<p>Here's my take:</p>
<p>First off, all 3 schools are excellent institutions. You can't go wrong wherever you decide to go.</p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a USC student so I will have the most knowledge about that school. Sam Lee has a point when he says that
[quote]
"It's gonna take a while for others in other parts of the country to change their perception about USC"
[/quote]
Reputations are slow to change, and I've run into people who still think that USC is a sports/party school and know nothing of the strong academics. This perception will take a while to shake. This is balanced by the fact that USC is rapidly improving and is on the rise (this attracted me to the school more than anything else). Each year the SAT scores leap higher and higher, and this should continue for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>Michigan's business program is indeed ranked higher, but the difference isn't all that big. IIRC, USC was 9th in the USNews and Michigan is 3rd. No huge difference there. In the BusinessWeek publication, the gap is higher but USC's rank is also calculated from errant information (There's a thread on CC about this, but the search index is disabled so I can't link it here. The error had to do with student-faculty ratio.) Also, from my experience a huge part of success in Business is connections. USC excels in this area.</p>
<p>I will also add that USC has an outstanding social atmosphere. Not to take away from Michigan or BC, but I think USC is tops in this category.</p>
<p>About the other schools. Coming from the Bay Area, I recognized the name Boston College (which is a good thing, I actually hadn't heard of UM until I came to this forum, believe it or not). First thing that pops into my head is that it is religiously affiliated, with good academics, and it is in the fantastic city of Boston. I don’t know too much about Michigan, but it’s clear to me from reading this forum that it is very highly regarded.</p>
<p>In summary:</p>
<p>Academics/Prestige:
1. Michigan
2. BC/USC</p>
<p>Social Atmosphere:
1. USC
2. Michigan
3. BC</p>
<p>Location:
1. BC
2. Michigan
3. USC (it’s too sunny for me!)</p>
<p>Networking/Connections:
1. USC
2. Michigan
3. BC </p>
<p>That's my best effort from my admittedly biased point of view.</p>