powerka wrote:
Shiny26, it is not my intention to make your choice more complicated, but ... Ross is unknown outside the US, and the University of Michigan is barely known. On the other hand, both Booth and the University of Chicago have powerful worldwide brands. If you care about working abroad, then I would wait for Booth (unless the $$$ is too great and you need financial help). Otherwise, go for Ross.
Best of lucks
Actually, I would venture to say that both are pretty much unknown outside the US - in general. Perhaps, in some parts of the world or in some circles some of them might be more well-known. E.g. Booth has pretty good recognition in London finance circles. I am European and several years ago, before I started looking at MBA programs and rankings, I was unaware of most top US schools. For example, I had never heard of Wharton and UPenn did not sound "sexy" to me at all. Kellogg? Yeah, right, those biscuits and stuff. Chicago? Is it more prestigious than the University of Miami? After all, they are both some cities in the US. Dartmouth - what mouth? Duke Fuqua - this F-word sounds a bit French to me, is that really a US school? University of California - sounded nice, but I couldn't discriminate between the many 'University of California'-s that the States had. The only thing that caught my attention in NYU was the 'New York' part. I was familiar with Columbia, though - because it sounded like Colombia. Of all US schools, I had heard of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and to a lesser extent Stanford and MIT. I had heard of Berkeley but did not know its full name - I thought it was something like Berkeley College or Berkeley University. Georgetown - I had seen some nice T-shirts with that name on and was surprised that it was a school. So I would say that most US schools are relatively unknown among most people. People in academia would be in the know, though. And multinationals hiring MBAs would know the top schools. But I would not advise the OP to base his decisions on the difference in brand recognition internationally because it hardly exists (Finance/Consulting being the exception, but people in these fields are as informed as their US counterparts and they should know both schools). At least that is my experience in Europe. I don't know about Asia, though.