Cornell vs UT Austin

I think you hit upon an interesting nuance of school selection. That is, if you are looking to work outside of the school's dominant region, you are better off going with the best national brand, rather than the "best" MBA program ( from a rankings perspective). That brand is driven largely by undergrad reputation. For example, let's say you want to work in California post- grad, but for whatever reason you are only looking at schools in Texas and the southeast. Putting aside whatever Cali network those schools might have, you are probably best served by attending Rice or Vanderbilt because people who know little about MBA rankings will assume that those are excellent programs due to their associated undergraduate reputation. Those obviously are excellent schools but not better mba programs than Texas or Emory in their respective markets, at least per "the rankings".

So for that reason, I would go with Cornell in your case, even if it was ranked 15 spots lower than Texas. Just my 2c.