Duke (no scholarship) vs Texas McCombs ($60K)

Question

Hi Everyone,

I have received admits for the full time MBA from Fuqua with no scholarship and from McCombs with $60K in scholarship and named Forte Fellow. I need help in making a decision.
I am an international student (India). My post MBA career goal is Product Management and Tech Consulting would be an alternative. 
Fuqua has a good brand name but since I have been named Forte Fellow at McCombs there will be benefits to that.

I am really confused and any advice is appreciated.

FinanceMan · Answer

First off, congrats on your admits X23! Fuqua and MCombs are some top notch business schools.

I will be up front that I am a MSQM student at Fuqua and therefore, I may have a little bias.

I would be curious what pros and cons you have come up with for each of these programs? Other than the scholarship and Forte Fellow, is there anything else that draws you to McCombs? What draws you to Fuqua?

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parked · Answer

Hi,

Congratulations on your offers ! I was in sort of a similar situation last year. Both are great schools. If you are sure you want to get into PM roles, then McCombs with a 60K is a good choice. Almost all tech companies have offices in Austin and McCombs does really well. Fuqua places extremely well in big tech as well. But what fuqua excels in is MBB recruiting. So incase your PM goal doesn’t workout (touchwood), you’ll have a better shot at your plan B at Fuqua. 
Also you might want to think about where you want to land up after your MBA. McCombs places a majority in Austin whereas Fuqua sends a lot to the west coast and seattle ( those who are tech PMs).
If I were you, I would go to Fuqua for a stronger brand value and better/stronger plan B options. But that said, both are great schools with great cultures.

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X23 · Answer

Thank you  parik92  for the advice. I do realise that Fuqua has brand value and their consulting placements are also quite impressive. But considering the fact that I am an international student, how much of those consulting opportunities will I be able to utilize? I am struggling to make a case for attending Fuqua and giving up the 60K. Apart from the higher ranking and brand value if there were anything else that makes a strong case for Fuqua I wouldnt have hesitated. But the rankings wont matter if I cannot land a job considering the huge competition and also go into a huge debt. Please advice.

bb · Answer

It is hard to answer some of the posts with lack of clarity. Did McCombs tell you that they were giving you $60K scholarship? or did they say $30k? My guess is they said $30/year and your second year is probably contingent on meeting some requirements such as GPA but that's beside the point. The issue I have is that I have no idea at all what $60K stands for and what it represents. You could have written 50% schoalarship or something like that or Cost of attendance or smth.

X23 · Answer

I apologize for not being clear earlier. It is $30K/year in merit scholarship.

variantguy · Answer

Hello X23 and congratulations on your result! Have you done any calculations on what your total expense over the two years is going to look like at both McCombs and Fuqua? It would be helpful to analyze this situation as an expense to expense comparison vs a $60k vs no money (not including Forte since there's no direct monetary benefit to that but coming to it shortly). Along with that, what does $60k look like as a percentage of your total expense at McCombs? I looked at this link on their website: https://utexas.app.box.com/v/FT-MBA-Cost-of-Attendance that says 77k but I'm going to add 4-5k more to that for insurance, laptop, student fees etc. So that's 82k for the first year and then let's say a 5% increase the following year so that's 86k for your second year of MBA. So, the total cost comes to around 168k, and hence your scholarship is about 35%. Feel free to correct my numbers if they seem too far off. Now, if you look at the financial aid consideration curve created by Regenerate , the advice there is that you should probably not trade Fuqua (Tier 4 as per GMAT Club rankings) for McCombs (Tier 6) unless the latter offers at least a 70% scholarship. Obviously, it's just one model and doesn't take into account subjective factors such as risk tolerance, goals, and other aspirations you may have for your post-MBA life. Don't get me wrong, $60k is not a paltry sum, but I'd also like to add that in the long run, say 10-15 years down your post-MBA life, it won't be a big dent in your fortune either. It appears that you are currently approaching this with a more risk-averse mindset and that's totally okay, but I'd like to throw in some point as food for thought: Consulting and tech are two of the three largest H1B recruiters and so by going to Fuqua, which has a significantly stronger MBB and consulting placement than McCombs, you'd actually be increasing your chances of landing a job in the US. (assuming you do both consulting and tech recruiting and manage to stay alive in the process

) Also, MBBs sponsor as far as I know, and then Deloitte, EY, and Kearney have varying policies. The strength of your MBA cohort becomes the strength of your post-MBA network. Rankings, prestige, and brand value are lucrative factors that more often than not end up attracting talented cross-admits towards the higher-ranked schools, and so one can argue that your peer group at Fuqua will not only be larger (400 vs ~250) but might also be more accomplished and diverse (no offense to McCombs). The same effect will apply to your alumni network, wherein you should not just compare Fuqua alums vs McCombs alums but also Duke alums ve UT Austin alums - what do those numbers and distribution look like? If you've spoken to current students, how have they described their classmates and alumni base? The same network can help you find a job if things go south during or after school. Can you put a monetary value to that right now? Perhaps not. From what I know, the Forte Fellowship comes with a decent number of networking and learning opportunities, which could be an additional consideration from a recruiting perspective. Have you spoken to any other Forte Fellow at McCombs? What do they have to say about those opportunities? Also, how many women in their batch are Forte Fellows? That could help assess how prestigious the fellowship is and how your potential employers would view it. Also, have you gone back and asked Fuqua for money, based on what McCombs has offered you? (it's totally okay to do so, btw) If Fuqua responds positively, I feel they might just solve your dilemma for you.

X23 · Answer

Hi variantguy , First of all let me thank you for the elaborate response. Really appreciate it. 1. Expenses - McCombs has already stated their Cost of attendance for the first year and it is $78793 which is very close to what you calculated. So roughly it would cost me around $101526 for two years of MBA. (if I subtract $60K from the total cost). Duke has not given out any details yet but going by the 5% increase every year the total cost is roughly coming out to be $209501. So almost a $100K more. 2. Alumni Network - I have spoken to some of the Duke alums. One of them was very helpful and tried to connect me to other alumni. Two of the others were unresponsive. When I spoke to the current students, all of them had great things to say about their alumni network. Same goes for McCombs. Maybe I am not asking the right questions. But now that you highlighted this point I will reach out to some more students and try to find out what I can. 3. Forte Fellow - I have reached out to a student who isnt a Forte fellow but spoke very candidly when I questioned her about McCombs during the application. I am yet to hear back from her. Meanwhile I am trying to connect with other students too. 4. Scholarship negotiation with Duke - I was under the impression that since McCombs is not a peer school I cannot leverage the offer from McCombs to get an offer from Fuqua. Nevertheless, I am still going to ask if they can offer me anything at all. Thank you again for taking the time out to respond

variantguy · Answer

Alright, so now the comparison is $100k spend at McCombs vs $210k spend at Duke. bb Regenerate what do you guys think about this? I think this applies to all schools and basic human nature, but now that you're an admitted student, you should see a higher response rate from current students and alums. The difference between your conversations now and the informational interviews you did before should be the specificity to your goals and situation, and I think you already got that idea. You can also directly reach out to AdCom and ask them to connect you to current Forte Fellows, and I think they should be able to help you. (Full disclosure: I was deciding between multiple schools as well and reached out to the respective AdComs and they connected me to current students who had the same cross-admits, to aid my decision-making! Just an example that schools are more invested in you once you're in.) I derive much of my negotiation strategies from two absolute legends - Harvey Specter and Michael Scott, so you should clearly take my advice with a pinch of salt. Your negotiation power goes up considerably when you go from being an applicant to being an admit. Now, the school is invested in you and there's a number most schools (except maybe Stanford and Harvard) worry about - yield percentage. So, while McCombs may not be a peer school to Duke, and you may know it, and Duke may know it, but there's a reason they've admitted you - they think you're worth a seat in their program and within reason, they will want to retain you. They may not match McCombs's offer or they might - depending on several factors. Worst-case scenario, you'll hear a no. Be nice about it, and it's fair game.

X23 · Answer

Hi  FinanceMan

Here are some of the pros and cons of attending both schools that I could think of:

Duke:

Pros 1. Very rich cohort quality 2. Brand value 3. I would say consulting opportunities but if I only consider product management then I dont think there will be much difference between McCombs and Fuqua.
Cons 1. Location -not many companies located around NC 2. Expensive 3. Did not find the alumni or current students very approachable.

McCombs:

Pros 1. Austin is a booming tech city. Lots of tech companies are moving their HQs to Austin. If I consider recruiting for startups I will be able to do that as well. 2. Found the current students to be very friendly and helpful 3. Location - Many Indians can be found in and around Austin.

Cons 1. Smaller class size 2. Cohort Quality not better than Fuqua. 3. Lesser Brand Value than Fuqua.

Please let me know what you think of the above points.

X23 · Answer

variantguy

Small update:

I was able to speak to a current student at McCombs just a while back. She isnt a Forte Fellow but she said there are many classmates especially Round 1 applicants who are Forte Fellows and they do get some early recruiting opportunities but it is rare. So to sum up there are not much advantages to being a Forte Fellow. I would still ask some more people and see if they concur.

Negotiating Scholarship with Duke - I am definitely going to ask for it. I read somewhere that it is a 100% no if I dont ask

Thank you once again for your inputs. They were very valuable and reduced my anxiety to some extent.

Regenerate · Answer

Short answer before work ...

110k difference to repay to go to Fuqua = approx. 160-175k you'd need to earn after taxes and interest

That's a lot of money.

Also, check out the links in my signature block for additional thoughts that might help you.

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FinanceMan · Answer

That is strange that you did not find alumni or current students at Fuqua approachable. Before I applied, I reached out to the President and CEO of US Polo Global Licensing Inc. and made a great connection. We went to the same undergrad and then he did his MBA at Fuqua so maybe we had a little bit of common ground. I was also able to get in contact with a couple more CEO’s from a little bit smaller companies. Overall though, they were all very approachable.

Where do you want to be location wise? If Austin location appeals to you, you’d be hard pressed to find a better school than McCombs. Companies are chomping at the bit to get McCombs graduates in their organizations. If you would like to be anywhere else outside of Texas, I would lean towards Fuqua based on their brand and alumni network.

redskull1 · Answer

Hi  X23 . PM me

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ANALysis · Answer

how is being named a forte fellow a benefit? no one even knows what that is

bb · Answer

Ehhhh. It is a network that matters. But I feel forte is very well known (though I am not super well versed how it changes from school to school)

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godhand · Answer

Hi X23, would love to know which school you ended up joining. I don't have an admit from Duke but am also trying to convince myself to go to McCombs. Would love to connect

bb · Answer

Is McCombs the only option you are choosing from? Scholarship?

PS. Don’t apply to schools you are not planning to attend. What’s the point of that?

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godhand · Answer

I think I worded my sentence wrongly. I would be thrilled to attend McCombs

It's just that my other option (Foster) is equally attractive in terms of tech recruiting and the decision is hard Also bb, I had made a post on this in the forum and you had responded to it. I believe you were on the side of Foster.

To summarize, it is McCombs (50K scholarship) vs Foster (21K + in-state) which works out to approx the same cost of attendance.

Duke (no scholarship) vs Texas McCombs ($60K)

Fuqua vs McCombs

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