Am I an idiot for going to Northwestern ISP over UChicago to eventually go to private equity?
I was recently accepted to both colleges and Northwestern has a unique program called the ISP which is an incredibly rigorous interdisciplinary science program that is considered one of the most prestigious PhD feeders in the world, far more prestigious than Northwestern as a whole. It’s an application based program that solely accepts incoming freshman. I was thinking about trying to double in ISP and Econ over UChicago business Econ and CS for an eventual career in the buy side a few reasons:
- Northwestern’s ISP would provide a unique science-based hook for recruiting.
- Northwesters ISP would, for many reasons, increase my odds of transferring to HYPM which I would like to try.
- If it doesn’t work out, I can apply to Northwestern’s Mathmatical Methods in the Social Sciences major, which gives priority for finance recruiting as a sophomore and beyond.
- It would allow me to better create a science-based start up freshman year, which would also be a hook for buy side finance rolls as well as allowing me to somewhat explore my passion for science entrepreneurship.
- I find continuing science slightly more personally fulfilling than committing to the stereotypical finance rat race, though this isn’t a huge turn off for me.
- Not sure if I will be able to sell the ISP program during recruitment but it has a lot of rigor, so along with being a bit unique piece to my application it’s immense rigor which rivals UChicago could show that I am ready for the finance lifestyle.
- The science PhD->science entrepreneurship-> biotech/healthcare PE/VC is a good story for interviews, transfers, and an eventual MBA.
Both ISP and UChicago are around equal difficulty and I like the UChicago campus slightly better. Please advice regarding if I have any misconceptions about how the Northwestern ISP program might help me, this is just my high school intuition.
It sounds like you are very interest into the ISP program, and Northwestern overall is a great target school. I think as long as you try hard, you will be able to land a high finance job
yep
Northwestern and UChicago are equivalent when it comes to IB/PE recruiting. I have personally worked with multiple people from both schools.
Your major doesn’t matter all that much with recruiting. Firms look for intelligence and attitude. A STEM major helps signal intelligence, but it doesn’t really sway things one way or another.
I would do whichever program interests you the most. Do not choose based on your perceived chances of breaking into IB/PE. You will be able to do that no matter what major/program you choose. Given you are a senior in high school, there is also a good chance that your career aspirations will change over the next 4 years. The majority of college students change majors at least once.
Honestly, you made the wrong decision if you want to work in finance. This is more just a judgement on your major decision rather than UChicago vs Northwestern. Those are pretty equivalent. With that said, I did not go to northwestern but have close HS friends who did that program. One of the many things high schoolers don’t realize is that “prestige” isn’t some simple absolute, different schools and programs and careers are better for different people for different reasons.
No one is going to hire you because you did some honors-type science program at your school. That’s not going to be a differentiator, and no interviewer will care about that.
Good luck being one of the single digit number of people who transfer to HYPSM, most of whom are URM, vets, non-traditional backgrounds, etc. Thats a foolish reason to choose the school you will be at for 4 years. The expected value on that decision is negative.
”If it doesn’t work out”, so you’re already considering being one of the majority of people who drop out of the program. If you already have this mindset and we’re not committed to research or academia in the first place, the overwhelming odds are that you won’t last 4 years in the program.
if you find science more fulfilling then why the fuck are you pursuing finance.
your science-based startup won’t work out either. Northwestern lacks an strong entrepreneurship culture and ecosystem which is immensely important for this type of stuff, and secondly you’re forgetting that this major will take up all of your free time. If anything, it makes it less likely for you to be a startup founder.
No one knows what ISP is. Nobody cares about academic rigor. Going to Uchicago doesn’t make people want to hire you more because they think you can “take the grind”. Nobody will care about that for ISP.
if you want to do a science phd then do a science phd. However you’re a clown if you’re doing it to eventually just work in PE/VC. That’s not going to end well for a variety of reasons.
Uchicago = northwestern for recruiting. Just take a look at the placements of northwesterns ib club at their site lol (8+ BX, 2+ KKR, 2+ Bain Cap, 2+ Ares, 2+ Vista, 2+ Dodge & Cox, PIMCO, 2+ GTCR, 7x Evercore). All of the placements happen with way less interest in finance than uchicago. No other schools send 8 kids to Blackstone a year besides Harvard and Wharton.
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