UCLA $$ Duke $

My suggestion would be to reach out to a few of the current students at both schools (via Adcom or via GMAT Club) and see if you can pick their minds, esp some of the folks looking for a similar career path. What can they tell you about the companies coming to hire on campus, what about the opportunities that school provides you with. (Other opportunities you can engage on your own from any school anywhere). I am going to guess is that most of them will have to recruit out of LA and more towards Chicago/East Coast (yes, there are Accenture offices in LA if you are OK with them but I think in general management consulting is a niche industry in Los Angeles).

I may be prejudiced after having lived for 7 years in LA, I felt it was not a very corporate-minded location. Yes, there are some large offices/branches there but out of Fotune 500, only 10 or fewer are based in the greater LA area https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ ... es/CA.html. This has an immediate impact on Management consulting opportunities in the city, meaning smaller demand for MC's. Most of LA is small businesses. Right now the stats indicate that LA county is 19th largest economy in the world with 244,000 businesses https://www.lacounty.gov/wps/portal/lac/business/ and you can see the ones that are growing the fastest here: (rank by revenue first to filter out some crazy ones): https://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/2013/me ... /x/revenue compared that to New York Metro

Anyway, I feel LA is a great place to be an entrepreneur because everyone is. Everyone has a business; many are somehow connected to the movie industry, and everyone wears flip flops. (I am allowed to be insensitive since I lived there). Obviously Durham is not going to be a much more stellar location for Management Consulting but you can count on dominating some of the southern locations having a geographical advantage, and yes, I would agree that getting a job in the south will be easier for you than in New York or San Francisco for example.

I am probably rambling a lot here so I am going to circle back to my original suggestion of asking the current students who things are going and if they can share their current issues/frustration/etc. Keep in mind that true school patriots will complain about the school but they may hint to issues. If you hit a guy/gal how is complaining about the school and bashing it, I would not trust that person. Just a disgruntled student. All schools have those wet blankets. They have personal issues, best thing is to leave them alone and don't take anything for granted....

I would not worry too much about $20K - that's really not much to worry about (it is around $10% of your total opportunity cost) and the tuition is actually the same unless you are a resident. Your living expenses in LA will be probably 20-30% higher depending on your living situation and what you choose to do, mostly due to rent.

P.S. I made a vote for UCLA despite all I said. I just did not feel that Duke would add meaningful value for you but that's something again you can gain from Student conversations. The reason I did not bash Duke was I just not as familiar with it...