Battle Royale- definitely not, but still your help is needed

Hi Friends,

It would be nice if I had the fortune to choose between Michigan and Chicago or Duke and UCLA like some of the stars on the board did a month or two back, but unfortunately my situation is a bit different. I'll try to give you the run down on my background, my story, and my options. I would kindly appreciate your thoughts, especially from these aforementioned superstars. My apologies in advance for the length of this, but for those willing to suffer through reading this, I thought I’d provide as much background as possible.

Applications Results
I applied to seven schools, all in Round 2.

Chicago – rejected (no interview)
Wharton – rejected (no interview)
Kellogg – rejected (with interview, but hey, they interview everyone)
NYU – waitlisted w/o interview and subsequently rejected
Columbia – waitlisted w/ interview and subsequently rejected
UCLA – waitlisted w/o interview, subsequently interviewed, currently on WL, although it’s now been 1.5+ months since my interview
USC – accepted

My "Stats"
White male from Southern California
3.8 GPA – State school in California
GMAT:680, >80% quant
Current Age:26
CFA Charterholder

Activities During College
I worked ~20+ hours all 4 years to pay for school. I did a myriad of volunteer activities each year during school, although none were in a leadership capacity.

Activities Post College
For 2.5 years, I have been a mentor for Level I CFA Candidates (as part of a program run by my local society. About six months after being involved with this program, I was appointed as co-director of this program. We’ve grown to >140 people participating this year, up from 100 people last year. I am still a mentor, along with my holding my co-director role. I also participate in several other activities with this society, most significantly, speaking at local universities and giving presentations on various topics. Most recently (since February), I've become involved as a mentor/teacher for a "Stock Market Challenge" run by the state of California designed to promote economic learning in the classroom for inner-city high school students.

Work Experience Industry: Financial Services
Roles/Functions: Corporate Finance/Credit Risk/Financial Analysis. Pretty good career progression, salary growth, and promotions along the way.

Current Work Situation
I can’t say specifically which company I work for (although some of the folks I have gotten to know on the board may know), but let’s just say that I am very close to the epicenter of the mortgage/housing/financial mess that is still continuing to unwind. I have managed to keep my job, despite significant layoffs (~25%+) over the last 6+ months. I expect a very large wave of additional layoffs to hit sometime within the third quarter of this year. Three months ago, I would have thought that I was immune to these future layoffs, but there have since been significant restructurings taking place (and still unfolding) that flat-out look bad, regardless of one’s division or function. I would be naïve if I were to believe that my job was safe at this point.

My job situation is a wildcard and a major headwind for a reapp for several reasons:
1) If I'm unemployed when I click "submit application" that looks bad. Even if I explain the situation in the optional essay, it may still cast a shadow over my application. They may think, “Why didn’t he see this coming and leave earlier?”
2) If I’m employed at a different job, adcom may wonder, “Why is this guy changing jobs if he wants to go to b-school? Maybe he’s not sure what he wants to do.”

If I’m still employed, that would provide the best case scenario, but if I were a betting man (which I am) I wouldn’t put money on it. I’d say my chances of submitting apps in Round 1 while employed in my current job are around 20%.

Why MBA and ST/LT Goals
ST goal – investment banking (IB)
LT goal – investment management (IM)

The reason for wanting to earn an MBA is to make a career switch from corporate finance to LT goal of IM. The reason that I want to do IB in particular (M&A ideally) is to three-fold. 1) Get extensive excel modeling skills (cash flow, building financial statements, etc), 2) have the opportunity to work with senior management and decision makers at companies and 3) understand why company X decides to or merge with or buy company Y.

I originally much more in-depth on this, but shortened this to save you guys time. Just to note, I may decide to just go directly to IM (IB market is terrible right now, among other things).

Where I Stand
The most quoted and obvious benefit for going to USC is probably “the network.” Perhaps secondary and tertiary reasons are its entrepreneurship, media/entertainment, and real estate programs. That being said, I agree with a comment that River often makes regarding specialty rankings – a degree from H/W/S (or any of the other M7 schools for that matter) will open any of the doors needed, even if one of those schools isn’t ranked in the Top 10 in a particular category.

Ultimately I want to be in SoCal long term (or at least Cali – SF is an option), so in the sense of Trojan network, USC makes a lot of sense. However, USC is not known as a finance school, so how good will my network be if the bulk of the students are in real estate, entertainment/media, or their own businesses? In other words, the Trojan Network may be strong, but if they aren’t working for the companies that I am interested in working for, I have no way in the door from school reputation or network connections. For instance, under top employers, USC lists that the Class of 2007 had 4 people go to Bank of America, 3 go to Credit Suisse. I’m not sure if this list was comprehensive and that rest of the employers hired 2 or fewer students, but this concerns me, BIG TIME! TCW, Capital Group, and PIMCO are three major IM employers in LA, and none of them even hire three USC students? Bear in mind "finance" is microscopic in Southern California, compared to NY, Chicago, or even SF, so you would think that major employers such as these would take on a handful of students (much the same way as Amgen and Disney). Same thing for IB, not even three from Goldman, Lehman, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, or Bear Stearns (I realize this one is bad in hindsight, but still!). 45% of the 2007 grads went into finance/accounting function (whatever that means), so it's not like people are going into finance related areas. Unfortunately, the report doesn't drill down further, so I don't know what specific areas are meant by "finance/accounting."

As I mentioned, I am still waitlisted at UCLA. If I get in there, I will definitely attend. They have a solid finance rep, and the recruiting seems pretty close to par (at least for IB/IM) with the rest of the Top 10 schools. Furthermore, wanting to be in Cali long term will mean that I will have a solid Anderson network. That being said, my chances of getting in aren’t very likely at this point. Based on my waitlist experiences with NYU and Columbia, I’m certainly not going to count on anything. Hence, I’ll plan for the most likely scenario and try and make my decision based off of that.

Preliminary potential schools if I apply again (in no particular order)
Columbia (reapp) – Early Decision
Darden
Duke
Michigan
NYU (reapp - maybe)
UNC
Tepper
Emory (maybe)
Georgetown (maybe)
Yale (maybe - would need to talk to Lanter about this)
Chicago (reapp – maybe - would need to talk to Helg + Rhyme and others about this)

Note: If I do reapply, I will apply in Round 1.

Bottom Line: Should I go to USC Marshall or reapply?

Many thanks,
ryguy