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Interested in corporate work. Both firms are ranked the same on chambers in corporate. Both firms also have a two year general corporate pool for beginning associates.

New York offices.

This is actually a relatively easy distinction -- would you rather be at a newer practice doing PE-focused (read: Apollo) corp work with some public company deals or a more traditional and diverse corporate practice with lots of bank finance, project finance, international M&A, and financial institutions work? If the former, PW, if the latter, Shearman.

Good reasons to prefer either one, just gotta go with what you prefer. I did callbacks with both these firms last year and frankly preferred Shearman for corporate (but I was interested in finance/cap markets). I ended up at a different firm so can't give you more than that.