Re: UNC, Chapel Hill vs UT, Austin
[#permalink]
23 Mar 2010, 00:15
Before any other consideration, I would think about where you want to live/work when you graduate. While you may be able to escape the respective regions these schools place the majority of their graduates, it will take more work on your part to do so, and even if you go in with that thought, statistically you are likely to remain in TX or wherever UNC places (Atlanta/Charlotte i imagine) post-grad.
If you are going to get hung up on rankings, the ones you are using are the last to consider. US News is the dominant ranking. They are the only ones that factor in prestige, and like it or not, that matters. In those rankings McCombs comes out slightly ahead of UNC (18 to 20). BusinessWeek has Stanford all the way at 6th, which should say it all, but if you want to get regional it has SMU 18th and while Cox is a fine school I don't think anyone would agree with that. WSJ hasn't done a full-time MBA ranking since 2007 so I'm not sure how accurate theirs are either. I quick glance at those looks absolutely ridiculous. No one can honestly say UNC or Tepper are better than Chicago, Wharton, and Stanford, except apparently on those rankings.
Both are great choices. I would make my pick based 100% on geography given the marginal ranking difference. Money could also factor in and as I'm sure you're aware, McCombs top scholarship is 10k per year + in-state waiver if you happen to live out of state (which I believe you do). You would have already heard if you were going to get one based on when you applied so that might already be done with.
As for banking, I can only speak for UT but I would think it would be the better bet. Every BB bank has a Houston office and they all recruit at McCombs. Don't know anything about tech.