UG: Dartmouth vs UChicago
Have to make a decision regarding Dartmouth and Uchicago. Which one is a bigger target for NYC IBD?
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I think dartmouth
Dartmouth has a stronger and closer alumni base
Dartmouth is more of a target for NYC IB, but UChicago is more of a target for Chicago IB. You will also have more fun at Dartmouth.
yes, if you find being isolated in a small college town 24/7 for 4 years "fun"
Chicago offices are tiny. UChicago does well in Chicago, but we definitely do much better in NYC given the sheer number of opportunities there.
You'll be fine for IBD at both schools, so don't worry about placement at this point. Look at the culture, location, ect. These schools are drastically different, and remember that you'll be spending four years there.
I'm currently at UofC and having access to Chicago is obviously the biggest perk. We also have top business, law, and med programs, so I'd say we have a bigger base of alumni to draw from. FYI many of the recruiting channels for UofC are through the MBA alumni.
Feel free to message me with questions.
Thanks for the responses everyone. Dartmouth seems to align more closely to NYC but UChicago is a great school too. Difficult choice.
What do you want? For what its worth, I went to Dartmouth and loved it. That being said...
If you want to be super nerdy, academic and really intellectually stimulated and live in a big city with tons of cultural/culinary options, then UChicago, without a doubt. I am sure top firms interview there, and if they don't as much you can network with alumni, ask professors etc. UChicago is no slouch and don't let people here and other places who are obsessed with "Ivy Leagues plus MIT/Stanford" convince you otherwise. Remember that a lot of your profs will be Nobel types, especially in Economics. They might not actually teach or be good at it (or they might...)
Dartmouth is much more outdoorsy, social, partying etc. It's a rural setting, beautiful, stunning and in a bubble. Most of your peers will not be as geeky (this is neither good nor bad, just they way it is). People will be super smart, work very hard and you can find the nerdy/geeky crowd, but it won't be as prevalent as in UChicago. People will be doing clubs, sports, committees, etc, and a fair few people party really hard, since, well, its cold, you're in a small town etc. On top of them being really smart. The outdoorsy stuff at Dartmouth is incredible. Fishing, Camping in the woods of rural NH in cabins that Dartmouth owns, ice skating on Occum Pond (never got to do this), Skiing on the Dartmouth Skiway (Dartmouth's own ski hill etc). The networks at Dartmouth are incredible. The place has a culture that really encourages it (I'm in HK now and I'm here because someone super senior in Asia responded to an email when I was 19 years old and a freshman at Dartmouth)... That network keeps going through life. I still use it and I still help out with it.
If you have any questions about D, feel free to PM me. I might be a bit outdated, since I'm older than a fair few people on this site but I can give you some more thoughts.
On banking. People, please don't choose schools for banking. There is just far too much to college that one can learn and experience. If markets tank when you are a senior, you're probably not getting a job in banking no matter where you go. Even in good years, getting a gig is hard. I didn't get a banking gig out of school (combination of not sick grades - not that they were bad, doing a different junior internship, not knowing how to BS, not saying the right things during networking - IE. I did not ask for help on jobs/internships directly, which is what you HAVE TO DO, and kind of indicating that I might do something else, which I did). Like 250-500 kids applied for all the banking jobs. Lots of people were often filtered out on grades or whatever (myself included). Even in the interviews we got, the same 20 kids got ALL THE OFFERS. Others got in off a waitlist when said 20 kids rejected some of their offers. Some got in from internships. But the vast majority of kids who tried did not get banking jobs. And frankly this was in the middle of the bubble and with alums interviewing.
Anyhow - hope this helps. As someone a little older, always happy to talk about some of the "mistakes" that I have made and what I have learned so that hopefully others are much more aware...
Good Luck
FYI most people in Chicago don't know that it's a good school. Northwestern gets all the glory.
Undergrad: Duke vs. Univ of Chicago vs. Dartmouth (Originally Posted: 04/04/2008)
I've recently been accepted to these three schools and am having a hard time deciding where to attend. I know that I'll have better chance of getting internships in Chicago and that UChicago is well known for its Economics department, but Dartmouth still attracts me because it's an ivy league school known for its emphasis on undergrad education. Duke is also attractive because of its school spirit, warm weather, good economics program, great alumni @ wall street.
I was waitlisted to Columbia, Brown, and Princeton. If you have time, please give me advice on these school too in case i get off their waitinglists.
Thanks in advance
eighteen year old, Prospective monkey
i am partial to dartmouth and chicago. for dartmouth, they have a weird system where you can do internships during the year. had a friend who did a McKinsey internship during the year and then did IB at lehman in the summer. he'd already done a hedge fund internship during sophomore year. they had this thing on bankersball. totally unscientific and weird, take it with a grain of salt.
http://www.bankersball.com/2008/02/26/private-equity-firms-universities…
fwiw, at our firm, dartmouth and chicago were considered 'core' schools, duke was not.
chicago, i am more familiar with (guess why ;)). it's fantastic, great recruiting, more competition, also more intense. you'll have a lot of fun if you're in with the right folks. some people find it miserable. ymmv. if you want to work in the mid-west, hands-down chicago. plus, the econ profs are some of the best and the city has a lot of hot girls.
first of all congrats, i know it was a tough year for college admissions and those are all top notch schools.
my opinon, all great schools all can get you into ibanking (assuming thats what you want to do).
i think duke would be the most fun, chicago not fun at all and dartmouth somewhere between.
i would 100% go duke, there are few schools that combine big sports, academics, good weather, and a good party scene and duke is one of them. people will probably disagree with me on this but i some people on this board are a little too crazy sometimes.
and also brown sucks for ibanking and i heard is really boring.
columbia and princeton are clearly huge targets and would be tough to turn down. with columbia you just need to decide if you want to live in NYC for college or not.
if you get in princeton, there is no question
I personally know lots of alum from Dartmouth that have gone into banking. I work on the west coast and in both SF and LA, so definitely there is a smaller presence of these schools than on the east coast. However, Dartmouth in my opinion is without a doubt the most respectable college. I've also heard that it's got a pretty fun culture and people like to party.
So, if I had to rank the schools I would choose 1) Dartmouth 2) Duke 3) Chicago
I'd go to Duke.
Duke and Dartmouth are very similar.
Eliminate Chicago, it sucks, is hard academically, and isn't on par in terms of recruiting.
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