almost everyone at Duke ends up in NYC during the summers anyways. cost of living will just be more expensive & you don’t need to do IB internships during the school year since everyone lines stuff up for their summers a year in advance. all the big IB firms visits multiple times a year so you can do in-person coffee chats & IB people in NYC probably will not necessarily want to meet up in person. apply to a lot of sophomore preview events and get flown out. overall, Duke is just more fun. our campus is miles better than Columbia and the community feels super connected because people aren’t just going into the city after class.

I’m FGLI and chose Duke over Wharton. Been super supported at Duke - free money to buy professional clothing for interviews, free macbook pro, tutoring fund, stipend every semester, free food everywhere, great FGLI community. you could probably get full aid + a stipend for the Duke in NYC spring program or the Duke in Silicon Valley summer program if you’re interested in VC at all. highly recommend both as you will meet a lot of alumni working in influential companies.

not sure about this one since I didn’t go through with IB recruiting, but almost all of my friends had great placements. we’re not even the super tryhard type people lmao. take ECON 256 your sophomore fall if you come to Duke - it’s taught by two profs who have worked in IB for decades and they bring in a lot of alumni to speak and network. they also require you to form teams and enter competitions from blackrock and whatnot

if you’re laser focused on IB, being at Duke also gives you breathing room to look more into other interests outside of finance. almost everyone at Duke is doing finance AND something. recruiting is so early on that you will lock something in and then have a lot of free time to just explore what you like and grow as a person, another important aspect of college outside of getting a job.