UW in State or UVA out of state?

It'll be interesting to get folks thoughts on this. I'll give you my opinion and this is soley my opinion. I'm not a UVA or a UW alum nor do I know a ton about either school. First of all congrats on getting into both schools, especially UVA. For an out of state candidate the bar is high and you should be proud that you cleared it. I'm assuming you didn't get any aid, so basically the decision is in-state tuition at UW vs out of state at UVA. So about a $200-250k difference.

UVA is a great school, with a strong brand name and good placement into top banks and consulting firms. It really helps if you get into McIntire, which I believe you apply you in your sophomore year and it's very competitive to get into(someone from UVA check me on this) I've been corrected on this, sounds like it doesn't matter as much. I've also always been under the impression that for the top jobs, it's a pretty significant leg up if you're coming from McIntire vs the normal college. I don't think they do early admission into that college like some other undergrad programs, so you'd basically have to roll the dice.

UW is a solid school, if your'e a top student, you'll have a good set of opportunities, but they'll likely be much more regional. You'll be at a MM bank in Seattle or a Seattle office of a big consulting firm vs being in NYC/SF etc. UVA will help you branch out more to some of the more top tier opportunities and the most important part is that you'll get a much stronger overall network, both across the US and globally. You can really only do undergrad once and it will brand you in a different way. It's tough to put a price on that. For that reason, I can absolutely see people coming in here and saying you should 100% do UVA and I'm somewhat inclined to agree...

With that said, I'm not sure I'm 100% confident that UVA is worth the $200k delta, especially if you don't know if you're going to be able to get into the business program. If money isn't much of an issue, then you should take UVA. If money is a little tighter, it becomes a tougher issue. UW is a solid state school and there's so reason to think you couldn't go from UW to a solid job to a top MBA. It kind of comes down to how ambitious you are, what jobs you want to target, and why you want to target them. Frankly if the best two schools you got into were UW and UVA, it sounds like you might not have been a top top student, so not Ivys, no other top schools etc. UVA is an improvement, but I'm not entirely convinced it's the panacea of job placement that you're looking for. Again, I could be wrong, I don't have any placement stats from UVA, so maybe it's something crazy like everyone from McIntire gets a great job. My gut is that similar to other public schools UVA has some great outcomes for top students and given the size of the alumni base and student body a couple of people do really well each year, but it's not like they're sending 100+ kids to MBB/BB Banks. Will that give you a little bit of a bump in terms of your chances to land a job? Yes? Is it significant and worth 200k? Really hard to tell.

Slightly outside the scope of your decision, but another thing you cold think about is taking UW for a year, kill it in classes, and then try to lateral to a private school that might be more worth the cost if that makes sense. An Ivy or a good private school like a Duke or UChicago. I could get behind paying 200k for Duke over UW more easily than I could for UVA.

I didn't give a great answer and it's a tough decision. The $200k is significant money, but UVA is definitely one click up in terms of prestige and job placement. At the same time, it still is a state school, so the quality of students will be mixed, and if you don't get into McIntire, the opportunities will be more limited. The network is expansive and strong, but personally I think of UVA as a very solid school, but not a top tier. It's a top public university for sure, but is that worth $200k? I can't say for certain, you've got to think about your family situation, what type of person you are, and make that decision.

Edit: One other thing I thought about regarding money. Again, not sure exactly what your situation is, but one way to think about/frame the decision is about whether you could be willing or able to take on the debt personally to go to UVA vs UW. If the option to you was, your parents saved $50k to send you to college and get you started on your life. That either gets you a degree from UW or, that pays for one year of UVA and you're on the hook for $150k in student debt. Do you think the debt is worth it based on the opportunities you think UVA will provide? Do some research on that. If your parents aren't convinced, try to find some data to support your claims. $200k is a lot to ask of your parents, especially if they're going to need to take on debt to do it. 

Last thing: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/umd-in-state-or-uva-out-of-state

^ That should be the most directly relevant thread to what you're thinking about. Some good insights in there.

Edit 2: I stand corrected on the McIntire comments. Sounds like it doesn't matter that much for recruiting. So maybe moves the needle a little close to UVA.