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Cornell. The only reason to maybe consider IU is if you'd have to go into severe debt for Cornell.
If you aren't totally socially inept, you will make friends at Cornell.
Self-study finance this summer and learn how to market yourself if you really are worried about your ECs. Also, most freshmen looking to join clubs won't have "impressive" finance experience either. Look up Cornell students on LinkedIn.
Go to Cornell. However, “easier” competition at IU is not the case. Insanely sharp kids at the top that, like you would be, aim for the IBW from the first day they get on campus.
Junior at Cornell University here. Would say that this school, although extremely difficult and stressful, has opened up so many doors for me. I recruited for IB midway through last semester (so my junior fall), which is extremely late, and I'm also a bio major with a lower GPA. Despite not having a good GPA or target major, I had a lot of success with networking--the alumni network at this school is great--and was able to get an internship for this summer. If this was the case at IU, I don't think anyone would even glance at me. There's almost this mutual respect between students who have gone here because everyone knows how hard it is.
I'll also note that the social scene is pretty good here, but it is very greek life centric (bars are for freshmen and are not that fun). That bieng said, there are a lot of houses, each with their own vibe, and you definitely don't need to be a frat star to do well socially here.
For clubs, recruitment ranges in difficulty. I literally had four interviews for a finance club, and business fraternities are even harder. But one of my friends got into a separate "business society" while having a resume that was 3 pages long, and he didn't even own a pair of dress shoes at the time.
Cornell all the way, man. Just be prepared to work really hard, and for it to be cold outside!
Thank you for sharing! As I said, I’m from the area so I’m well aware of how the weather can be haha. Do you know how difficult econ is compared to bio? I have heard that it’s mostly just applied calc and classes are usually curved to B+/A-.
My friends who are econ say its pretty easy. They all have 3.7+ GPAs, and go out like 3-4 times a week. That bieng said, these guys still have to work, but the easier difficulty of the classes allows you to do well if you study hard. For stem though, you can spend a week in the library and still do horribly.
that's like asking if you should get Porshe Cayenne or Ford Focus
I'll cut you some slack since you're still really young but this is kind of an insane question. You're even considering IU (when it's not even cheap)?
Don't think twice about this. Go to Cornell and don't look back. Yeah, it probably won't be as fun as IU, but most people I know from the school actually seemed to like it (and not even all of those kids were in Greek life, granted most of them weren't in insanely hard majors like biology). As long as you're not completely antisocial, I can assure you that you will have plenty of opportunities to make friends.
I saw some kid on here pick IU over Vanderbilt and I felt so irritated even though I had zero connection to the poster. I think that kid at least saved a decent bit of money by going to IU but thought it was a pretty questionable call. Would argue picking IU over Cornell in this situation would be an even worse call.
Agree with all of the pro Cornell sentiments above. Also, if either college experience becomes bad for whatever reason and you want out, your chances of transferring to another "top" school from Cornell are way higher than from IU (still obviously competitive either way)
I just graduated from Cornell. If you join a decent fraternity you'll be more than content with the social scene. Was definitely a lot of fun and gives you a ton of professional connections
As someone going to IU this fall, here is my advice. Cornell. Run to Cornell. Its a target, whereas Kelley is a non-target (unless you get into the IBW, in which case it is a low semi-target). Still, even with the IBW, IU is nothing compared to Cornell.
I went to IU before transferring to a target. Go to Cornell - the IBW only has 60-70 spots and half (maybe even over half) are reserved for diversity kids. Girls with 3.5s get in...and their placement wasn't even good this year
Who's placement wasn't good this year? IBW as a whole or just women/diversity in IBW? Also, are you saying SA ‘23 placement wasn’t good… because if So, recruitment hasn’t even ended??
Sorry - I meant last year's class meaning this summer. Yes, IBW as a whole has subpar placement
If you're enough of a hardo to be on here as a high school student and smart enough to get into Cornell, you will absolutely be able to get a job in IB coming out of IU and I guarantee your college experience will be much more fun and way less stressful than it would be in Ithaca.
Agree with this comment. Yes, Cornell is obviously going to get you many more looks, but IU is very possible to break in from and I'd venture 90% of the kids applying to the workshop don't even know what IB is senior year of HS. I'd also factor in NYC v Other Cities... want to be in Chicago? I'd do IU, anywhere else, then Cornell. Had some friends in Bloomington during college though, and can say B-town is an absolute blast with very attractive (albeit sometimes illiterate) women.
I think this is an underrated comment that brings up a valid point. If you take any target kid and send them to UF, IU IBW, etc (i.e., mediocre, non-target state schools), they'll likely have the world at their hands. Acceptance to a target validates that they're leagues above the majority of regular accepted kids and should easily place into any finance/IB or investment fund society/organization, get 4.0 w/ ease, be able to master technicals in free time, etc. - all while having fun college experience. The whole reason for the need for targets is that 99% of LMM state school kids are incapable of surviving in IB, so it's an easy filter (generalization). But a smart kid who's shown dedication, hard work, and aptitude in high school (via acceptance to Ivy) will breeze by in these institutions and will easily stand out. IMO, one of the main misconceptions amongst kids who go to non-targets like LMM state schools is that they see kids break in and think that it might be hard but is doable. However, the reality is many of these spots at state schools are gobbled by financially constrained, hard working students who got into these Ivy's but couldn't attend due to cost. The natural talent + grit will always beat out any normal Brad finance frat bro.
Finance clubs at Cornell are insanely competitive but you don't really need one to get a good job. I'm an econ major at Cornell and honestly the econ department sucks, lots of professors that can't be bothered with teaching, the usual bad stuff. I would still say Cornell > IU though because Cornell cranks out some of the best placements in the country consistently. Gotta be on top of your shit tough.
IU Kelley Grad here. Finance coursework at IU was not easy while I was there. The school is very focused on rankings, and professors were required to curve classes to a C average. Its been a while since I graduated so this may have changed. I also was not IBW and turned out fine, so wouldn't say not being in the IBW diminishes your prospects significantly.
Also about it being more fun. I was just back in town for little 5 weekend to meetup with some old friends. Its completely different now, the students never had a class to show them how to go to the bars etc. because of covid. I would say its probably still fun, but nothing compared to how it used to be. The cherry on top is that there seems to be a shooting every week at IU, its insane, on Saturday 3 people got shot in a popular bar.
If I was in your shoes I would choose Cornell.
Side note, way less attractive people at IU than before it seemed like, not sure what happened, maybe I'm just getting old.
Choose Cornell.
You'll never recover from having to write IU on your resume in comparison.
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