I've been doing a lot of research to see which MBA is the best from me and I am a bit stuck.

I wanted to do my MBA at Harvard/Wharton/Stanford or another M7 school but due to some constraints (cost + GMAT score), this is unfortunately looking less and less likely.

So I'm looking for suggestions further down the ranking lists...

My goal is to go into the financial services sector. I have my eye on UNC and UCLA right now, but I am open to other suggestions.

Also, I am toying with the idea of doing my MBA at one of the schools in Toronto -- Rotman or Schulich. But I don't think I would want to live in Canada permanently, I would come back to the US after some time, so I would want to know that the schools have decent networks here.

Thank you for any advice!

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GMAT Tiers - strong schools for your GMAT www.find-mba.com/board/27082

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Shortcut to find the best US MBA www.find-mba.com/board/36065

The Toronto schools certainly aren't bad options, but your salary growth will probably be less in Canada than it would be in the US (depending on which US schools you're looking at).

A lot of the schools lower in the ranking place students into finance roles: UNC, Darden, McCombs... Your choice would depend on a lot of factors: where you'll be looking for jobs, as well as your GMAT score and budget.

Without getting too caught up on salary growth, do you think that Rotman and Schulich are good alternatives to a strong MBA in finance from a US school? Personally, I would really like to live in Canada and, well, the tuition rates are (relatively) good, at least compared to the M7 schools.

I think that Rotman and Schulich (as well as McGill) are great choices to work in finance in Toronto. That said, Toronto is not and will never be Wall Street, so you're limited in that sense, and your long-term salary growth might suffer (look at the FT's salary stats to get a sense of the difference).

That said, Toronto is a great city, with good quality of life, and some (myself included) prefer Canada to the US.