I am so stressed because I have 10 days to make the choice.
I am an international student, but an American citizen. Thankfully, I am blessed to have hard-working parents who have made price not a factor in my choice.
I was admitted to USC at Marshall for business, but at UCLA, I am doing Business-Economics.
I want to go to the college that will give me the best chance of landing a job in finance.
I know that UCLA brand name is more established, but USC Marshall has the program I want. What should I do?
I also want to hear about campus life, student life out of school, party life, etc…
Both work. If you prefer the progam at Marshall then that sounds like your better choice. At some point your future prospects will be more dependent on what YOU achieve at college rather than which one of these fine schools you attend.
Where do you intend to land a job in finance? As long as it’s in your country, either school will work.
The US schools will educate you, but there are no guarantees for a job in the US.
That’s a work visa issue and you will only be issued a student visa for your education. At the end of your education, you will be expected to return to your home country.
USC is more pricey than UCLA. They are both very competitive and don’t like each other very much. Both schools are very different experiences.
What kinds of things are you looking for when you mention campus life?
USC is located in a more gritty, grungy section of Los Angeles than UCLA. Both schools have large Greek systems and parties. Both schools are large enough that, if going to parties isn’t your thing, there will be plenty of other things to do and plenty of people to do those things with. Both schools are big sports schools. USC football games are played in the Coliseum which is adjacent to campus. UCLA’s football games are played in the Rose Bowl which is an hour or so (depending on traffic) from campus.
The biggest difference (for me) is that UCLA is a public school. That means larger class sizes and less advising than at USC which is a private school.
UCLA dorms are predominately triples (three people to a room). USC has mostly doubles or singles. UCLA guarantees four years of housing. Many students move out after a year or two. USC offers two years of housing. Many students move out after a year or two. UCLA’s dorms have some of the best dorm food in the nation. USC’s food isn’t bad. It just isn’t the same caliber as UCLA’s.
i heard UCLA provides no support in terms of preparing for a finance job. Is it true you have to join a finance club for your only shot? I’ve seen these clubs have <5% acceptance rates
How so are they different experiences? I think my primary concern is which school will be able to provide me better employability. Isn’t UCLA far higher ranked, and thus, more well known in the country/world?
International perceptions are somewhat different to those within the US. Berkeley and UCLA are far better known overseas than most T20 private schools. But within the US, those privates (Duke, Columbia, Penn, etc) are often considered more prestigious and USC would certainly be seen as equivalently prestigious to UCLA. So it very much depends where you plan to work after graduation.
This.
Employers in the US care about what you do in your internships and your experiences. They’re not going to employ you solely because you attended UCLA or USC.
They care about the quality of the employee they’re going to invest thousands of dollars to train.
If you’re returning to your home country, then maybe they’re basing their employment on where are you attended school. In the US, you better have had the experience in an internship that they, the employers want.
My husband has had UCLA and USC graduates work for him and he has no qualms in “letting them go” if they can’t do the job. He and his superiors don’t care where the person went to college. He’s in engineering and CS so it may be very different from finance.
There are a lot of students with degrees in finance, competing for jobs, so it really depends on what you plan to target with that degree.
Yes UCLA ranks higher than USC for the university as a whole. However you also need to understand that, there are thousands of universities in the US, so even with the difference of a few places in ranking the two schools can be viewed as in the same “tier”.
Even if you really can’t pass over the concept of ranking, I would suggest that you look at subject-specific ranking, which will be more relevant to your decision. People on this site generally do not like ranking very much, but I’ll provide some undergraduate business program rankings for your reference since you seemed really bothered by the ranking.
USC Marshall is actually a top 10 business program by US News, higher than the overall school rank of UCLA.
In this ranking, USC Marshall is actually #2.
What’s key to your decision, IMO, is that UCLA’s Biz-Econ major is not a full business school experience. They say it in their own catalog: The Business Economics BA program offers a major for students seeking a business orientation in their study of economics. It does not replicate the traditional undergraduate business school curriculum
Source: https://catalog.registrar.ucla.edu/major/2023/BusinessEconomicsBA
All of the management courses you can take in the Biz-Econ major combined are still fewer than the core business courses you’ll take at Marshall, not to mention the wide variety of Finance electives that are available in Marshall. Below are just the offerings for this and next semester: https://classes.usc.edu/term-20241/classes/fbe/ https://classes.usc.edu/term-20243/classes/fbe/
You can also search, for example “USC Marshall vs. UCLA Biz-Econ” on Reddit. There have been numerous discussions from students in your age. Good luck.
