@paxfobiscum 's statements are wildly inaccurate. But it doesn’t matter. Chicago and Yale are both highly respected, on Wall Street and in consulting firms, as places where really smart kids go and get really good educations, and thus are target-rich environments for recruiting. No one is hired solely on the basis of their college and major. Students with great grades at great colleges, including both Chicago and Yale, who have some basic quantitative skills and writing ability, and depending on the firm maybe some leadership/social network, can get a look from most firms. (Major is not that important. Skills are.) Then they are hired based on personal qualities. No one would ever “take any UChicago graduate over a Yale graduate regardless of major.” That’s just not how it works.
There’s little question that Chicago’s Economics Department slightly outranks Yale’s, but there’s also little question that any undergraduate strong enough to understand and to be affected by the difference between them is (a) one in a million, and (b) heading for a PhD, not for a high paying job doing scutwork at an investment bank or consulting firm. The other 99.999% will never know the difference.
Also, if you think the Core at Chicago is valuable for learning perspective, critical thinking, and writing ability, but you are stuck at Yale, you’re in luck! Because Yale freshmen have the option to take Directed Studies, which is very similar to the Chicago Core, probably more so than the Columbia core.
The real advantage Chicago has over Yale is the depth and breadth of its math community. Chicago is just about the mathiest college anywhere, short of the technical institutes. There just isn’t as much math in the air at Yale. Yale’s advantage over Chicago is that it’s a much richer, more privileged, happier place, where you don’t have to suffer quite so much to be an intellectual. The engagement of students in arts and culture, and the quality of the extracurricular organizations, are much greater at Yale. Its residential college system is the best college living situation anywhere.