business and econ programs at Ivys

Alexandre
Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:05:36 +0000

Generally speaking, Harvard and Princeton have the top 2 Econ departments among the Ivies (and top 5 in the country). Yale comes in next. Then you have Penn. Columbia is next, followed by Cornell and then Brown. Dartmouth is last among Econ departments in the Ivy League. So, here’s a recap (schools in parenthesis are non-Ivy schools that are just as good in Economics):

Harvard, Princeton (Chicago, MIT, Stanford)
Yale (Cal-Berkeley, Northwestern)
Penn (Michigan-Ann Arbor, UCLA)
Columbia, Cornell
Brown (Duke, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Johns Hopkins)
Dartmouth

Economics and finance are about as similar to one another as Mathematics and Physics. So to answer your question…no, there aren’t many similarities. But if you wish to go into Investment Banking, you do not have to study Finance. Economics will do just fine…provided it is from a top university. In fact, in Investment Banking circles, a BS/AB in Economics from Georgetown or Chicago may serve you better than a BBA in Finance from say UT-Austin or UNC.