ND Mendoza vs Vanderbilt vs Northwestern vs Georgetown MSB?

Also interested

Honestly I'd just go to the school you think you'd be the best fit for socially. They're all target schools that you will have great opportunities from. As for assimilating as a transfer, I can only speak to Georgetown, and the transfers I know have assimilated very well. But I heard that the culture has changed post COVID, so I'm really not sure.

I faced a similar decision (Georgetown MSB vs. Vanderbilt) three years ago, and ended up choosing Georgetown. Agree with both of the posts above – Gtown and ND will likely offer a marginal benefit to recruiting, but top placement is available at all of the above schools, so culture / location should be the main decision driver.

Some points I wish were highlighted when I was choosing between schools:

• No matter which school you choose, recruiting for IB / PE takes a lot of effort, and I’ve had plenty of friends that were confident they would land Evercore or GS / MS / JPM end up settling for other opportunities – your effort in interviewing prep and networking will matter a lot more than the school name on your resume. 
• At Georgetown, a lot of the social scene is determined by the clubs that you’re a part of, and I found recruiting for them (GUASFCU, GUSIF, Hilltop Consultants, etc.) to honestly be more stressful than recruiting for IB lol. I struck out at all of them besides one, so my social circle was considerably smaller than the school I transferred from.
• While the classes in the MSB are not hard, there used to be a curve applied such that you had to be in the top third or quarter of the class to get an A – most of the kids here are fairly smart, so some effort is required. While the curve has ~officially~ been discontinued after COVID, a lot of professors still use it.
• MF PE recruiting is possible from Gtown and probably all of the other schools you listed, but keep in mind that this is: 
  • 1) An unlikely outcome – at Georgetown, there are a handful of folks that land analyst programs at MF’s, but this usually in non-PE roles – ex. Strategic Partners (secondaries) at Blackstone, Private Credit at KKR, Real Estate at Ares, etc.. I know a handful that successfully recruited for PE investing roles at places like Warburg and KKR, but this is a top 0.5% outcome.
  • 2) Not necessarily in your interest – a lot of PE firms have been launching analyst programs recently, but the training and analyst experience is often not as helpful as the standard BB / EB analyst program. The environment and expectations at PE analyst programs are more along the lines of ‘sink or swim’, whereas in IB you’re constantly being handheld and told exactly what to do, with at least 4 people meticulously checking your deliverables.

Happy to offer more detail or answer any questions over PM. Best of luck with your decision and you honestly only have good options to choose from.

Recruiting wise, probably Georgetown>ND>Northwestern>Vanderbilt. Difference isn't big enough to justify taking one school over another solely for recruiting though.