Kenan-Flagler vs. Darden

I was asked to put together a comparison of Kenan-Flagler and Darden since I visited both schools. I am going to do a summary of location, recruiting, class/teaching method, and students. I will go through each of these topics and state which school I give an edge to.

Note: This is based solely on my research, campus visits, and conversations with students. Please take this entire post with a grain of salt.

Location
Edge - Even
I can’t really give the edge to either of these schools for the location. I really enjoyed both locations. The one thing that I liked about both of these schools is that the business school buildings are not in the middle of the campus. They are somewhat separated from the main campus. That makes for easier access. However, Kenan-Flagler is close to the Research Triangle Park (RTP) area. This could be considered an advantage for recruiting. That said, I think Darden has does well recruiting with companies in RTP. If nightlife is an important aspect of your decision, Kenan-Flagler has the edge there. Franklin Street seems like a great place for nightlife.

Recruiting
Edge – Darden
I have exchanged numerous e-mails with students at both schools regarding recruiting. In general, I think it has been a tough year everywhere for recruiting. However, I think it has been a little more difficult at Kenan-Flagler. Here is some information from the employment reports from both schools to back up my highly scientific (haha) hypothesis.

Employment Reports:

Kenan-Flagler
http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/assets/documents/mba-employment-report.pdf

Darden- http://www.darden.virginia.edu/uploadedFiles/Navigate_Darden/Academics/Career_Development/Employment_Report%202010.pdf

Class of 2009
Kenan-Flagler – 57.31% offer received by graduation.
Darden – 77.2 offer received by graduation

Kenan-Flagler – 71.15% offer received by three months after graduation.
Darden - 81.6% offer received by three months after graduation. (Not 100% sure this number is accurate)

Kenan-Flagler Average Base Salary: $93,012.12
Darden Average Base Salary: $102,903

From the employment reports the one thing that sticks out to me is the percentage of students accepting consulting positions. At Darden, 31% of the students accepted consulting positions. At Kenan-Flagler, only 14.44% accepted consulting positions. This is probably due to Darden’s use of the case method.

Darden’s information for the class of 2010 internships is not nearly as detailed as Kenan-Flagler’s information. Therefore, I won’t state any facts from those reports.

Class/Teaching Method
Edge – Personal choice
It is tough to give an edge to either school for teaching method because it is highly personal. It truly depends on each individual and how he/she best learns. For me personally, I think 70% case and 30% lecture would be ideal. My one concern with 100% case is in classes such as accounting. This was one of my key questions to Darden students. I never received a good answer. I get the feeling that the case method doesn’t work well for accounting classes. In fact, on my Kenan-Flagler visit, one of the students mentioned she had to help a Darden student understand accounting at a competition that both schools participated in. Again, this is a highly personal subject. Thus, I will leave it up to my readers to decide which school has the edge.

Students
Edge – Slight edge to Kenan-Flagler
The students at Darden were great. They were very welcoming and they have a fun way of introducing you to a class. The students at Kenan-Flagler were very welcoming and passionate about the school. I know in the class I sat in on, the students were very interested in talking to me (not the ones from the admission office). I thought that was interesting and didn’t know if it was like that at all schools since Kenan-Flagler was my first visit (it’s not like that at all schools, trust me). This is why I am giving the edge to Kenan-Flagler students. I know it’s not the best reason, but I felt like I was just another class mate while I was at Kenan-Flagler.