USC vs Vanderbilt

Right now I'm deciding on colleges to apply to and wanted to get a comparison on usc vs. vanderbilt for placement into ibd/hf. I hate the south, and have been leaning towards USC but then I found that USC is located in an absolute dump of an area, south central los angeles and that it is known as one of the most dangerous campuses on America. This has led my parents to prejudice against the school as there have been numerous murders, rapes, etc over the past couple of years and so living in that hell hole isn't really worth it unless it's actually a great school that feeds strongly into finance. Vanderbilt on the other hand, though there is crime, is in a pretty decent part of town and is higher ranked/more prestigious. Girls/weather/frats are good at both schools and they are comparable in terms of student interest in athletics (though vandy sucks). I can only afford to apply to one more school and I am choosing between these 2 and having a difficult time and wanted some guidance from the wall street oasis community! Oh and I'm only going for NYC positions and through linkedin, have found that both schools have a decent number of alum on the east coast.

 

I have friends at both schools and I can confirm that Vanderbilt is a much better school academically with stronger student body. USC is rising but probably won't be at the level of Vandy for quite a few more years. In terms of placement 2 of my friends at Vandy graduated. 1 is at Bain and the other one is working at a hedge fund in NYC. So their recruiting seems solid. My USC friend is doing grad school work in journalism.

 
Powa23:
Vanderbilt is a great school. Good recruiting, nice campus and I have a few friends that went there who went into finance (among other things). All I know about USC is that they have a good football team and its pretty fucking dangerous around the campus.

Are you from CA? A lot of people in the east *laymen, believe that USC is some random state school and they don't recognize its prestige. Everyone has heard of Vanderbilt though.

How is USC viewed relative to UCLA and UCB? I feel like a lot of people look down on it and don't consider nearly as well as the other top 25 schools, placing schools like Rice/Vandy/Cornell miles ahead of it despite being close in the rankings.

 
tkid3400:
Powa23:
Vanderbilt is a great school. Good recruiting, nice campus and I have a few friends that went there who went into finance (among other things). All I know about USC is that they have a good football team and its pretty fucking dangerous around the campus.

Are you from CA? A lot of people in the east *laymen, believe that USC is some random state school and they don't recognize its prestige. Everyone has heard of Vanderbilt though.

How is USC viewed relative to UCLA and UCB? I feel like a lot of people look down on it and don't consider nearly as well as the other top 25 schools, placing schools like Rice/Vandy/Cornell miles ahead of it despite being close in the rankings.

No I am Canadian but I have a large family across the states. I do know USC place it on par with UCLA but below UCB for recruiting . Good film department, I think it has great connection to the entertainment industry. Patrick Schwarzenegger for gods sake but for finance you can not go wrong with Vanderbilt.

 
BTbanker:
Vandy.

What are the other schools you applied for?

I'm applying to 8 other schools. Schools like Northwestern, Duke, Cornell AEM and Rutgers (in state safety), decent shot at all the targets. I need a better safety school since I hate Rutgers and USC Marshall is probably the easiest top 25 school to get into out of state. I'm probably being a bit paranoid since there is a great chance of being accepted into one of 7 target schools I"m competitive for, but I just don't want to go 1-9 (if I choose vandy>usc, vandy would be a target) with Rutgers and want to end up transferring after freshman year. Vanderbilt seems like the better bet, but it's harder to get into and would be a match and not a safety.

 
Best Response
tkid3400:
BTbanker:
Vandy.

What are the other schools you applied for?

I'm applying to 8 other schools. Schools like Northwestern, Duke, Cornell AEM and Rutgers (in state safety), decent shot at all the targets. I need a better safety school since I hate Rutgers and USC Marshall is probably the easiest top 25 school to get into out of state. I'm probably being a bit paranoid since there is a great chance of being accepted into one of 7 target schools I"m competitive for, but I just don't want to go 1-9 (if I choose vandy>usc, vandy would be a target) with Rutgers and want to end up transferring after freshman year. Vanderbilt seems like the better bet, but it's harder to get into and would be a match and not a safety.

I hope UVA, NYU, and uMich are in the mix there.

By the way, worst case you do end up at Rutgers, Vandy is very easy to transfer into as a sophomore.

 
lasampdoria:
Choose Vandy and don't look back. Unless you want to work in SoCal, then choose USC. Everywhere else, Vandy.

But yeah, also apply to Indy. Great placements.

I cut USC off of my list, but a friend IRL suggested wustl olin as a good target for me and I was wondering whether you would still pick vandy > wustl despite the difference in ranking

 

I go to Vanderbilt and I just wanted to inform you that the transfer acceptance rate for the latest class was 13%. It's only gonna drop (for most schools) so it may well be in the single digits this year just like most of the ivies and other elites.

 

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