Duke freshman considering transferring to Northwestern

I just finished my first year at Duke, but for some personal reasons I haven’t loved it here. I have the option to transfer to Northwestern in the fall and think I would prefer it socially and location-wise.

I’m wondering how much harm this would cause to my finance-recruitment efforts. Duke and Northwestern are both very prestigious schools, but it seems like Duke does have a marginal edge in the finance world? Additionally, I’m involved with a couple of finance clubs at Duke (with decent leadership roles)--assuming that the best I could do at NU is be a member of a couple clubs by the time recruiting starts (and not club leadership), would that be a big negative, or not very important as long as my GPA + prior internships are strong? I’m primarily asking with respect to IB recruiting, although I also will probably try for PE and MBB. Also, my hope is to work in NYC after graduation–would this be prohibitively harder from NU, or is it just self-selection that causes it to have so many Chicago analysts?

I would appreciate any perspective people have on the strength of these two schools and how it might play out for recruiting. I don’t want to stay somewhere where I’m not too happy if it’s just a marginal difference, but I also want to fully understand what I’m getting into.

Note: I also have the option to go to Georgetown MSB, and although that might be better than these for IB, I feel like the overall package & prestige of Duke and NU far outweigh it.

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Ignore title, currently at MBB.
From talking to classmates and friends at Duke, it seemed like Duke was more institutionalized in the sense, that there was more of a clear pipeline and more folks were hung-ho on getting into IB. Not to say that NU doesn't place in IB, but I think it's fair to say that the student interest in Weinberg (the College) and McCormick (Engineering) are more diverse. We do seem to have a stronghold in Chicago with Chi though.

As far as MBB is concerned, we are one of *the* feeders for the major offices (NYC, Chi, SF) at MBB and T2/B4. I'd say that this is where we have a clear edge over Duke. 

 

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