Duke, USC, Columbia or Boston U?

[hilite]

I am considering attending Columbia this fall for grad school as well. They have a 1 year masters program that interests me. I have to decide soon though, the application is due in about a month.

[apu]

i reckon u should apply ASAP

i applied too late for my program at Dartmouth college and Cornell and was basically rejected without much consideration of my application

[hilite]

Ya I know I need to figure it out and get on it. However I just recieved an email from them today and they have room and are still taking applications, thankfully.

And if things don't work out for you, the intership thing is a great idea. I think a lot of people are too eager to start making money and are not willing to put in the time or effort to things that will ultimately allow them to make more money or be more successful.

[apu]

so wat program u r planning to apply for?

other options (as in Universities)?

[hilite]

Nutrition masters program. I finish my undergrad in may and am applying to medical schools this summer so I will actually have a year off before I start med school. I'm not sure what I want to do with that year. I don't know if I want to just work and save some money and pay off some debt or do a 1 year masters program somewhere.

[lil brown brother]

columbia or bu for me.....

[ddohnggo]

Good points. I know from my own connections and friends at MBA, nearly all the VCs (75%+) on Sand Hill come from Stanford MBA or have close connections with the school. At first I thought it was just an abberation... Same goes the other way for banks and consulting, Wharton, Columbia, Harvard. Tufts has also gotten very good in terms of reputation....

i went to tufts undergrad and there is no business school. do you mean tuck @ dartmouth?

[apu]

seems like Columbia would be a good choice but then the program offers little flexibility in terms of the areas of conc. i am able to choose from

[djrajio]

i went to tufts undergrad and there is no business school. do you mean tuck @ dartmouth?

Sorry, yes tuck school of business. My mistake.

[mizanation]

apu, if it helps at all, for undergrad, i got accepted to duke, columbia, and schools around boston for undergrad and visited them all.

i will generalize about the three schools you mentioned based on my experiences.

duke - is located in durham, nc. as part of north carolina's research triangle. i don't know if you've ever been to north carolina, but it's a lot different from LA (where you have family). the culture there might be shocking for you as it was for me (i am from seattle). there is literally nothing in that area. campus life is centered around the school and duke pride is famous. however, if you are interested in technology or bio-tech, the area has a lot of tech companies and labs. i am not sure what you are exactly looking to study.

columbia - is located in upper westside manhattan, right in the middle of things. the campus is really new york city. you're not gonna find the big rah-rah school spirit thing at columbia. there are a lot of distractions in new york city, but with that, there is a lot of fun. also, you are a quick subway ride away from the top financial firms in the world--investment banks, hedge funds and even venture capital. if you are looking to study business, columbia is the best option out of the ones you mentioned.

boston - i didn't apply to boston u, but i know people who went there and i've hung out around there. boston is pretty old school northeast america. it's a different culture from new york. also, a fifth of its residents are students. lots of stuff to do, lots of people to meet. i prefer new york. it's cooler and more fun. you will probably spend a lot of time travelling to new york anyways, so why not just be in new york?

usc - i also have friends who went to usc, and they loved it. apu, you said "i heard USC is full of rich kids, etc". here's new for you, go to any top-tier school and you are going to be surrounded by rich kids (and not so rich kids), man. grow up. you're not gonna get far in business if you think being rich is a bad thing. usc is in a great location--lots of things to do, lots of beautiful people and things to see. you are talking about over 16,000 students in the grad school alone. this is a huge school you are talking about. the weather is great in cali, things are convenient. you will have fun.

so, to sum things up, i would choose in this order: columbia, two way tie between boston u and usc, and duke is dead last.

[Kasper]

ppl bring really good point, but i would like to add a little something. if you plan on working outside of america after you graduate, the reputation of Columbia is at least 10 times stronger than any of the 3 other universities you got accepted to so i would really factor this into my choice.

[apu]

wow, thx for the comments, pls keep feeding it

for duke, i like how its located in the research triangle, and i was just looking at the US News national university rankings, overall Duke seems to be rated #10 in 2006, which aint bad really

columbia, i'd really like to go there but the coure work isnt what i am looking for. theres little choice of what i can choose (the electives/concentration) but the location of columbia u seems to be a great thing

USC, i realize that every uni has rich/not so rich students, what i really meant was that I've heard alot of rumor that students from USC have 'bought' their degree instead of completing it. I am not sure whether this is true but i've heard it quite alot of times both in Australia and when i was working in Taiwan. Nonetheless, USC is still a great Uni

BU, i am sure BU is a great uni, but for me this would be my last choice.

just to clear up some confusion, i am located in Sydney, Australia, so i have ABSOLUTELY no idea of what it is like in the US (e.g. culture, etc). I've spent 12 yrs in Taiwan and 11 years in Australia. Of course i'd like to study somewhere that has great atmosphere on and off campus, and perhaps somehting to do on the wkends and places worth visitng. in addition, i am seeking a mangement related masters to add to my engineering/science background, not so much that i'd like to be in a managerial postion as soon as i graduate but to have a chance to work in the US and hopefully able to advance faster in my future career

also, can someone tell me what north carolina is like, and whats the cultural differenfes, etc

[englandmj7]

also, can someone tell me what north carolina is like, and whats the cultural differenfes, etc

I have never been to N. Carolina, but you will find that many Americans (myself included), consider the US to be made up of two parts: the West Coast & the East Coast. I am not sure what is in between them, but I think the Carolinas are in there somewhere.

I think that most people that feel this way, however, are east coast or west coast residents. But then, I think we're the only ones whose opinion's count.

Depends what you're into.

[apu]

just chked the almight wikipedia

and heres a skyview of Durham, seems pretty 'peacful'

i wish the coursework @ columbia is slightly better and the USC's business school is also better (i think USC's school of engineering (Viterbi) is pretty good but not sure abt their busines)

[apu]

also, can someone with related experience let me know whether the following course are worth studying?

All four courses below:

IEOR E4004: Introduction to OR: Deterministic Models

IEOR E4106: Introduction to OR: Stochastic Models

IEOR E4601: Dynamic Pricing and Revenue Optimization

IEOR E4602: Risk Management

At least three courses from the following:

IEOR E4003: Industrial Economics (or IEOR E4403)

IEOR E4404: Simulation

IEOR E4700: Introduction to Financial Engineering

SIEO W4801: Introduction to Property-Liability Insurance Models

SIEO W4802: Introduction to Life Insurance & Aggregate Loss Models

At least one course from the following:

IEOR E4407: Game-Theoretical Models of Operations

IEOR E4210: Supply Chain Management

IEOR E4307: Industrial Forecasting

IEOR E4409: Industrial Information Systems

IEOR E4418: Logistics and Transportation Management

IEOR E4705: Studies in Operations Research

[chronoaug]

Good luck with that stuff. I have to start getting ready for grad school applying soon. Not enough schools offer really good late antiquity and medieval history studies. I'm looking in the boston area because there are a million schools there and it's a decent city and i'd be a shitty chinatown bus ride away from new york. Hope all works well.

[djrajio]

All four courses below:

IEOR E4004: Introduction to OR: Deterministic Models

IEOR E4106: Introduction to OR: Stochastic Models

IEOR E4601: Dynamic Pricing and Revenue Optimization

IEOR E4602: Risk Management

At least three courses from the following:

IEOR E4003: Industrial Economics (or IEOR E4403)

IEOR E4404: Simulation

IEOR E4700: Introduction to Financial Engineering

At least one course from the following:

IEOR E4407: Game-Theoretical Models of Operations

IEOR E4210: Supply Chain Management

[apu]

some good sites for ppl choosing their uni

www.theu.com

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/index.php

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

http://www.princetonreview.com/grad/default.asp

[cchen]

Sorry I did not see this thread sooner.

I think you should choose Columbia. I know the degree program you were accepted into: Masters in Engineernig Management Systems. In fact, my undergraduate advisor (still a close friend of mine) does a lot of the admissions.

I did my undergrad in the department and am currently doing a dual MBA / Masters in Operations Research.

You say your long term goal is management, but that is very broad. However, I do think that the experience you would get at Columbia would expose you to a few industries like banking and consulting. Frankly, outside of those, its hard to recruit for other jobs unless you're in the business school. But the skills you do learn are (imo) essential if you want to do any analytical work.

The core courses, 4004 and 4106, are the foundation in operations research. You learn about optimization and stochastic models. 4601 and 4602 are new courses, so I'm not sure what the course content is but they are being taught by awesome professors.

The electives in the department are amazing. Truth be told, I learned more in those electives than the courses in the business school. Maybe its because I'm more quantitatively oriented. In any case, they cover a broad range of subjects such as integer optimization, financial engineering, logistics, supply chain, etc. So it gives you a great set of analytical tools when you graduate that can be applied to almost any job area.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

[blm14]

The fact that I went to undergrad at Columbia and worked in the MBA Admissions department for almost four years has absolutely NO bearing on the following statement:

You should go to Columbia.

[KidDynamite]

yes, Columbia or Duke are what I have in mind

how about the Geological advantages of each uni?

Duke and the entire Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area lies among the Inner Piedmont Belt of North Carolina. The Inner Piedmont Belt is the most intensely deformed and metamorphosed segment of the Piedmont. The metamorphic rocks range from 500 to 750 million years in age. They include gneiss and schist that have been intruded by younger granitic rocks. The northeast-trending Brevard fault zone forms much of the boundary between the Blue Ridge and the Inner Piedmont belts. Although this zone of strongly deformed rocks is one of the major structural features in the southern Appalachians, its origin is poorly understood.

Manhattan's geologic structure is a little more complex. Its formation is a result of a series of great folds and the great thrust faults associated with the Taconic shear zone, Cameron's Line. To the east of this boundary, the Hartland Formation was, until recently, undifferentiated from the Manhattan Formation to the west. It is equivalent in age and very similar in physical appearance to the Manhattan Schist. Today, the Hartland Formation is considered to be comprised of oceanic crust and eugeoclinal materials that were highly metamorphosed and thrust westward during the accretion of the Iapetus terrane during the Taconic Orogeny.

[Roflcopterpwnsyou]

You should have applied to U Penn to hang out with their newest teacher

Kal Penn.