UCL vs USC vs Georgetown vs Vanderbilt

Title says it all. I'm a US Citizen and while UCL is significantly cheaper, I want to know what's going to help me get a high finance career. I'd be open to staying in the UK for a couple of years.

Which one would you recommend?

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Genuinely can't answer about UCL. Don't really know anything about London recruiting other than Oxbridge placing well obviously. So I'll answer in terms of US recruiting.

For East Coast I'd say Georgetown>Vandy>USC, whereas for West Coast USC>Georgetown>Vandy

USC has an amazing alumni network and will be an incredibly fun school to go to. If you're looking to do IB in Cali for sure choose USC. Vandy is also a really fun school, I'd say equally as fun as USC given its SEC status. And they do really good placement as a semi target, however Georgetown has better placement. I'm not sure what the social life is like at Georgetown but you'd probably have a better time at Vandy or USC. That being said, if I were in your shoes I'd choose Georgetown, but that's because I'd love to live in DC for 4 years and want to work in NY.

 

Just my $0.02 as a UK student at top-target (Oxbridge), a few banks have been auto-dinging the Americans/non-EU internationals and most have not managed to place for SA so it seems they've been less keen on sponsoring visas even if they say they do

 

UCL is quite literally the Georgetown equivalent in the UK. So it all comes down to whether you would want to spend 3 years in London.

 

I agree with the poster above that UCL is as good as Georgetown. Given that UCL is significantly cheaper, and you are open to staying in the UK, I would think UCL is a no-brainer. For the US, I would think all schools have similar enough placement where it should be more about fit and cost. I would go with whatever school you see yourself at for the next 4 years. If you do well at any school, you will be able to get to IB. Also, especially right now I wouldn't want to have any debt coming out of undergrad.

 

UCL Student here, so obvious bias: Although UCL doesn't have the same reputation internationally as Oxbridge, Imperial and UCL probably place the most people in IB in London out of all UK universities, especially at BBs. Educationally, it really depends on the course you're taking but I'd argue that UCL is in the 5 top UK Unis, and climbing international rankings fast (although rankings may not mean shit, it placed in the top ten unis in the world the last two years). If you're happy to recruit in London in the short term and want to be in London, which is imo is a great, albeit v expensive, place to live then UCL is a no brainer. The comparison with Georgetown is very inaccurate I'm afraid, globally UCL was ranked #15, while Georgetown didn't break the top 100 (although I have heard great things about the school).

 

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