Cornell vs Cambridge vs SMU
 

Hi all,

I have undergrad admission to the 3 universities above. I am deciding which one to choose.

Cornell - 4 years BA Economics (tuition fee S$ 205k)
Cambridge - 3 years - BA Management Studies (tuition fee S$85k)
SMU - 4 years - BS Economics (tuition fee - can tahan)

I come from a family that is not so rich, my father is GM at some large company but he said that he can support me to study. But i really dont want to strain my family finances if I can get a similar education locally. I saw the news that SMU grads earn quite a lot. So I am thinking between SMU and Cambridge. Cornell is quite out of the question, but then again is ivy league amd supposedly one of best universities in the world.

Also at cambridge, its only management studies, which i heard from other people can be quite useless compared to economics. I also prefer to study economics as it is my fav subject. Doing it at SMU will be much cheaper and i heard the job prospects quite good..

Please advise.

GM at some large company - that's probably quite rich.

My advice: Go Cambridge. The name is very good and 85k sounds pretty affordable. Cornell is good too, but too expensive. If you feel bad, promise your dad you will repay him within 5 years after graduation. You can also work part-time to help out.

After Cambridge, it will be good if you can work in London for a while before going to a good b-school for MBA. At that time you should be able to pay for the fees yourself.

well... SMU is probably 1/3 of the cambridge fees, but go cambridge. Great chance to go to a top 5 uni in the world :)

With all due respect, the unis I'd consider to be on par with oxbridge are HYPWS and maybe LSE. Cornell is out of the question.

Although yes the course sucks. I'd def choose between cornell & cambridge instead of smu if you're looking for work beyond local prospects in the future.

Thanks. But what uni is HYPWS?

Why is cornell out of question? If I am not wrong it is considered an ivy league university, which employers quite respect?

The reason why I have SMU in my list is because it is quite likely that I will be working in Singapore or asian region after graduation, and i think SMU reputation is quite good here considering most grads can secure good jobs.

Ok thanks, but I don't think i will need to think that far yet! Havent even got bachelors yet haha.

harvard, yale, princeton, wharton(upenn), stanford

go for the best your family can comfortably afford. so out of this list, probably cambridge? how about considering a scholarship from singapore, or looking into colleague grants/scholarships with no bonds to help with expenses as well?

having gone through school in europe and university in singapore, i would say the latter did very little for me. the overall academic and learning environment is not ideal.

i was accepted into a couple of top UK universities but my parents were far from being to afford it at the time (asian financial, dot com crises) and i am not a scholarship type (the bond alone makes me feel sick)

education should not just be about getting a good job in the future; it's the whole experience of living and learning--and learning to THINK most of all--which in turn could get you a great job

of course if you just want a good/stable job, i guess NTU accountancy type of local courses are okay too

You shld seriously consider obtaining placement data for Cam grads that majored in Management Studies

That should give you an idea of whether your ROI is worth it

Also, I'm quite surprised you didn't apply to study Econs at Cam. Any reason for that?

Cambridge will definitely open more doors for you than an SMU degree.
Management studies vs econs is the least of your concerns.
It is not what you know, but who you know.