Brown vs. Duke vs. NYU Stern vs. UMich Ross

If social life is less of a deciding factor, Stern. If she wants the full college experience, Ross. If she wants a mix of both, Duke or Brown.

Brown is a core school for some consulting firms.

What's up with Brown? Aren't they supposed to be a pretty good school? And yet, I've hardly heard of anyone who's really excited to be admitted to Brown...

I would guess that the majority of Brown's student body isn't all that interested in working on Wall Street. I went to Duke so I'm trying to push her to go there but I want her to get some balanced opinion so she isn't balanced. Recruiting at Duke was fantastic and I liked the college experience but its tough to compare when you can only go to one college. Thanks for the opinions!

It is a great school. But i don't think it's that good for finance-related recruiting, though. Apparently Brown doesn't even have a GPA system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Definitely Duke. Great placement in finance, and you can't beat the weather. The social scene at Ross is better but not by much. I wouldn't even consider Stern in this set of schools but as for Brown, from what I've heard there is less competition for finance recruiting. Decision's easy - go with Duke.

Everyone (at least 90 percent) at brown who wants break into banking succeeds. It's also a target for MBB especially Bain and a few prop trading firms e.g. sig, jane street etc.

I would pick either Duke or UMich to get the best balance between the college experience and best OCR/opportunities in finance.

NYU Stern and Duke are the best out of those for placement.

I'd go with Brown! Ivy league + Good City + Good Social Vibe. Brown has smarter students but less competition (both academically, because of their curriculum, and because there is less interest in wall street jobs). Sure, Duke/Stern may have more students on Wall Street, but that's because they also have a lot more kids who want to be on Wall Street. At Brown, all the top firms recruit but there are a lot fewer ppl clawing their way into the jobs. Brown also places better into high tech (Google, Facebook, etc) and consulting (MBB) than Ross/Duke/Stern.

I wasn't sure about banking which is why I posed the question for my cousin but it's highly unlikely that Brown is better recruited for MBB than Duke-there were about 30ish kids in my graduating class last year who got jobs as Associates at those three companies. My roommate is an AC at Bain so that's how I know. I don't know much about Stern or Ross but I'm assuming there's a gap between Brown/Duke and these two schools in management consulting since its such a prestige-oriented industry.

Brown/Duke are interchangeable, both excellent undergrads with top brand. I would consider NYU in 2nd tier compared to these schools. Also, remember college is a place for discovery, you want he the option of exploring different majors and professions. Duke and Brown both have excellent prelaw, premed, engineering, and liberal arts paths from which to choose and take advantage of. You can't go wrong with either school, good position to be in.

Penn M&Ter Kellogg MBA

I turned down Duke last year and can offer you a little bit more detailed list of pros and cons here. You can look through my old thread as well ('Columbia vs Duke Undergraduate') for opinions.

Pros: Decent weather Gorgeous campus Very undergrad focused Tremendous facilities for undergrads A lot of school spirit Great wall street and consulting placement

Cons: Douchey Very douchey Very, very douchey Anti-intellectual

Duke is better than the other three for finance/consulting. I have a friend in a frat there and he's having a blast. Best academics among your options as well.

Duke if you are interested in both finance/consulting. If you only want MBB consulting then Brown. No clue about Ross. Stern is a non target for MBB consulting. I would choose Duke/ Brown based on fit with me leaning towards Duke for athletics.

Is this serious? Duke is by far the best one on here. Rarely do I get annoyed by a comment on here, but Bernankey's one is just honestly retarded. Duke is a top ten school, places heavily into finance and IBD, and has a better social scene than any other school you listed (except maybe UMich). Duke undergrad is much better for a resume than Fuqua (Duke's MBA program) is.

The douchey thing is so retarded I can't even fathom that it's a factor. Every top ten school is elitist, and Columbia is = Duke pretty much across the board. You might like certain things about each school, I went to Duke over Columbia (got into both), but it was a very close call. When I took into account the weather, social scene, similar opportunities, athletics, and finally that Duke has the best hospital for the illness that I have in the country- it wasn't too hard of a choice.

Did she go to Blue devil days? Sucks if she didn't. Almost everyone I know that went decided to go. Go to Duke, join a sorority (she'll figure out the good ones), have fun. I don't know anyone that wanted a job that doesn't have one. Well, except for me. But that's because I'm on the list for a lung transplant and I have a long list of qualifiers for how much I need to be paid, benefits, etc. Trust me, everyone here loves it. I am gonna miss it so much when I graduate next week.

I think it's between Brown and Duke here. Personally I'd go for Brown on the off chance that she decided not to go into banking/consulting. Brown may not get the same level of recruiting as Duke but once your resume is in front of a recruiter, it won't make any difference unless he/she is a Duke alumn. Then again, I'm a New England elitist so there's a bias there.

You went to Duke, so you should know all the pros and cons. I'd definitely go with Duke for consulting or banking. Sure, there are less people at Brown pursuing either banking or consulting, but that also means there are less alumni that could help you get your foot in the door.

If the tuition is a factor and she is in-state for Michigan, then that might have greater value.

It all depends on whether you are set on doing business or not.

If you want to work on Wall St, it is usually HYPS Wharton > Duke = Stern = Cornell > Ross > Brown. At least in terms of the number of incoming analysts.

But if you want to have a regular college experience, Duke > Brown > U Mich > NYU

Duke no question...Bernankey you are the biggest idiot so it's funny you tell someone else not to speak out of their ass.

I think everyone here including me is biased since each bank has its favorites. Morgan Stanley, BAML, and UBS recruit extremely heavilly at Duke while I've heard that BAML and JP Morgan recruit strongly at Cornell. I've heard that Goldman Sachs likes Brown a lot so its a core hunting ground there.

More people apply to banking from Cornell or Stern than Duke and definitely more than Brown from what it seems. Cornell is surprisingly only slightly smaller than Michigan and their undergraduate business school (AEM) is a lot smaller than Ross. However, Ross is probably better than being a regular Cornell A&S student or in ILR.

That's just what I've heard from friends on the Street.

^That's actually not true. I personally know someone in the AEM program who's going to IBD at JP Morgan...so it's definitely not just Econ/Econ/ILR. There's definitely more than 3 kids.

By the way, I should mention that I'm only talking about New York. There are some people who got offers from Asia (Hong Kong) and Europe.

The undergrad classes at Cornell and Michigan are magnitudes larger than those at Brown and Duke. Relative to its size, Brown places extremely well in banking--I suspect better than the others mentioned here.

Also, for what it's worth, the Brown name is much more prestigious in NYC, Wall Street and the Northeast than Duke's. At least, that has been my experience.

I respectfully disagree and certainly don't think that "far more" is even an arguable point.

I lived in Boston for 6 years and I don't know whether it's because there aren't that many Duke grads in the city or because college sports aren't all that big there, but when people think great schools in Boston, Brown will come up a whole lot faster than Duke. But don't get me wrong, Duke is an excellent school and I don't think anybody in NE would feel differently.

cheese86, just because you are super confident does not mean that you are right.

Let this thread die.

Duke sent 30 to MBB; Brown sent 18 to GS in 2011. Both great schools and are about equal in prestige.

Those figures are completely spot on actually; I went to Duke so I knew the MBB figure was in that ballpark and I did a LinkedIn search on "Goldman Sachs" and "Brown" which shows that about that many got Goldman from Brown in 2011. All banks seem to have their favorites-Goldman likes Brown, Morgan Stanley likes Duke, and JP Morgan likes Cornell. For what its worth, Ross didn't have nearly as many analysts at Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan as the other three schools.

Let's close this thread. The longer we keep this going, the more people are going to come on here to defend their own schools (or to make up ridiculous rankings that are based on nothing)

All those schools are great. Where ever you go, just keep your grades up and do your best to network.

Duke/Brown > both Michigan and Stern, no doubt.

She can't go wrong with either Duke or Brown, and shouldn't put future job prospects high on her list when it comes to making the decision. Everything else is far more important (academics, student life, location, culture, etc.).

I went to Penn undergrad. Coincidentally didn't make it into either Brown or Duke. However, from what I've seen during my short stint on wall street, it appears as though Duke has the definitive edge. My friends in consulting tell me that Duke is a big feeder into MBB, on par with Penn and Columbia, and a notch below HYP. This is anecdotal obviously, so don't regard it as gospel truth. However, I have found this to be the case in my experience.