Is Columbia right for me?

goldenboy8784
Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:30:22 +0000

There is virtually no difference in finance recruitment between these schools. All of the bulge bracket banks recruit at Duke with the exception of Credit Suisse along with all of the multinational firms including Nomura, BNP Paribas, Macquarie, RBC, and RBS. I imagine all of these firms hire at Columbia as well but its misleading to suggest that going to Duke will handicap you vs. going to Columbia. The fact that Columbia is located in NYC doesn’t mean anything because most students will intern at investment banks during their summer break as part of structured internships and not during the middle of the year.

Columbia’s Chemistry and Physics departments are stronger than Duke’s though at the graduate level; I’m not sure how this extends to undergraduate education which is highly dependent on what professor is teaching a specific course. I doubt Dartmouth grads are at a disadvantage compared to Wisconsin alums for graduate school admissions just because Dartmouth has mediocre graduate programs.

Graduate schools know that the caliber of the student body at Duke is sky high so they won’t differentiate a Physics degree there than one from Columbia at the undergraduate level. I can provide a lot of statistics that attest to the fact that Duke has slightly better Professional School and Fellowship placement than Columbia but I won’t because its truly insignificant.

If your heart is saying Duke, go to Duke. If you liked Columbia more, I would have recommended Columbia.