Helpme,
I think you are in a good spot either way. I thought I had my decision made for me until a few weeks ago. I think Duke has a slight advantage in prestige domesticaly and and bigger one internationaly. Rankings in every category and and every rating system have duke ahead, pretty unanimous. Duke as a university also has a better reputation that Cornell. Again slightly but it is definitely there.
Recruiting for wall street. Pretty even from what I understand. Go in put your head down at either school and work hard and you should be able to land somewhere. If you definitely want N.Y. ib cornell may have a slight edge if any. southern ib duke has the edge.
Weather...... way better in durham, unless you like freezing temps and snow.
oppurtunities outside of banking duke definitley wins. Not by leaps and bounds but duke wins. look if you get in to an internship in ib and figure out hey i dont like working 80-90 hours a week having that back up in consulting or somehting else would be a nice fall back. Duke definitely has that. Not saying cornell doesnt but duke has the edge.
So, if you like the cold and snow, you want to definitely working in ny and its nothing or ib. Cornell maybe the place.
If you dont like the cold, you want banking and you may switch Duke trumps Cornell. Prestige internationlly duke trumps cornell. again we are splitting hairs but if we split this hair the slightly larger portion would be the duke blue peice.
helpmesolveit wrote:
Hello Gentlemen,
I have been a silent observer of this forum for the past 6 months as I went through the b-school application process. While I got dinged by all three of my top choices (Wharton, Stern and Columbia), I have managed to gain admissions to Duke and Cornell University. I am an international student of Indian decent and currently based in Dubai. I was born in US, and hence has US Citizenship, but only lived there for two years. Now, I need help in deciding which school to pick. Here are there three things I truly care about.
1) Reputation in NYC and Asia (Middle East/South Asia) between both MBAs and general public.
2) Investment Banking Recruiting.
3) Strength of International Alumni.
Honestly speaking, when I applied to these schools, I did minimal research as I expected them to be my safety schools. I was humbled when I didn't get into my top choices. Now, I have been speaking to graduates of both schools and found all to be very nice and genuine - but very biased to their school, as expected. If anyone, particularly int'l student, has decided b/w these two programs, I would highly appreciate if you can please share your thought process. Also, since my mid-term goal (after 3 years in Banking) is to move to Dubai, I would also appreciate if anyone can tell me the general reputation of these schools there. Is Cornell's ivy league brand more powerful than Duke's overall higher reputation?
Thank you
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03 Jan 2014, 08:35
