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.

Most Helpful

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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