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!
Duke will go a lot farther on the East Coast than Berkeley will
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.
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.)
Duke triumphs Berkeley for MBB consulting as per last years full time offers. Duke got 39 offers and Berkeley had 22. Duke also does place its grads into BB of NYC for consulting. IB is basically a toss up but I am not sure this matters since the difference between the two schools is clearly not worth $200k.
Duke and UC Berkeley (Originally Posted: 07/03/2010)
So I'm making a really hard decision now. I'm a incoming Sophomore in UC Berkeley now. I didn't really like it at the beginning, so I applied transfer to Duke and I got the offer. But after a year, you know, I'm kind of getting used to the life here. I got a campus job, and am doing an intern in SF now. I can probably get into a business fraternity next semester, which can help me get into Haas. I will rush a sorority, too. It seems like I got everything here, though I'm still not really enjoying the scenes here.
For Duke, I do want to go there. I always want to go to a private college and become close friends w/ lots of people(because duke requires all students to live on campus for three years, which is a really good experience). I like that. Also, I think the students are more social and self-motivated there than in Berkeley. But I haven't visited there yet, so I 'm not 100% sure. Also, I'm international student from Asia, so I want to go to a place with few Asian people, which is definitely the opposite in Berkeley. These were my primary transfer reasons.
But I do have to think about the transfer in career wise. In Berkeley, I kind of have some network already, like the business frat. And I'm familiar with everything, school work, activities. I would like to run for an office position in the students government next year. Those are the reasons i want to stay here.
For Duke, there's only one frat, AKPsi, which is also newly built. I heard my friends saying that it's not influential on campus at all... But in berkeley, DSP is like really good. So about that part I have no idea how to compare. And like in Duke is there any other ways I can get really good networking?
I want to do consulting or maybe finance afterwards, probably go to NYC or SF or HK.
And most my friends are concerning about my getting along with people there. Because they already built up friendship during the first year, so it might be hard for me to step into the circle. But I don't think it would be a big problem for me, because I can be really outgoing and hang out with people a lot. And as a sophomore, I still have 3 years to know the students there, right? Also, about the Greek life in Duke. Are the sororities really hard to get in? Because I want to join one for sure. Are they exclusive for Asians?
I really need help for this decision. Thank you so much!!
Hands down Duke.
What this guy said.
Cal is good!
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.
WAHH! HANDS UP. HANDS UP. HERES ANOTHER ONE. WHY YOU ALL IN MY EAR, TALKIN A WHOLE BUNCH OF SH I DON WANNA HEAR??? GET BACK, YOU DON'T KNOW ME LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!
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.
about Duke giving you a better opportunity to make close friends, in your case it might be difficult since you were not there for the 1st year and many people have probably already formed their 'cliques'
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.
if you want to be on westcoast, UCB, if east, Duke
stay at Cal and focus on getting in to Haas.
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.
goodluck
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.
Fair points. Thanks for the input. I do know first hand the upper NESCAC schools are prime for MM/boutique firms. I think the BB's recruit at the top three.
Nonetheless, good information. Go braves.
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.
Good luck. I know you'll do well in OCR just based on that statement.
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.
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