Personal opinion: I don't think it's easy to have management experience with 5yr WE in US. MS+5yr=midlevel engineer. You don't expect such fast promotion in US. I think you should definitely try top schools.
Cannot agree more. Especially in big companies like F500, it takes about 3-5 years to see a promotion. So I'm similar to lz in a lot of ways, struggling here.
Personal opinion: I don't think it's easy to have management experience with 5yr WE in US. MS+5yr=midlevel engineer. You don't expect such fast promotion in US. I think you should definitely try top schools.