ncprasad
Ignore that marketing guy from Haas. Kryzak has been asking me to apply there as well
OUCH! See if I talk to you again, NC.
For finance, NYU is a no brainer, and the big city life fits you better, Avi, from what I know of you. I don't know enough about Darden and Duke to say if they're great at finance stuff, but it'll be a big small town vs big town comparison (which is one reason I didn't consider those two schools, not because they're not good schools, but because I want to live very close or inside a big city).
Kellogg would be a great choice too, as their finance program is underrated (shadowed by GSB and Kellogg's own marketing program). But as much as I want you to apply to Haas (which I actually think is a good cultural fit for you, take my word on that

) if you're applying in R2 to "spread the risk", everyone else is right, Haas is as hard or harder to get into than some of the Top 5 schools. I think only Stanford, Columbia, and Harvard had lower acceptance rates than Haas last year.
But yeah, if you do decide to do Haas, let me know, I think I know the school pretty well by now.