Duke vs. UC Berkeley Regents

Hey Guys,
I've recently been admitted to Duke and UC Berkeley with a Regents scholarship (awarded to the top ~2% of the entering class). A lot of things will factor into my decision, such as social life, location, research opportunities, etc., but I wanted some information purely from an IB/consulting recruiting perspective. (I've also been waitlisted at Wharton and Princeton and will absolutely pursue those options, but it's statistically unlikely I'll get off those waitlists). I understand that this may change, but as of now consulting looks like the most appealing career option (because it's basically a new job every few months without changing employers, it uses the broadest range of skills as compared to ibanking, and the cross country travel actually sounds awesome) followed by investment banking.

I understand that if I get into Haas, Berkeley will teach me skills that are more relevant to an ibanking job than Duke econ. Of course, the flipside is that there's no guarantee of Haas and then I'd be at a recruiting disadvantage, but honestly I feel like it's unlikely I won't get in to Haas because I'm supposedly in the top 2% of the entering class.

Will I be able to leverage my Regents status when sending resumés and interviewing? Will the bulge brackets/MBBs care about this?

I understand that Duke is a target for the bulge brackets — does this hold true for the MBBs as well? On LinkedIn there seem to be some Duke alumni at the MBBs but it looks like they're mostly in the Atlanta office, not NYC, while most Duke grads at the bulge brackets seem to be front office NYC positions.

On Berkeley's career survey for Haas grads, it looks like a sizable number go into ibanking/consulting, but half the class also goes in to accounting, which doesn't look too appealing.

Also, I REALLY want to live on the east coast after graduation, and I noticed almost all Haas grads stay in SF - is this by choice? Can Haas grads get interviews with NYC offices of bulge brackets/MBBs?

One more thing: Berkeley is half the price of Duke.

Thanks for all your help!

 

If you're at all interested in tech (tech IB or VC), definitely take Berkeley. The large class sizes and student population suck but you'll be in a much better position. If you're dead set on East Coast IB/consulting, Duke should be your choice.

Just remember that your interests may change.

 
Best Response

If this is for Engineering, UC Berkeley is kind of a slam dunk here.

For a liberal arts degree, or for business if your goal is the east coast, it's very, very debatable.

As someone who really enjoyed the large school experience, I'm naturally biased towards Berkeley. Duke may be worth more than Berkeley, but I'm not sure the difference is worth $200K.

These state school scholarship programs carry some weight and marketability. I was in a similar one at UIUC. But GPA matters a whole lot more. And the boost is a lot more modest than the selectivity would imply.

If you want banking or something businessey, get into Haas get a 3.9 GPA, enjoy California, and kick some East Coast butt when it comes to wall street recruiting in three years.

You may also give some thought to an engineering or computer science degree. Berkeley has the best Engineering program in the country (OK, it's in a three way tie with MIT and Stanford according to US News) It kicks Ivy League butt in hackathons, research, placements, and quality of the graduates. (However, unlike the ivies, not everyone who starts in engineering graduates.)

If you get into Princeton or Wharton, it's only worth the $200K extra in tuition if you're pretty sure you want banking or consulting. Honestly, I think these are all good programs with roughly the same kinds of students and the difference really doesn't matter for recruiting except for banking and consulting. If anything, Berkeley may give you an advantage over Princeton or Wharton for the tech firms.

Again, this is just my opinion. Nearly everyone on WSO will tell you that I have a state school bias, and I'll admit they're probably right (with the caveat that WSO has a clear east coast private school bias.)

 
paknightpa:
Stay at Berkeley. Haas and even L&S gets recruited pretty well. DSP is for tools though, join Berkeley Consulting or something instead.

Really? I heard the exact opposite. Haas = target; UCB w/o Haas = non-target. UCB chapter of DSP is regarded as one of the strongest b-frats on the West Coast. Both DSP/UCB Consulting are HIGHLY competitive and if you are not in either of them.... well you'll need lots of luck.

 
ricochetX:
UC Berkeley is an Ivy but Duke isn't so UCB might be the better option among those "in the know" who don't watch basketball

Are you retarded?

And, I agree with the poster above me who said that it will be more difficult to make friends as you will be trying to break into established friend groups.

 

I say flip a coin. Berkley is a top school as well as Duke. What part of the country do you want to work in?

I think cliques wont be an issue unless you are introverted. Just make some friends and you will be fine.

 

I want to go to NYC afterwards. but i don't know if it's hard for an international to get jobs there. I don't like the people in berkeely. most of them don't have social life. But some people are telling me that students in Duke are from wealthy background, so they could be really restricted about standards for friend and have their own community. Is that true?

I'm going to visit Duke this Thursday.

 

You need to visit the school before you make your mind up.

Duke has a very strange reputation on the east coast and in the southeast. It has a strange social awkwardness to it. The school reputation itself is strong, but the social life in general is considered poor.

Additionally, the closest point of finance to Duke is Charlotte, which is about three hours south. The ability to intern while going to school there is very unlikely. With Wells Fargo acquiring Wachovia and transitioning into a BB bank, I think you're personally better off in the bay area for any sort of internship, against Atlanta or Charlotte.

I would personally stay at UC Berkeley, having been to Duke on numerous occasions. The only exceptions I would make is if you generally enjoy the 'feel' of Duke upon visiting or want to work exclusively on the east coast (and even in this case, primarily in the Southeast ie. Atlanta/Charlotte).

Either way, both are excellent schools, and from a career standpoint I don't think it will matter too much as long as you do well academically and network appropriately.

 

aloq,

To say that Duke places students primarily in the southeast is a little off base. Duke has very strong placement in New York (which is on the east coast, but that is also where most IB HQs are located).

Just doing a quick search of Duke's alumni database (an optional database, so there are only about 5K people registered on it) I get:

NYC - 441 alumni ATl - 149 Charlotte - 77

Again this is out of the roughly 5K alumni registered.

If you look at Duke's career statistics (undergraduate) you also can see the following:

Top Job Locations 1. New York 2. Washington DC 3. Raleigh-Durham 4. Atlanta 5. Boston
6. Houston

Top Hiring Industries (% of Total) Finance/Banking (26) Consulting (19) Education (11) Engineering/Technology (11) Government (6) BioTech/Pharma/Research (6) Healthcare (4)

Top 5 Employers 1. Teach for America 2. Morgan Stanley 3. Bank of America 4. Goldman Sachs 5. ExxonMobile 5. The Boston Consulting Group 5. Barclays Capital 5. Microsoft

-This info was taken from: http://www.studentaffairs.duke.edu/career/stats

Considering that Goldman Sachs is the 4th largest employer of Duke students (these are 2009 statistics) I would say things are going pretty well.

In 2008 Goldman was 3rd and 32% went into banking.

You are right though, not a lot of West Coast recruiting, but definitely a strong NYC and DC representation.

 

You mentioned sorority which leads me to believe you're a girl. A girl with a high GPA and a finance degree has a better chance than almost anyone (I say almost because people like Jamie Dimons daughter probably has a good chance) of getting into an IB job. I go to a private school about the same size as Duke (albeit not in financial resources, just student size) which is also located about an hour from Duke. It's a tough decision as Berkley isn't very easy to get into either. But if you can get into Duke, I think I would probably go there (although Durham is a rough area).

The school is top notch and is what people around here call the "Ivy League of the South" (Vandy, Duke, WFU, Emory, etc). As for social stuff, they always host the sickest concerts with top performing artists. I have a friend who is starting his first year at the Fuqua School of Business there and he's pretty excited. There's also some GREAT firms in the area to get into (specifically, Morgan Creek Capital).

 

TheATL,

Thanks for the statistics. The city rankings will be like that with every school, because more often than not, you're going to have the majority of students at an East Coast school go to NYC or DC outside of graduation.

While I don't doubt East Coast firms recruit heavily out of Duke, I also think they are looking at Duke (+Emory/UNC/UVA) after Ivies and the NESCAC schools. Do you generally agree with this?

 

aloq,

You are right that most schools will have a larger number of alumni in NYC and DC. I also agree that some Ivy League schools will fare better in IB and consulting recruiting, but I wouldn't say that Duke is lumped in with UNC, Emory, UVA, etc., although I do not know as much about those schools as I do about Duke (so I am probably biased).

It is also a little difficult to find what recruiters go to these other schools. From what I can find (and this is limited so anyone who has attended or is attending these schools please feel free to chime in) more finance and consulting firms recruit at Duke than at UNC/Emory or NESCAC schools (although NESCAC schools will get some boutiques that Duke might not).

In terms of the big consulting firms just about every year Duke has the following well known firms for on campus recruiting (different than just a random job posting):

BCG, Bain, McKinsey, LEK, Dean & Co, Cambridge Associates, Accenture, Deloitte, PwC, EY, Booz & Co, Monitor, Mars & Co, FTI, Analysis group, etc etc etc

And the same type of thing for banking (GS, MS, JPM, BofA, UBS, CS, Lazard, etc).

But like I said if anyone at these other schools care to chime in on the recruiting at these schools I would love to hear about it, because I am having trouble finding much information online.

 

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all your information. I've made my decision- I'm going to Duke.

for career and academics wise, I think either one is about the same. For social life, I think I would like Duke more. Or I want to experience the life there. It is the only time one can live in a college town type place. So I don't think I would regret my decision.

For the networking of DSP, I contacted the central office for the frat and will build a new chapter at Duke. So I think everything will be fine.

 

I find it amazing that you'd go through all this trouble to move to a school that's not much better because of a "perceived" better social life. I really do.

If you can't get a decent social life in the SFBA, I'm not sure how you're going to have a decent social life in one of the most exclusive and cliquish schools in the country.

 

It's too bad I just found out about this thread, or I could've helped convince you to stay at Cal. I too disliked it when I first got in, but I eventually got used it and liked the experience more and more. With top 20 colleges, the quality of the student pool is more or less similar, and you really shouldn't be tempted by the "grass is always greener" mentality.

As for fraternities, the quality varies by location. Just because DSP is has high placement in Cal doesn't mean it will be the same for Duke. The whole point of a business frat is to build connections through alumni of the brotherhood in order to secure interview spots and job offers. Those connections will be very weak if you are going to be one of the founding members. And every chapter's reputation is based on the management style at the school it is in. BAP is relatively weak in Cal, but it is a lot stronger at other school.

 

I think this is a bad choices. Based off your original post I think you'l have trouble breaking into Duke's old money/sweet lax bro dominated social scene. And how can you make this decision if you haven't visited the campus? Very I'll advised. UC Berkeley is just as good as Duke and a lot cheaper, and the Bay Area is way better than shit North Carolina.

 

Consequatur eius est placeat assumenda aut eaque. Iste dolore saepe quam nulla. Maiores et quam reprehenderit tempora voluptatibus. In ea unde quia velit.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
5
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
6
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
7
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
10
numi's picture
numi
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”