ASU ($$$) vs IU Kelley ($) vs Emory

I did apply to more but either got rejected or waitlisted. My dream school was Northwestern. Hoping I can apply as a transfer after 1 mb 2 yrs. But I agree, regardless of where I go, I'm going to grind, so Emory may be the best place for that. Thanks for the advice!

OP doesn't mention anything about it being aid...ASU could be in-state for all we know based on his post. Also even if it was aid driven, if you were scrolling titles on the forum, you wouldn't know any context...congrats on being a jerk though! Hope you feel better about yourself!

That's the best choice. Emory will position you well for transferring, and if you get a ~4.0 with good recs from there your first year it should be a simple sophomore transfer to at least one of the schools you've listed above. 

not true, my nondiverse buddy got a top BB this cycle and they sent a kid to PJT RSSG a few years back. def possible, just a hell of a grind. Make sure to get into IBIS, otherwise, ya ur fucked

I wouldn't transfer to Northwestern or Vanderbilt. In my experience Emory has better recruiting/finance presence than Vanderbilt if not at least the same and Northwestern is only marginally better. I would consider Emory a top school so congrats on getting in there!

Current student in the IBW. The workshop process used to be heavily connections based but a lot of work has gone into making it meritocratic over the past few years. It’s quite a fair process now with rare mistakes in selection.

not sure if you are into it but greek life is also a pretty easy connection into these workshops as there will probably be some older students who can at least help you out and give guidancealso business clubs or (maybe) the business frat

again this is what i’ve seen from friends, guy in ibw above def knows more

And ending up at Emory wouldn’t be a bad spot either :) But yes I think lateral transferring to a similar school like Cornell might be worth a shot.

you sound like a devry alumni

I’m an ASU grad and would echo what Bigyoshi said. Everyone loves to shit on ASU but at the end of the day they place decently well and if you did a blind resume of their placement stats against other schools these critics wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I was an athlete that was a national recruit and could have gone anywhere I wanted for the most part (no Ivy’s or Stanford) but chose to go to ASU (had full rides to schools like Williams, Amherst, Colgate, Lehigh, Boston College, etc.). I chose ASU because I wanted to play at a big state school and WP Carey + Barrett seemed good enough at the time. Looking back, the only other schools I would have considered knowing what I know now would have been Washington (Bellevue is great + Access to Seattle and Vancouver), Boulder (Fun Place + World Class Nature), and UT Austin (Really Fun Town). All that being said, I think this is an ASU or Emory decision. It would be absurd to spend $230K for IU Kelley even though its a solid school with good placement when Emory is only $50K more over 4 years.

Emory:

I think it gives you the broadest range of outcomes in terms of finance and consulting coming out of undergrad. Given that you don’t know what you want to do I think that optionality is very valuable and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Lifestyle wise even though I’ve never been I’ve heard good things about Atlanta and you could probably occasionally venture out to UGA if you want to get the big state school experience. If you chose to go to Emory I wouldn’t bother transferring as I don’t think Northwestern is a materially better school in terms of finance and consulting placements (not really a powerhouse in IB despite being a good school). 
 

ASU:

The school is enormous and you need to be comfortable navigating that otherwise you could fall through the cracks. Resource wise it has everything that you could ever need but you need to be intentional about how you take advantage of its resources. I joined Barrett to have a small community within the university and to take advantage of its resources. If you join you get early access to registration (I always got every class I wanted to take this way), smaller class sizes (20-40 kids on average), better professors and increased access to those professors (became close with several Nobel Laureates this way), exclusive internship opportunities (mixed bag), scholarship opportunities for masters programs (have a partnership with MIT for scholarships for masters programs and my buddy got 15-20% off his MBA through it and another 30-40% of merit based scholarships when he applied), and research opportunities (need to do a thesis to graduate, can work with professors on their research, or undertake your own research with the guidance of professors). I really took advantage of this and helped a finance professor do research for the book he published, got my own independent research published, and did my thesis which was published working with executives at Intel on autonomous vehicles and the commercial applications of the data they produce (10-15 seniors get chosen to do their thesis with Intel every year on 3-4 problems facing their business). 

Lifestyle wise it was an incredible experience and I had 10X as much fun as anyone I knew that went to UG. The desert can get old after a while but I never got tired of being around that many beautiful women and have never seen anything like it since I’ve graduated. The apartment complexes around campus as well are like resorts and you have access to solid nightlife (Mill, Old Town, and Downtown). After, I stopped playing my sport junior year I went out 6-7 nights a week for two years and had an absolute blast. 

While I was there I did IB all 3 summers before going to the buy side out of undergrad despite having pretty average grades. Recruiting was more challenging, but once I got in the room I could showcase my skills and was able to land offers consistently (interned at a MM and 2 BB’s in Lev Fin). Most of my peers were able to break into IB as well at solid shops and have since gone on to have great careers. Consulting placement were much weaker and most of the placements came from the Big 4 and T3 shops, although one friend of mine went MBB out of school but I would say that was a one off. All that being said ASU can absolutely get you to where you need to be if you’re willing to put in the work and take advantage of all its resources. Down the line if and when you choose to pursue your MBA it won’t hurt you either. A dozen of my friends have gone onto HBS after working for a few years, another dozen have gone to GSB and Wharton (mostly Wharton), and MIT was a pretty common path as well. 

Ultimately, I don’t think you can go wrong either way between Emory or ASU. If you were dead set on consulting Emory would the easy choice, however given your interest in IB both schools would get you where you want to go.