Master of science in Finance advice, UT Dallas specific

so I didn't realize it was only 100 characters, and so I'll elaborate here. I'm getting a general business degree from a liberal arts school, career focus shifted near the end of undergrad. I graduate in December. I know that UTD is decently regarded according to rankings, both in the state and nationally. Though it is more regional, I'll be staying in the region fairly long term as my fiance is working in DFW already. My hope is to begin working in the industry in an entry level position since classes are online, evenings, and weekend offerings.

I'm not looking into investment banking. Maybe that makes me low ambition, but all these talks about boutique firms and Wall Street don't really interest me. I want to be able to work for a f500 (AT&T, American Airlines, GM Financial, Southwest) are all located in DFW, with several other companies in Plano. To get to level II and above, a master's degree is generally required when looking at job postings.

So anyway, UT Dallas? Thoughts? I know people generally say stay away from non top 10, but I'm honestly not looking for the crazy Wall Street or bust mentality Goldman Sachs type of thing.

try getting into the UT-Austin MSF, the placement for it into IB and etc within texas is great

With the UTD MSF, you'll find a job alright. You do remain competing against undergraduates, and your salary/job ranges would likely reflect so. F500 means everybody outside of MBB/BB, so it's never easy to be in F500 with a development-friendly position.

I think not IB or bust is fine. Not everyone is the IB type. The problem usually occurs when you give up some options now, and you don't think you'll need it later (e.g. going to BB banks or MBB consulting). But sometime in life, you might realize you actually need that deal... but your past preparations are not enough for it.

Look at SMU as well. Personally, I think they are the more respected school in the Dallas area. UT Austin would be a good option, but it seems like you'd be kinda far from your wife and not looking for the career optionality.

Speaking as a former Dallas resident here are my thoughts:

Go to the best program you can get into, no matter your end-goal. Think about it this way, the wider your net is cast, the more opportunities you will ultimately have to succeed.

I would also recommend talking to alumni of each school and asking the admissions offices if they have an employment reports or any career placement statistics. The reasoning for this is two-fold: (1) gives you valuable statistics to evaluate and compare programs (2) the more open and transparent the program is about its career placement, the more likely they are to help their students succeed in finding jobs in what is traditionally a short 1-year time frame.

With this being said, Cox is a target for many of the F500 companies in the DFW area, and it gets a lot more respect from employers than any other school in North Texas.

UT Dallas does a decent job in graduate programs, but I'm guessing it places less students in F500 leadership development programs.

Also, depending on your age and experience a MSF might not be right for you and what you're looking for. A MBA at a regional school could make your chances of getting into a F500 a little bit easier, since it carries more weight and is more well known than a MSF degree. For this I would throw in UT's DFW MBA program as it's both part-time and cheaper than the full-time equivalent.

There is a user on WSO named UTDallas. He or she may be a good person to message directly regarding the UTDallas program.

UT Dallas does a decent job in graduate programs, but I'm guessing it places less students in F500 leadership development programs.

The above is the question you need to be asking: what is UTD's MSF placement rate into F500 finance programs? Also, why not just apply directly to these F500 companies and skip the MSF program? I'm very skeptical that these online MSF programs lead to good career placement. UTD has a decent reputation is Dallas but its MSF program is relatively unknown.

The MSF program at UT Dallas is almost entirely made up of Chinese international students. Take that as you will. The program has improved a lot in the past few years though. The business school has been greatly improved by addition of a new building and trading lab.

There is a decent amount of corporate finance recruiting at UTD:

Texas Instruments, Sabre, Verizon, JCP, UPS, American Airlines, AT&T, Ericsson, Dr Pepper Snapple, Fossil, Frito Lay, GameStop, GEICO, Hewlett-Packard, Huawei, IBM, Interstate Batteries, Intel Security / McAfee, PepsiCo, Raytheon, Southwest Airlines, Siemens, and others to a lesser extent.

SMU will likely have more MSF recruiters but that comes at a much higher cost of tuition.

The MSF program at UT Dallas is almost entirely made up of Chinese international students.

Pretty similar to my observations. One of their part time students that I met was a call center employee. I respect that a lot of their students are trying to improve their standing in life, but not exactly a ringing endorsement of the quality of student.

I'm from Dallas. Don't do it. Seriously. I went to UTDallas. DON'T DO IT. But they're MS in Real Estate is pretty decent.

If you're only looking for a position in F500 finance then maybe, but even still I would suggest our MS in Accounting. It's a big feeder into Big 4 (which if you're going F500 finance is a really great place to start from what everyone says) but also into finance programs at places like TI, AmericanAirlines, Southwest Airlines, Liberty Mutual, etc.