If I plan on staying/having a career in Texas, is there really any reason to pursue an MBA other than McCombs?

A McCombs MBA has great value in Texas, so why should you dish out 100k+ for a private school MBA?

Only thing that scares me is the future of Energy IBD. Does a UT MBA place well for traditional Houston/Dallas/Austin IB/VC/PE jobs?

A top 10 MBA grad might get an extra 10-15k salary, but the cost of living in NY compared to Texas is very different.

6 Comments
 

If you're wanting to stay in Texas, I think McCombs is your best option.

Keep in mind, however, that scholarship money can neutralize the cost of a private school. For instance, a typical McCombs applicant might get more scholarship money from Rice, which places well into Texas IB. Of course, top 10 schools will also provide you access to the Texas market, but it may require some additional legwork.

 

If you plan to spend your life in Texas why not use an MBA to get out of Texas for two years just for the sake of variety. If you think you can crack the top-10 I'd go for it. There are plenty of M7 and top-10 grads who end up back in Texas in consulting, IB, whatever. Furthermore, if energy-IB does dry up then you'll have a much more geographically diverse network of people to call up should you need to.

 
Best Response

Financial: Private schools from other states like to give out scholarship to top kids in Texas, since Mccombs just hoard all of them. Mccombs is also more competitive compared to its quality in the South because that's where all the Southern kids want to go (due to financial and sport reasons)

Fit: Each school in the top 10 even though very similar have slightly different culture, the 100k+ seems big to you now but a couple year out of school it will just be a bonus check (your signing bonus average 50k post-mba). Since you are gonna do it once why dont you do it at the school you like most

Academic: some people in Finance dream of going to Columbia (for Value Investing) or Booth (for Eugene Fama), why would I pay less to go anywhere else?

For your last question, UT MBA is the king in the South. If there are jobs in IB/VC/PE/blah blah in Texas, they will take the first dip. I know buy-side groups at Vista and GS (the best kinds) are dominated by UT kids. That said, it's kinda silly to restrain your life to Texas since there is plenty greener grass elsewhere

 
  1. if you had another UT degree type of thing, it weakens your incremental network gain out of McCombs
  2. we're usually overconfident, so if you choose UT and want out of Texas, you'd have a much harder time
  3. preference for your kids admission - as an insurance
[quote="M7 MBA, iBanking. Top MSF grad. AntiTNA. Truth is hard to hear! But... "] [/quote] [quote="DickFuld: Yeah....most of these people give terrible advice."] [/quote]
 

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