I've been offered a full ride for the MBA program at Carnegie Mellon's MBA program and a full ride at UC Irvine's law program (it's the inaugural class, so everyone accepted got a free ride).

I'm trying to decide what to choose from. If I get an MBA, I would bust my tail off to get a job in investment management. If I go to law school, I would work my butt off, hopefully landing in corporate finance practice.

To all the associates out there, do you regret your choice? Would you do it again if you had the choice?

Why not do a joint degree and decide while you are in school or after you get out and try both worlds? It is only an extra year. You can even accept to one or the other and apply to the other program after your first year. Congrats either way.

carnegie mellon is an established top20 mba program... uc irvine law is an unknown quantity and will remain as such for even a few years after it graduates its first class.

i think you'd be silly to go to uc irvine over carnegie. but this is just my opinion.

congrats.

What does everyone think about UC Irvine in general?

I got in as well and I'm trying to decide whether it's a good choice

A new school is always a gamble, but UC Irvine will be in the top 50 within a few years. If you get into another top 20 school, I wouldn't risk it. But if you are comparing it against Hastings, Davis, Arizona, Colorado, etc., it may be worth a gamble if the financial aid package is significantly better. The location is pretty sweet too as you can live in HB, NB or LB.

Irvine will not be in the top 50 in a few years... there is no way. First of all, they won't be graduating a class for another three years, obviously, so until then, there will be no way to judge the quality of an Irvine education. Furthermore, firms aren't going to be willing to hire too many Irvine grads because they won't want to take the risk of not knowing Irvine grad capabilities. It will take a lot of time for Irvine to be accepted within the legal profession (in terms of actually getting a job).

Georgia State Law (ranked in mid-70s) started in the 1980s - this is the only law school that I can think of off the top of my head that started so recently, yet is ranked in the top 100... and we're talking about 25 years to get to the 70s ranking.

There is zero chance that Irvine will be in the top 50 in a few years.

UC Irvine does have some pretty prestigious faculty, but it's definitely an unknown program right now. I don't think you can assume it will rise that quickly in the rankings.

But the real question is law school versus business school.

Do you want to be a lawyer? If you do, go to law school. Corporate finance practice is SCREWED right now but the economy might be recovering in 3 years when you would be graduating, so theoretically firms might be hiring for that again.

If you want to go into business, go to b-school. Carnegie Mellon is a pretty decent school.

Do you want to be in SoCal or on the East Coast when your done? Carnegie Mellon is a fine school, but its not going to have as much cache value on the West Coast as it does back east.

Yes, that is actually an issue. I want to settle out West (SoCal or NorCal, either way; slight preference to NorCal). UCI completely unknown and will be scoffed at by NYC firms, but I don't want NYC, so it does not matter. Supposed CMU can get me to the West, but do I want to risk it? I might end up in a not-so-prestigious firm, however, if I went to UCI, but it would be closer to where I want to end up.

UCI has listed many of the employers who have promised to interview its inaugural class. That might give you an idea of what level of firm you could expect to get into.