USC vs. Tepper ?!

I'll 2nd the weather in Pittsburgh - I'm from Ohio (lived there most of my life) and have spent a lot of time in Pittsburgh. I live on the west coast now and wouldn't think twice about going back.

I don't think Tepper is any better of a program (rankings aside), and I would make the decision based on where you want to get a job. If you're looking to go to NYC, Tepper is probably the better choice. If you want to stay in California I'd say USC is a no brainer.

Hope that helps.

Thank you for your input. After doing a bit of research, I have discovered the average salary coming from Tepper is about 20,000 higher according businessweek. I know there are a lot of factors that go into this average, but it certainly doesnt help my decision.

I want to have a finance, strategy consulting focus but I dont know which company or location I want to be in.

Any more insights between the programs?

I am going to Tepper, so perhaps I'm a bit biased. After the welcome weekend and a lot of the natural pre-attending research I have been doing, I have been blown away by the quality of the school. For what it's worth, one huge advantage of Tepper is that it is part of CMU. CMU has outstanding engineering and computer science programs (among others) that provide a lot of non-MBA networking opportunities. If you plan to pursue anything post-graduation that involves these areas that can be something to consider.

One other thing I was surprised about from looking into the school is how strong they are in consulting. You said Finance and Strategy Consulting were your interests. Most people would assume Tepper is finance-first because of it's quant focus, but from what I have heard and seen, it appears they are a big consulting school.

At the end of the day, I think if your long-term location is flexible, I'd go with Tepper, which I think would open up generally more options. If you want to stay on the west coast, I'd say it's a toss up, and I would probably lean toward the warm, sunny weather :D.

good point to know

Some points to note about the salary information. You also need to take into account the specific focus of the students for each school. At Tepper, it seems that most students want to go towards the consulting route (operations consulting specifically) whereas at Marshall many of the students trend towards marketing. Marketing tends to pay less than operations coming out of bschool so that drags down the average salary coming out. You'll find that average salary for an operations consultant / strategy consultant coming out of Marshall is comparable to that of any of the other schools.

If you want a consulting-effect-free analysis then you can just compare the two school's compensation by function:

Tepper: https://tepper.cmu.edu/corporations-and- ... index.aspx

USC: https://www.marshall.usc.edu/mbacareer/employment_report

A note of caution - Marshall's figures are from 2010, which was a worse year for MBAs than 2011 was. I do want to note that marketing was our 2nd-highest-paying function, with a mean and median both above 100k.

I went to USC for undergrad and know a number of people that have done their MBA at USC or are currently pursuing one there.

When it comes to network, you cannot beat the USC Trojan Family. From my first year at USC as an undergrad, alumns are always eager to connect and help you out. Despite the massive size of the school, it's surprisingly close knit.

I can't speak to Tepper's network or brand really, but I know that USC's are incredibly strong in California as a whole.

While you didn't ask about this, I think you should look at "fit" and student life. You're going to be spending 2 years and a lot of money. You might as well enjoy it in the process if you're thinking it's going to be a toss-up post-graduation. USC hosts a lot of events for its MBAs and they appear to be a close-knit group that has a lot of fun. I've also taken a couple business classes while in undergrad, and the professors were top notch. I still keep in touch with some of them to this day. Plus, the facilities for the business school are great.

That said, they're both great schools, and I think you'll be fine whatever you decide. I think fit will be a more important deciding factor.

Let me add to that too - I'm originally from NJ and lived there for a few years post-graduation. There's a strong alumni club in NYC and the network there is getting bigger and stronger. I've also had professors connect me with Trojan alumns living abroad (Egypt to be specific). So I can confidently say that the USC network travels well.