NYU Stern or Dartmouth for undergrad?

My college choices are narrowed to NYU Stern or Dartmouth.

I'm an Asian boy from NYC and would like to major in Finance.

Last weekend, I went to NYU open house. Overall, many Asian people there. The Stern building is grand. The school emphasis on location, location, and location. There are many great intern opportunities.

Today, I headed north to join Dartmouth open house. I have to spend 5+hrs for the bus to get there, and 7+hrs amtrak train to get back while the return bus tickets were sold out. Basically 3-day trip for 1-day event.

If I choose NYU Stern over Dartmouth, anything I missed or regret in future?

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

You're going to have a much more well-rounded and fun college experience at Dartmouth. Unless you think you can kill it against all of the competition you'll be getting at Stern, Dartmouth is the smarter choice for you.... let alone its alumni network being that much stronger and being a target for most, if not all (minus 2-3 places), firms.

 

A chance to get away from home, a fun new experience, test your comfort zone.. a chance at an ivy league education. It's 18% asian there.

If you like living in the city, that's fine, but 99 out of 100 times, I'd choose Dartmouth.

 

My only comment for you in particular is to not pick your school by %Asians. Get out of your comfort zone, but make sure that the fratty in-the-middle-of-nowhere culture at Dartmouth suits you. Given the prestige difference - the null assumption is to lean Dartmouth, unless you have more compelling reasons to define yourself at Stern. How set are you on finance? Do you prefer competitive or academic environments? How strong is your preference for NYC?

For finance in particular, there will be a slightly larger variety of firms that recruit locally at Stern due to convenience reasons. In terms of bulges, the recruiting will be nearly identical. For MBB, Dartmouth just kills Stern.

OpsDude:

I went to Stern undergrad, definitely go to Dartmouth.

It's a pity that your next vendetta is to shit on your own school on every thread. Then again, my friends at Stern tell me that only the bottom-barrel kids end up scraping for jobs in ops so maybe you do have a reason for your agenda. On the other hand, since MO/BO office don't even recruit at Dartmouth, God knows if you'd even have a job somewhere else.
 
Dren:

My only comment for you in particular is to not pick your school by %Asians. Get out of your comfort zone, but make sure that the fratty in-the-middle-of-nowhere culture at Dartmouth suits you. Given the prestige difference - the null assumption is to lean Dartmouth, unless you have more compelling reasons to define yourself at Stern. How set are you on finance? Do you prefer competitive or academic environments? How strong is your preference for NYC?

For finance in particular, there will be a slightly larger variety of firms that recruit locally at Stern due to convenience reasons. In terms of bulges, the recruiting will be nearly identical. For MBB, Dartmouth just kills Stern.

OpsDude:

I went to Stern undergrad, definitely go to Dartmouth.

It's a pity that your next vendetta is to shit on your own school on every thread. Then again, my friends at Stern tell me that only the bottom-barrel kids end up scraping for jobs in ops so maybe you do have a reason for your agenda. On the other hand, since MO/BO office don't even recruit at Dartmouth, God knows if you'd even have a job somewhere else.

You'll fit in well in banking with your personality.

I had a front office offer at BlackRock that they reneged on due to the financial crisis. Very few people of the class of 2009 found good jobs - which is part of my criticism of Stern for having an over-reliance on finance and a handful of employers (Almost impossible to get MBB from Stern). Friends at peer schools did not have the difficulties Stern had in employment in 2009. Likewise, the student body and environment (cut-throat environment) sucked there.

Stern has a bunch of pecularities that quite frankly stinked - You need to be considerably more knowledge than peer schools during interviews, and you're pretty much required to have during the school year internships. Friends who go to peer schools such as Duke can party throughout college, learn some basics about banking, and they are fine and get BB offers. At Stern you need to do a ton of bullshit you won't have to do at Dartmouth, and do it around much shittier people.

 
Best Response
OpsDude:
Dren:

My only comment for you in particular is to not pick your school by %Asians. Get out of your comfort zone, but make sure that the fratty in-the-middle-of-nowhere culture at Dartmouth suits you. Given the prestige difference - the null assumption is to lean Dartmouth, unless you have more compelling reasons to define yourself at Stern. How set are you on finance? Do you prefer competitive or academic environments? How strong is your preference for NYC?

For finance in particular, there will be a slightly larger variety of firms that recruit locally at Stern due to convenience reasons. In terms of bulges, the recruiting will be nearly identical. For MBB, Dartmouth just kills Stern.

OpsDude:

I went to Stern undergrad, definitely go to Dartmouth.

It's a pity that your next vendetta is to shit on your own school on every thread. Then again, my friends at Stern tell me that only the bottom-barrel kids end up scraping for jobs in ops so maybe you do have a reason for your agenda. On the other hand, since MO/BO office don't even recruit at Dartmouth, God knows if you'd even have a job somewhere else.

You'll fit in well in banking with your personality.

I had a front office offer at BlackRock that they reneged on due to the financial crisis. Very few people of the class of 2009 found good jobs - which is part of my criticism of Stern for having an over-reliance on finance and a handful of employers (Almost impossible to get MBB from Stern). Friends at peer schools did not have the difficulties Stern had in employment in 2009. Likewise, the student body and environment (cut-throat environment) sucked there.

Stern has a bunch of pecularities that quite frankly stinked - You need to be considerably more knowledge than peer schools during interviews, and you're pretty much required to have during the school year internships. Friends who go to peer schools such as Duke can party throughout college, learn some basics about banking, and they are fine and get BB offers. At Stern you need to do a ton of bullshit you won't have to do at Dartmouth, and do it around much shittier people.

But dude, why lie? Why blame the economy? Your gpa was extremely poor by FO standards, you spent your junior summer in ops, and unsurprisingly ended up in ops again for full-time. And FYI, BlackRock was not one of the firms known for reneging offers. Spending a summer there sophmore year and not getting a return simply does not count.

I actually picked Stern over Dartmouth. I couldn't stand my visit there - my host actually ditched me to go out to a frat party. I received shit from everyone I know about this choice, and actually regretted it myself for the first few years. There's too many Asians at NYU, the social scene is peculiar, and the city is something to get used to. The school itself is piss easy and not once was the competitiveness anything less than just good motivation to get going. In the end, the placement statistics at NYU do not lie. Pretty much everyone gets a job, one way or another. Career was my priority going in, and I worked at 5 different firms before graduating. If you really wanted finance, there's very little you can argue against when you're in NYC with a finance professors who are currently practicing in the industry (which can't even be said about other programs out there).

With that said, my interests were narrow. If you have ANY interest in engineering, entrepreneurship, MBB recruiting you should definitely be packing your bags for somewhere else.

 

Excellent posts! Thank you for referring to this "Duke vs. NYU Stern" thread.

To be competitive at Stern for IB, shall I have two majors in Stern - Finance+Stats, or Finance + Math in CAS?

 
HelloKiddy:

Excellent posts! Thank you for referring to this "Duke vs. NYU Stern" thread.

To be competitive at Stern for IB, shall I have two majors in Stern - Finance+Stats, or Finance + Math in CAS?

Finance + Math or Finance + Accounting is probably the best if you can get good grades despite the strict curves; elsewise, Finance + CAS major with an easy curve will help you. I took 2 politics classes at NYU (was going to do Finance and Politics co-major) and got an A in both of them with minimal work, I usually got between a B and A- in the Stern classes. If I had taken 9 Politics classes, definitely would've pumped up my GPA a bit. Recruiting is very GPA based, so if you have a high GPA and finance as one of your majors, you'll look good.

 

Dartmouth, no question. Green key weekend, winter carnival and homecoming are unreal there. Plus the alumni network is exponentially stronger than Stern's. Dartmouth will open your eyes in more ways than one. I can honestly say that it is the best college experience in the US. Plus their mascot is a keg. Legendary.

 

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