Duke v. Cornell (Dyson) v. Dartmouth

I am a senior who has been accepted to all 3 of the colleges above. My goal is to work in IB and eventually PE. I wanted to know which of these colleges would put me in the best position to accomplish my goals. Please offer any suggestions regarding the placement and on-campus recruiting presence for Duke, Cornell (Dyson), and Dartmouth. Also, if any of you have any insight into the alumni relations and connections of these schools, it would be greatly appreciated. Best, golf123!

54 Comments
 

Duke. Cornell and Dartmouth are great schools, but Duke's alumni network on the street is unparalleled. Dartmouth is a close second though.

to my understanding, pretty much most BBs and EBs recruit at these three schools so you should be fine anywhere

 

duke is not only the best school academically out of the 3, but will give you the best college experience. in terms of recruiting all somewhat similar but I would say Duke still beats out the other 2 - cornell might have raw numbers on wall street but its bc theyre undergrad population is much larger than the other 2. duke alumni are much more responsive as well. would say dartmouth is similar to duke as far as recruiting goes

 

At Columbia so no abundance of love for Cornell lol, but Dyson has insane recruiting. It's easy to get good grades there and I don't know anyone who's in Dyson and doesn't like it. I know many kids who were doing internships their sophomore year at hedge funds, KKR, TPG, etc. I don't know a single person who struggled to do banking if they wanted it. Duke is great and I have friends there too but going to an Ivy has its perks. Cornell honestly gets too much hate on this site because I don't know anyone who attends and hates it.

 

Cornell is an awesome, top tier school and Dyson crushes recruiting.

With all due respect (and I genuinely mean that), the reason it gets flak on this site and elsewhere can be perfectly exemplified by you stating "but going to an Ivy has its perks."

Cornell is hyper-obsessed with being included in the Ivy league, its nauseating. It is meaningless. Somebody shouldn't pick Duke/Stanford/MIT (etc.) over Cornell because it's a member of the Ivy League? Andy Bernard agrees. It consistently tries to draw benefits from this abstract association with other prestigious schools.

Even at the MBA level their marketing is hilarious #IvyMBA. Can somebody please describe said perks that come with going to this Ivy league school that don't also apply to top tier institutions who are not members?

When 80% of cross admits choose Duke over Cornell, clearly the "Ivy" perks have lost their luster.

 

Yes, Duke has higher rankings but that is just splitting hairs. When it comes down to any of these three schools it comes down to fit and my original point was that Dyson has great recruiting, light grading, and the Ivy brand helps. Just telling OP that the Cornell hate is honestly bullshit — that's all. The school has great engineering, business, and science. For what it's worth, I feel that all Ivy League schools except for Harvard are obsessed with being in the Ivy League.

 

For NYC/Boston/NE recruiting, Dartmouth, no contest. The best alumni network on the Street (Duke is admittedly just as good, but is hurt slightly by the geography). Every firm does OCR at Dartmouth, including firms like Audax, Bridgewater, KKR, etc. In addition, due to the D-Plan and the ability to do winter internships at Dartmouth, firms like Morgan Stanley and Cinven have specific Dartmouth only winter internships.

In terms of culture, Dartmouth and Duke are very similar.

 

All 3 schools are great…there is no wrong choice.

Current student at Cornell. I had no problems with recruiting. Pretty much all firms recruit at Cornell and some mega funds recruit too (BX, KKR). AEM & Hotel are easy and have a leg up over Econ/ILR IMO. Huge network on wall street, which is really helpful.

If you are interested in a traditional college experience/greek life, I would choose Duke or Dartmouth. Our president massacred Greek life and basically killed the entire social scene on campus. To be determined if her regulations will be scaled back.

I had a couple Dartmouth students in my group, and they all complained about how they did not like Dartmouth (econ major was difficult, weather was really bad, quality of girls, etc). Dartmouth alum might be able to shed some light on this.

If I were you, I would go Duke > Cornell = Dartmouth

 

Would give my left nut to go to Duke, be a Cameron Crazy.

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