UCL Vs Warwick Vs Umass Amherst Vs UW Madison Vs UofT for undergrad

Hello everybody, i'm an international student who has been accepted at the above universities for finance related courses. I have gotten a 50% scholarship at Umass and a 10% scholarship at UofT. Which university will set me up for a career in investment banking in a country where i can eventually get citizenship. While i can afford to go to all of these places, my budget would be stretched without a scholarship.

 

Settlement in the USA is a game of luck and particularly hard, I would try and go for the UK and UCL and Warwick are virtually the same for placements, pick whichever course you enjoy more and city you would enjoy living in.

 

Any recommendations for courses at UCL? I know course doesn’t really matter for the UK but surely a relevant one (Finance/Law/Economics and Business with East European Studies BA) would help land top EB offers (EVR/PJT/EY Belfast)

 

International studying in Warwick here. Had a similar choice back in the day and choose Warwick due to easier settlement and greater opportunities. If you can share which courses you got the offer for in UCL/Warwick I can give more colour. Each course has very different demographics and thus different student experiences.

 

At warwick i got into Accounting and Finance while at UCL i got into Statistics, Economics, and Finance. only issue is my UCL offer is kind of difficult so i will probably end up going to warwick if i dont meet it. 

 

If you pick UK, then UCL over Warwick.
With that being said an analyst in NYC earns 1.5x-2x what a London analyst would earn. You really have to weigh up where you would like to live the first few years out of undergrad

 

If you want a path to citizenship, u of t is a good option. You'll be a citizen around 3 years after graduating, after which you can (try to) get a TN and move to the US. TN is easier than the H1B. Your options in the US don't really compete with u of t so it's a better option imo. if you're at rotman, I'd take it over UCL. U of T over Warwick is a pretty easy choice. Imo the London discount is a lot, so if you want to go to uni where you will end up living, I'd choose a canada-->US pathway instead of the UK, where everything is concentrated in London and you have nowhere else to go. I say this as someone who is studying at a top target in the UK and wants to leave the first chance I get. The canada to US pathway means you won't have to pay for a master's degree like me to switch geographies. Lol. Also, I know this MD at a BB who I was speaking with, he was telling me about his son getting into UBC vs the best uni in Australia. He told his son that he can't go to UBC because going to the best school in a country is better than going to the second best (kid wanted to get into u of t but didn't). UCL is not the best in the UK. There is an argument to be made about U of T being the best in Canada (outside of ib recruiting, as a general brand). If you're happy with living in London your whole life and ok with the pay discount then go with UCL though. 

 

I don’t know about this advice. Especially when you hit the Australia example. Australia has a very small IB or other finance presence and their universities are not exactly widely known around the world. I’d have chosen UBC due to its proximity to the US market. Going to the top school in a small market is not always the better option. I disagree a great deal with that advice. You could also argue that UofT isn’t exactly a target, it’s more of a semi-target for Canadian IB. If we’re talking business schools in Canada Western Ivey, Queens Commerce and McGill all place above Rotman at the undergrad level. In Canada especially, people apply to programs, and prestige is related to individual programs rather than the school as a whole. Waterloo is world-renowned for their engineering, mathematics and computer science departments, McMaster for their Health Sciences, UofT Engineering and Life Sciences etc. While UofT is top notch in most programs and definitely offers rigorous coursework, UBC is on that tier as top 3 in Canada (from an overall perspective)

 

No I 100% agree with you. That's why I specified, this is not necessarily for IB, but from more of a general brand perspective. I'm well aware that u of t is not as good as ivey or queens for IB placements, but for a kid from south Asia it is the brand that will carry him/her/them the farthest both back home and in general if they choose to not do IB. I'm from south Asia as well, and almost everyone knows U of T/Rotman, pretty much nobody knows what Ivey is or Queens. U of T is pretty clearly the best in Canada from a ranking perspective, and is known worldwide. It may be slightly more difficult to get into IB right out of university, but the brand will carry when the kid wants to go off to the US someday (from my own experience of speaking with professionals in the US). UCL is undisputedly not the first in the UK for 'finance related courses.' 

 

i heard canada is being really strict with giving out visas to people from south asia. thats my only concern with choosing canada

 

Fair enough. I had a friend who was choosing between a UK and Canadian uni (imperial and UBC in case you're curious lol), he applied for his Canadian visa because his Imperial acceptance was conditional. It gave him extra time to decide which country he wanted to go to. Ended up going to UBC. If by the time you get your UCL grades you have not received your Canadian visa, you can always go to UCL since the UK visa application process starts later. 

+ i have some friends at rotman in case you want me to put you in touch, feel free to pm. for context, im at lse but was heavily considering u of t over it for citizenship reasons. i'm trying to get out of the uk after my undergrad now 

 

Warwick student here. Got a 100k scholarship to study at rotman and still chose Warwick. Canada to US pathway isn’t easy at all and Warwick for london recruiting would be better. UCL vs Warwick ultimately comes down to what you prefer but UofT doesn’t come close icl

 

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