College Decision: Georgetown vs Cornell vs Northwestern

No brainer. Northwestern is the best among these schools.

Northwestern student here. NU doesn't have high placement into IB mostly because not too many people try to do IB from NU to begin with. I'd say like 30 kids recruit for IB pretty seriously every year at NU. And most of them end up with a solid offer. So the placement rate is really high. Generally speaking, if you put some effort into IB recruitment, you'll almost guarantee get an offer, and I'm not talking some random regional bank.

Given the back and forth about which school places best for finance, probably time to mention that you’re going to be most successful if you go to the place you’ll fit in culturally the best. All are good schools. And if you’re happy, healthy, and like where you are, you can get any job you want coming out of them. Would be a shame to make a college decision at age 18 about tiny differences in ease of recruitment for a job starting in 4 years

Go to Cornell. You can tell your kids you went to an ivy league lol.

You'll get a great IB job from any of these schools though

Can't go wrong with any, it's definitely a culture / location fit thing. Sucks you can't visit now, but I'd try to do a bunch of calls with prospective students and see what their experience has been like. You'll be in the running for a great job regardless.

Go to Georgetown and cold email Joseph Baratta and maybe someday you too can become the head of PE at Blackstone

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I would personally choose Northwestern. However, Cornell seems to be the easiest one to get a job in NYC IB.

Current Georgetown student here who just went through the process—Georgetown places very well at BBs and some EBs and has a huge alumni presence on the street. I would say from personal experience that the kids who recruit (a lot of business school kids, but also students from across the other 3 schools) all end up landing a good gig. A bit biased obviously but Georgetown is great if you’re looking for a well rounded (and fun!) college experience while still wanting to end up in banking. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions as well.

I feel like all these schools have good enough placements that you should mainly be considering other factors. Only thing about placements is that NU obv is better represented in Chicago and the others in NYC.

Northwestern is a great school but doesn't have great OCR from what I've seen. Cornell and Georgetown both have great placement and I would say are comparable overall - very different college experiences (DC v Ithaca) so I'd let that be the deciding factor.

Please don’t make a decision between these 3 schools based on placement. If you want to be in IB you will be from all of these schools. They have vastly different cultures that you should focus on.

I'd pick Northwestern. Amazing econ department, and chance to get Kellogg certificate. Not many kids gunning for banking, so less competition for banking spots. Good pipeline into Blackstone real estate PE, and plenty of NU kids have very strong foothold at the top PEs in Chicago (Madison Dearborn, GTCR, etc.)

Congrats man! I am at Cornell now and have tons of boys at Georgetown. Honestly, Northwestern hell no man. Way too far away and that is like middle tier. That doesn't even compete. I have tons of respect for Georgetown. I would say Georgetown vs Cornell is a safe bet. Cornell has a better greek life culture and anything you want is yours man. On the other hand Georgetown slightly warmer and no issues there. Either are great targets. Try to visit both or reach out to current students. Consider the costs as well. Good luck dude.