Seattle has a lot of tech companies but tech IS business. A business is simply a company that provides goods, services, or both to people, and business as a verb is the process of transacting those goods and services. In addition to their engineers and software developers and program managers, companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Google also have lots of accountants, finance and budget managers, business managers, marketing departments (AND HOW do we have a marketing department), etc. You can get a role as a businessperson in a tech company if you want. (We also have a lot of non-tech companies that are headquartered or have significant presences here, like REI, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Qwest Communications, T-Mobile, Bank of America, Fred Meyer, Group Health, and the Swedish hospital/health clinic chain. They all also have marketing departments, business managers, accountants, and financiers.)
Austin is also becoming a mini-tech hub, btw.
I agree that these are not safety schools. Also, you can work anywhere after going to one of these nationally known universities, although it is a great idea to try to make connections and get internships in a place that you might want to settle down (it works more often than most college students think about). You can get into a top business school from either of the two. So really it comes down to the things you say that don’t matter - atmosphere, community, and all of those other issues - because both schools are excellent, and both will allow you to do what you want to do.
One thing to note is that UT has a top-ranked undergraduate business program, and U.S. News puts their undergrad accounting program at #1 (and finance at #6).
I totally disagree that UT and UW have overall lower prestige than Villanova, Lehigh, and Bucknell and I’m not sure that I’d say they have lower prestige than Richmond or Wake Forest. Prestige is such a subjective topic that it kind of depends on who you ask.
Also, Seattle is nowhere near a crime-ridden city. By crime statistics the Seattle area is one of the safest large cities in the country - the FBI puts it at the #4 safest city. Crime is quite low here. The idea that public transit is non-existent is laughable - public transit is pretty good here compared to most U.S. localities, and either way, we definitely have better public transit than Austin, which is a super spread out Southern city that pretty much requires a car. I have friends and coworkers who live in Seattle proper without a car or who barely touch their car. (I live on the Eastside, but even I have a park and ride really close to me that will take me to different places in the city and the Eastside if I wanted.)
The weather is rainy and grey for much of the year, but 1) it’s not cold, particularly not for someone coming from the Northeast. It’s in the 50s in early November, and it never really gets down below the 40s/high 30s even in January, and 2) it’s not the same kind of rain Northeasterners think of when they think of rain (and I’m from the Northeast). It’s more like a semi-constant drizzle. Some days it rains in the morning but not during the day. The accumulated rainfall in Seattle is actually less than that of New York and Boston, IIRC. Seattle actually ranks 44th among major U.S. cities in terms of total annual rainfall.
Austin’s weather is nicer most of the year, but in the summer it is very, very hot. Also, the tuition is about the same for an international student. But Austin’s cost of living IS much lower - which can make a BIG difference in undergrad when you want to go do stuff.
I don’t have a horse in this race nor am I trying to convince you to go to UW - I think you should pick where you want to go - but I wanted to correct those misconceptions! I know as a dutiful Seattleite I’m supposed to be driving people away from the PNW but it’s really an awesome place to live.
:-*