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UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington

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BNabs88
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UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   24 Dec 2018, 10:13
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Hi all,

Struggling to make a decision on these. I'm looking to go in to product management within the tech sector after my MBA, ideally on the West Coast of the US. (Obviously location preference could change during my MBA). I've got three offers, and think I've narrowed it down to the last two, but now I'm struggling to separate them.

1. UNC Kenan-Flagler: full scholarship offer
2. UT-Austin McCombs: full scholarship offer
3. University of Washington Foster: non-resident tuition waiver and $20k scholarship per year (so cost of tuition is roughly $15k per year)

I'm an international student aiming to remain in the USA afterwards, so I feel it is definitely beneficial for me to be located in a technology hotbed in order to maximize my post-MBA employment opportunities through networking and proximity etc.

Ranking wise, Foster and McCombs seem to come very close to each other, and switch order depending on where you look, e.g. Bloomberg Businessweek Vs FT rankings. It seems that Foster generally enjoys stronger work placement rankings? I'm also trying to evaluate the faculty at both as well.

I've visited Austin before, but never Seattle, unfortunately the preview weekends fall on the same date for both, which is no help when trying to compare. I loved Austin, but I'm also a huge outdoor activities enthusiast, which seems to be more fulfilled in Seattle.

I'm thinking I might see if I can get Foster to match my other scholarship offers, if they can I'll go there, if they can't I'll go to UT. I'm just worried I'm missing something that I should consider as part of the decision, and the inconsistency of rankings regarding the two is not really helping me. It seems that although Foster is smaller (so doesn't have quite the same range of student clubs and organisations that McCombs does) it does appear to currently be outperforming McCombs in key metrics like faculty experience and post-MBA employment. However when one is free and the other is still $15k per year that seems like quite a difference.

Any advice is very much welcome
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   24 Dec 2018, 14:44
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Congratulations on your admits and scholarships!

Merry Christmas to you as well. One thing about Foster is that it has a lot of people who come from Seattle Tech background and they go back there. Also being in the city with most tech companies having an office, helps. FB, Google, Dropbox, amazon and microsoft of course. My understanding however, and what's not necessarily transparent on the job reports is that while people who find jobs in tech, they are not as exciting positions as some of the top 10 Schools get to see. The level and caliber of hires is different basically, which is good and bad at the same time. The good is that Amazon hires 1,000 MBA's per year so no matter which school you end up at, you have a shot. The bad is that Foster does not provide any major benefits to open doors beyond just being nearby, allowing more networking opportunities, and being an easy spot for companies to come on campus. I guess it is a benefit afterall :-)

Both Foster and McCombs are regional schools but I feel UT Austin has a stronger national reputation than UW. Then of course if you are planning to live in Seattle area, then UW is the place to go as many people stick around in the area.

The weather in Seattle is pretty similar to the UK, while Austin is hot in the summer and nice most of the other 6 months (Seattle is the opposite, but you are familiar with that weather cycle). I know it is a minor thing but it gets old eventually. In terms of being outdorsy/etc - yes, you can do a lot but it is challenging during bschool and during the 8 months of the rain season but you can ski in the winter in the Cascades and hike in the summer and fall. Winter and Spring are nasty and everyone goes to Hawaii or Mexico to recharge.

P.S. I am not sure it is worth paying $30K for Foster instead of McCombs ultimately. My suggestion would be to head where you may have a network and if you don't have one, 30K will pay for plenty of flights to Bay Area and Seattle. You can still do phone coffee chats and remote off campus recruiting. My take on it.
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   24 Dec 2018, 21:48
Unless you are certain that you want to live/work in Seattle post-MBA, I think you should go to UT.

Better program. Better price. Lower COL. And in super fun ATX.

Hook'em!
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   24 Dec 2018, 22:27
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Tagging ankurgupta03 who is an UNC alumnus for his inputs
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UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   25 Dec 2018, 07:28
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Tagging few more

From UNC Kenan-Flagler
mbaclass2020 (Got admitted to both UNC KF and UT McCombs but is a current student at McCombs )
Luckisnoexcuse
UNCBOUND
Boston44

From McCombs
UTAustin001
akash2890

From UW Foster
okhotnikovaalina
msbae0308
austinlm
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   25 Dec 2018, 20:49
I would go for UT Austin. It offers good money and great job opportunities.
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   02 Jan 2019, 23:11
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Tagging current McCombs student mrsonmax for his/her inputs.
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   03 Jan 2019, 10:32
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bb wrote:
Congratulations on your admits and scholarships!

Merry Christmas to you as well. One thing about Foster is that it has a lot of people who come from Seattle Tech background and they go back there. Also being in the city with most tech companies having an office, helps. FB, Google, Dropbox, amazon and microsoft of course. My understanding however, and what's not necessarily transparent on the job reports is that while people who find jobs in tech, they are not as exciting positions as some of the top 10 Schools get to see. The level and caliber of hires is different basically, which is good and bad at the same time. The good is that Amazon hires 1,000 MBA's per year so no matter which school you end up at, you have a shot. The bad is that Foster does not provide any major benefits to open doors beyond just being nearby, allowing more networking opportunities, and being an easy spot for companies to come on campus. I guess it is a benefit afterall :-)

Both Foster and McCombs are regional schools but I feel UT Austin has a stronger national reputation than UW. Then of course if you are planning to live in Seattle area, then UW is the place to go as many people stick around in the area.

The weather in Seattle is pretty similar to the UK, while Austin is hot in the summer and nice most of the other 6 months (Seattle is the opposite, but you are familiar with that weather cycle). I know it is a minor thing but it gets old eventually. In terms of being outdorsy/etc - yes, you can do a lot but it is challenging during bschool and during the 8 months of the rain season but you can ski in the winter in the Cascades and hike in the summer and fall. Winter and Spring are nasty and everyone goes to Hawaii or Mexico to recharge.

P.S. I am not sure it is worth paying $30K for Foster instead of McCombs ultimately. My suggestion would be to head where you may have a network and if you don't have one, 30K will pay for plenty of flights to Bay Area and Seattle. You can still do phone coffee chats and remote off campus recruiting. My take on it.


Hey, Max here from McCombs 2020 class. I was also accepted to Foster with slightly less than full scholarship and to McCombs with full scholarship. Having gone through the first semester, i can say that BB is right in that UT is definitely more nationally recognized that UW. UT is also pretty good with tech recruiting, can't really complain about that. All big tech companies hire and have relations with the school and UT alumni network. This doesn't mean that the competition is not fierce, but people do get jobs at Amazon, Apple, Google, Adobe, etc. Life in Seattle is more expensive from what i know, so you have to factor that into the cost.
UT has a lot of momentum now - new super cool building, tech booming in Austin (Apple recently announced its plan to build huge campus here in addition to existing one, plus Amazon, Google, FB and others have offices in Austin). Another cool thing about UT is its fellows programs, i don't know if UW has anything similar but likely it doesn't. Its really valuable to get into Marketing fellows if you are pursuing prod mgmt roles, essentially the program involves like marketing casing with CMO's of large companies where you try to find solutions to some of the current problems that their companies face. everybody who has gone through fellows says its the best part of the MBA experience by far.
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   08 Jan 2019, 06:28
mrsonmax wrote:
bb wrote:
Congratulations on your admits and scholarships!

Merry Christmas to you as well. One thing about Foster is that it has a lot of people who come from Seattle Tech background and they go back there. Also being in the city with most tech companies having an office, helps. FB, Google, Dropbox, amazon and microsoft of course. My understanding however, and what's not necessarily transparent on the job reports is that while people who find jobs in tech, they are not as exciting positions as some of the top 10 Schools get to see. The level and caliber of hires is different basically, which is good and bad at the same time. The good is that Amazon hires 1,000 MBA's per year so no matter which school you end up at, you have a shot. The bad is that Foster does not provide any major benefits to open doors beyond just being nearby, allowing more networking opportunities, and being an easy spot for companies to come on campus. I guess it is a benefit afterall :-)

Both Foster and McCombs are regional schools but I feel UT Austin has a stronger national reputation than UW. Then of course if you are planning to live in Seattle area, then UW is the place to go as many people stick around in the area.

The weather in Seattle is pretty similar to the UK, while Austin is hot in the summer and nice most of the other 6 months (Seattle is the opposite, but you are familiar with that weather cycle). I know it is a minor thing but it gets old eventually. In terms of being outdorsy/etc - yes, you can do a lot but it is challenging during bschool and during the 8 months of the rain season but you can ski in the winter in the Cascades and hike in the summer and fall. Winter and Spring are nasty and everyone goes to Hawaii or Mexico to recharge.

P.S. I am not sure it is worth paying $30K for Foster instead of McCombs ultimately. My suggestion would be to head where you may have a network and if you don't have one, 30K will pay for plenty of flights to Bay Area and Seattle. You can still do phone coffee chats and remote off campus recruiting. My take on it.


Hey, Max here from McCombs 2020 class. I was also accepted to Foster with slightly less than full scholarship and to McCombs with full scholarship. Having gone through the first semester, i can say that BB is right in that UT is definitely more nationally recognized that UW. UT is also pretty good with tech recruiting, can't really complain about that. All big tech companies hire and have relations with the school and UT alumni network. This doesn't mean that the competition is not fierce, but people do get jobs at Amazon, Apple, Google, Adobe, etc. Life in Seattle is more expensive from what i know, so you have to factor that into the cost.
UT has a lot of momentum now - new super cool building, tech booming in Austin (Apple recently announced its plan to build huge campus here in addition to existing one, plus Amazon, Google, FB and others have offices in Austin). Another cool thing about UT is its fellows programs, i don't know if UW has anything similar but likely it doesn't. Its really valuable to get into Marketing fellows if you are pursuing prod mgmt roles, essentially the program involves like marketing casing with CMO's of large companies where you try to find solutions to some of the current problems that their companies face. everybody who has gone through fellows says its the best part of the MBA experience by far.


Thanks for the response Max, much appreciated. I definitely like the extra curricular offers the UT has, and am starting to think it may be the better choice. I'm currently trying to build my own ranking system for the things that matter to me! Haha

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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   08 Jan 2019, 18:38
BNabs88 wrote:

Thanks for the response Max, much appreciated. I definitely like the extra curricular offers the UT has, and am starting to think it may be the better choice. I'm currently trying to build my own ranking system for the things that matter to me! Haha

Posted from my mobile device



Hi BNabs88

Congrats for all those great schools.

What you are doing is really good habit as it is really matter to you only, especially that all schools within same range and close in terms of many things. Now you are practicing decision making. :-D. Just quick advice, try to search the power of alumni in general and in the field you target. You can use LinkedIn too.

Good luck
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   14 Jan 2019, 03:44
Thanks again for the advice all. McCombs looks to be the best choice for me once I'd done all my rankings, so I'm going along to the preview weekend at the start of Feb (it's a shame that it's the same weekend as the Foster one), and if nothing leaps out at me as a reason not to go, then I'll be accepting my offer to UT!
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink] New post   09 Feb 2019, 19:03
Honestly, I don't think the rank between UT and UNC are that different. It will come down to fit. I will say based on UNC's latest employment report, more than 20% of their class went into tech. I think UNC and UT-Austin have similar national reputations. Goodluck!
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Re: UNC vs UT Austin vs University of Washington [#permalink]
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