentioned above, and can I break into IB from Northwestern, or will it be easier to do from Brown?
Thank you!
Full disclosure, i go to northwestern, but im happy to provide some insight. I think you should go with northwestern because of the reasons you mentioned, along with the fact that our placement has gotten incredibly strong without too many kids interested in finance as you mentioned.
This year, we had 8 blackstone, 7 evercore, 7 morgan stanley, 5 goldman, 3 kkr, 3 bain capital, 2 ares, 2 vista, 2 cvp, 3 jpm, 2 pjt, and sent to every other top BB/EB and other buyside places. Just join the clubs, network, do cfs, and you'll place well at northwestern. Hope this helps.
Looks great, I didn't know that so many people went to buy-side firms like that out of college! Is the placement similar @ Brown?
Nah Brown places way worse. Based on the placements Northwestern is very very skewed towards the buyside compared to other targets but idk why since I didnt go there. I'd network with current students at Northwestern if I was you.
Brown student here, it can be done but is not nearly as common as this post describes
these numbers are wild
I’d add an asterisks - I’m pretty sure a lot of the buyside placements are in more niche RE roles and not a lot of schools have RE offerings. The only ones I can think of are Wharton, Cornell, Northwestern, and NYU so those schools place a lot on the buyside but in roles like RE AM or debt.
Hi! Can I ask you a couple questions about Northwestern? and my prospects if I don't break into NUIBC?
both are fantastic schools and will get you whenever you want to go, pick based on fit.
Something to consider in terms of environment/culture fit.... if you want more of an intellectual / liberal arts vibe I think Brown is better. I might be biased because one of the smartest people I know went to Brown but if you're nerdy/passionate about school I would consider it.
Doing my best not to paint this negatively because it depends on the person, but there will definitely be a more "hardo"-esque culture in the financial pocket of Northwestern. Just looking at this thread you have a bunch of NW kids jumping in and rattling off their club placements off the top of their heads, this is obviously what they're spending most of their time thinking about. These are going to be the people you're going to become friends with. If IB is far and away priority #1 I think that's good, but if you're viewing recruiting as a necessary evil and IB as a means to something more intellectually stimulating, you might want to consider the cultural aspect.
I completely agree with this. Both schools are excellent and you’ll be just fine getting a good IB job out of either, the particulars of placement shouldn’t be a huge factor. Would really focus on going to the school that’s a better fit for you personally as you’ll be happier and will perform your best which at the end of the day matters a lot more. I would imagine both schools are great to attend so I would spend a lot of time over the summer connecting with current students, visiting, etc. to get a sense for which one you can see yourself at.
I have a few friends that go to northwestern and based on what they've said, sure it's probably gonna be a little more pre-professional than Brown, but to say that it isn't intellectual and doesn't have good culture is just not true lol. I don't think you base a whole entire school's vibe just based on a person commenting on a WSO forum.
I'm not saying that people at NW aren't intellectual or don't have interests, I'm saying the average percentage of brain time dedicated to thinking about IB of a pre-finance kid will be materially higher at NW compared to Brown, and that is very much evidenced by the student body and cultural reputation of each school, as well as this thread. I'm not saying it's NYU Stern, but it is very much still a different vibe from liberal arts-esque schools like Brown where honestly being hyper pre-professional is looked down upon compared to being "intellectually curious" or something.
Northwestern is the clear choice here based on the elite placements detailed above unless you align with Brown’s vibe more.
Brown undergrad has a big rep for being the hippie odd one out amongst its prestigious peers. This isn’t hearsay; the rep has been around for two decades even in my own lifetime. NW prob doesn’t have any real defining feature if you talk to current students who aren’t finance prestige-obsessed whores (see above posts about hurr durr buyside or bust). Or maybe they do idk. Grad level econ I know for sure they’re still in the freshwater econ academic circlejerk alongside UChicago but that’s not relevant here.
If you’re dead set on one of these two schools and are 100% sure about finance then yeah probably NW is a better fit. If you have any inkling that you might be a hippie who values culture above all then you should check out Brown in person and chat with students about the fit. Brown students tend to love the fuck out of Brown and you should find out whether you care about the reasons as to why. Don’t pick a school based off of perceived IB recruiting fit lol. You’ll be fine
+1 that I've never met students from any other school who love their university as much as Brown kids. Part of that is the clear self selection effect, but it is genuinely a "different" type of school compared to most Ivies/top universities. The closest peer I can think of is Wesleyan in terms of culture/vibes.
If I had the pick of any non-HYPS (these schools give you too much of a professional leg up IMO to skip) I would probably take Brown.
Please also do note I went to a random non-target so have zero direct experience at a target school.
In my experience, Penn people who loved their college experience and maximized their opportunities love Penn, as do people who did the same attending Duke, Cornell, Michigan, Brown, Northwestern, Dartmouth, etc. Moral of the story; people who were a great fit for their school were likely to have had a good experience, determining immersion in, success from, and feelings for, the institution. Attending the best/most prestigious school for recruitment matters big time, but so does personal, social, and emotional development. These are the years where you become a young adult, and you can’t recapture them. These two schools really are about the same, and ED acceptance is binding. Be very sure that you choose a place you are comfortable living at for the next four years of your life.
ED to Brown. Its so chill there and there is so much talent. Northwestern lives in the shadow of UChicago, and its more a chicago target than a NYC target like Brown. If you want to go to NYC, go to Brown.
The amount of misinformation in this post lol. Northwestern has a reputation of being a ‘Chicago target’ when in reality every single person who wants NYC lands there. Out of this year’s IB recruiting class, only ~7 kids decided to go to Chicago, and almost all had ties to Chicago, and another ~3 went to the west coast or south (again, due to ties). The rest (90%) all went to NYC.
Also, funny that you mention Evercore because they regularly take 7-8 Northwestern kids a year.
but the bulge bracket placement, like from what I've seen above is not at the caliber of any ivy league schools, brown sends at least 15+ to gs and ms, other ivys like Penn, Cornell send more than 50 to jpm, around 30 to gs each year, whilst brown has way less competition than the other two so the number still makes sense. Also even you use alias, do you just go around and around and shit on schools like Brown, Chicago, Cornell so you feel better about your own school and using second/third/fourth account to upvote your comment lmao.
The funniest inaccuracy in this is the fact that Evercore’s founder didn’t even go to Brown lmfao
yes Evercore's founder went to the Georgetown, remember it wrong. sorry
I'm at Brown and successfully recruited for finance. If you want to maximize finance or buyside outcomes, you should go to Northwestern, but if you want a more enjoyable and fulfilling college experience (read up on Brown's grading and open curriculum), come to Brown. We have great grad school placement if you end up hating finance.
yes recruiting experience at Brown has been extremely smooth. don't know too much about NU tho
Might be wrong but in general, I’m always partial to Ivy leagues for finance.
It is all about branding, and you can’t get more branding than an Ivy. You can go anywhere from Brown.
Brown is barely an Ivy lol if we’re gonna be prestige whores let’s not pretend
brown and nw are equal in prestige imo
Hahaha what the fuck are you talking about.
I imagine there are people in the US that don’t even know what Northwestern is (or only do bc of basketball) but everyone knows the Ivy League.
I didn’t go to either school but Brown objectively has better placement than Northwestern in NYC so I’m not sure what everyone here is talking about. I’m pretty sure the stoners over at Brown just don’t give a shit about prestige to debate on an online forum.
Search around on Google - IB analyst/PE associate Brown University/Northwestern University and you’ll be able to find actual people to make an informed decision. I’m like 90% sure you’ll find more Brown people in IB/PE.
That being said, the two schools are basically in the same tier for recruiting so ED to the school you like more.
Ngl I did that exact search out of curiosity and got 1400 for Brown and 1800 for Northwestern for IB analysts. For private equity associate it was 660 Brown and 910 Northwestern.
Did the search too and you’re right, Northwestern is beating out Brown.
Pretty surprised but it looks like Northwestern is boosted by Chicago position. Northwestern’s rep in Chicago is better than Brown’s reputation in NYC. Brown takes NYC though, which is what I was referring to.
For the more liberal arts college, nerdy, “quirky,” environment - Brown. For a traditional college experience with girls, Greek life, parties, etc. - Northwestern. Prestige is hugely important in finance, but both are top schools that I think are generally regarded about the same. At this point, I don’t think outcomes will really depend on school name. Consider where you feel you will be more engrossed, engaged, and excited. Where will you have an easier time building lasting friendships? This is a huge part of college, and it shouldn’t be underestimated how important that is. If it were me, I’d want the Northwestern experience. Visit both as much as possible, network with students, and get a sense of what you would want.
Went to Brown. Placements are based entirely on how much effort you want to put in and how much you want to learn from your classes. It’s not pre-professional in the way that Wharton is but there are solid clubs and courses as well as career resources to get yourself prepared for IB.
We’ve had multiple placements into EBs, MFs, top pod shops etc (Evercore, PJT, Point72, KKR, Citadel, BWater etc). Dozens of people go to GS, MS, JP, etc. Brown is a top target for quant (JS, CitSec, etc) as well. The investment club has a partnership with P72 for their long/short fund. Less sweaty hardo atmosphere but the driven kids who use the resources available do succeed really well.
PM me if you have questions.
how popular is finance within the undergrad cohort at brown
The largest finance club has ~200 members, and there are plenty of kids who get jobs on Wall Street who aren’t in any finance clubs. Econ is the second largest major (after CS). Quant trading/research is really big with math/CS kids, and lots of Econ/IR/other students get consulting jobs. As much as Brown has a reputation for churning out kids who want to work at NGOs, a lot of students actually go to Wall Street, MBB, or quant firms lol. For the class of ‘22: 23% went into “Technology”, 18% went into consulting, and 17% went into finance. After that, it drops off a lot with the next largest group being “science” with 8%.
Much like the school, the finance scene is somewhat decentralized. Brown students are by-large self-starters, so the clubs will inform kids about the recruiting process and educate them on the different types of finance roles but they don’t have the rigorous requirements from an IB technical study perspective like you’d see at a business frat at a place like Cornell. There are IB crash courses offered through the career center and many many kids study them on their own time or with friends.
Correct answer is neither, ED cornell or wharton
One of these is not like the other
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