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10 Apr 2007, 17:59
You know, I'm just going to go ahead and post this whole email. I thought it was very helpful and reasonable. Especially the "8. Cost doesn't matter" section.
Straight Talk from an MBA Director who has faced the same choice you now face: choosing the right MBA program
By Dan Poston, Assistant Dean for Masters Programs
In recruitment mode, every MBA program presents itself with pretty pictures, successful alumni, and phrases like hands-on, student-focused, technology-driven and cutting edge. In the brochures, all MBA programs have appeal. But this essay is about looking past the catchphrases and glossy pictures. It's lengthy, but MBA candidates in the past have found it helpful.
Even if only one school has admitted you, you still have a choice: To go, or not to go and continue working. If you are still weighing MBA choices, look hard at your own needs. Debating whether a program has three or seven courses in finance doesn't really matter. Who is teaching those courses? What is the real content of each? A program may offer a course with a fantastic title, but it may be a lousy course taught by a boring professor. Believe me, no program can promise that every class and every professor will be enthralling. You might find that some of the very top programs have terrible reputations for teaching quality. Some large programs have multiple sections of a class. Some students luckily get into the class taught by the faculty member touted in the brochure, while others get whoever is available. To make a wise decision, your program analysis must go beyond superficial facts and idealized visions of what an MBA program is all about.
At the University of Washington, we want MBA students who chose us for the right reasons. They make satisfied students and successful, grateful alumni. For this reason, I try to present as complete a picture as possible of the issues and options available in choosing an MBA program.
A. "They like me. They really like me."
Some students commit to a school because they were actively recruited. Getting admitted is a validating experience. We feel wanted. Of course you are wanted! Every MBA program, including ours, needs to fill its seats with students. The MBA market is highly competitive. Many MBA programs today are desperate for students. It's a buyer's market. Even Wharton and Stanford admit students each year who choose to attend other schools or who decide to stay on the job instead of pursuing an MBA. Make your choice with head and heart and don't sell yourself short.
B. What exactly do YOU need an MBA to provide?
Scene one: You like your job. Your company will only promote you to upper management if you have an MBA. You have no plans to work in another company or in another field. Basically, you need a piece of paper that says, "MBA". If this is you, get an MBA diploma as affordably and easily as you can. A part-time program that waives classes or gives credit for work experience is what you need. The UW MBA, and most top MBA programs in the U.S., are too rigorous and expect too much from you outside of class if getting a degree certificate is your only real objective.
Scene two: You need the knowledge and tools provided by an MBA program to advance in your career or change careers. You plan to step into a solid job at a company with lots of room to grow and a chance to have a hand in setting the company's strategy at some point, have control over a product or unit, or maybe work overseas. You'd like multiple career options. You want a school with enough prestige to get you in the door of a top company or consulting firm, but you might not stay there too long and you are not necessarily committed to life on the corporate ladder. If this is you, you are in our program's market segment. You have an array of MBA choices. Use your own personal criteria (see below) to choose among programs that truly suit your own particular needs and goals.
Scene three: You just started your own company and expect to turn a profit in three months. A successful software firm has expressed interest in what you are doing. Or, you just got a promotion to a position with real responsibility and a nice raise. You want an MBA, but you love this new opportunity and hope to pursue both. You know what? Forget the MBA for now. Put your heart into what you are doing at work. It will take an all-out effort and—succeed or fail – it will be a great learning experience. MBA programs will still be available, and perhaps more easily affordable for you in a couple years. Come back later.
C. Reality Check: Your Personal Criteria
1. Place matters.
Every MBA program in the world has a geographic concentration of alumni and recruiting companies despite their global and national hype. If you attend Florida State, you won't find as many fellow alumni in Seattle as you will find in Miami. Sure FSU can point to some people in the Puget Sound area, but the alumni numbers and connections favor the schools in the region. Every MBA program has strong ties to some industries (usually those represented nearby) and weaker ties to others. If you go to UNC, you'll easily make connections with pharmaceutical firms in the area. If you go to UW, pharmaceutical firms are farther away, but Microsoft is close and eBay is not far. We fly people out to talk with firms in New York, and Cornell flies people out to talk to Starbucks, but students at both schools have an advantage making connections with the nearby firms.
Where do you want to place your bet for a career right out of the MBA program? At a recent MBA Case Competition, half the students from other MBA programs told me they were looking for jobs in Seattle - to no avail. If you already have connections in a region or industry, or if you can make just the right alumni connections, you can find job leads in more distant locations. If you're trying to make a total career change and lack experience or connections, you will probably have more success building credibility and opportunities at companies near your school. You absolutely cannot wait to start making connections as you approach graduation and prepare to relocate. The forward-looking students actively network with firms while in an MBA program. UW students are doing projects for Microsoft, Real Networks, Amazon.com, Starbucks, Expedia, Nordstrom, T-Mobile, and others. Schools, including the UW, send groups of students on recruiting trips to cities for interviews and company visits.
In December, our Business Connections Center arranged some great company visits and interviews for about 10 UW MBAs in New York. But who has the real advantage in New York? Students coming to town for the day or students who are living there for two years? Believe me - the student from the local school most likely has the edge over someone from a school ranked 10 points higher because that student has worked on a group project for the company, attended alumni and professional organization lunches and sat side-by-side with company employees, and met several times with an executive who is an MBA mentor. This student has an incredible advantage over others far away. Don't kid yourself into believing that you'll have an easy path to Chicago via Seattle, or that you'll have an easy path to Seattle or San Francisco via LA or Boston.
2. Motivation matters.
What gets you up every morning and keeps you going when the pressure is on? Do you need serenity? Do you need excitement? What do you need for distraction to relax and recharge? The open space of a cornfield? Golf in the desert? Snowboarding? City shopping? Jogging through the woods? Two weeks, or a month, anywhere can be endured. To survive two years under massive pressure to perform and grow, choose a place that will keep you focused and enthusiastic and let you escape once in a while to do things you love.
3. Your significant other's well-being matters.
If you are married, or have a significant other, how will he or she spend time while you are absorbed in an MBA program? Planning carefully means setting realistic expectations. What will he or she do on the weekend when you are working Saturday and Sunday on a group project? If you want a happy house, find a place your partner can make friends and can find things to do without you. Even though most programs try hard to help significant others feel connected, he or she will spend a lot of time without you.
4. Employment goals matter.
Be realistic about a school's connections to your target industry. Do you really believe a school in the Midwest can open doors in the film industry? Do you think a school on the West Coast can put you on Wall Street as easily as NYU or Columbia? Think this through and don't rely on marketing hype or broad non-answers you might hear.
5. Students matter.
Most applicants see tough admissions standards as barriers to be overcome or barriers that kept them out of a program they desired. Once students are in a program, they often want higher barriers. Why? In a group-oriented environment, your success is heavily impacted by your teammates. Every program wants students to learn from each other, but do you want to spend more of your time being a teacher or being a learner? Programs that admit many students with no work experience , inadequate language skills or lower quantitative skills to fill seats, force the more experienced and capable students to spend more time bringing weaker classmates up to speed. You can guess who will carry the largest burden in a team. Multiply that by up to 12 courses per year times two years and you could be working harder and getting far less new knowledge out of a program than you planned. The admissions standards that caused you anxiety as an applicant become your ally once you join a first year team. The UW MBA is one of the 20 toughest programs in the nation in terms of admissions standards. Our students like it that way.
6. Rankings matter in some ways and not in others.
Unlike many people at business schools, I support the MBA program rankings. Consumer information, even if flawed, is better than no information. Use the rankings, but understand them. An analysis of rankings by the Financial Times of London found that ranked schools clustered into three groups. The top eight schools, the next 16 schools and then the rest of the ranked schools. Schools in each group were so close on statistics that small variations of a factor or two could change the school's ranking significantly within that group from one year to the next. Further, each of the MBA rankings measures very different factors. All together, the rankings measure only a fraction of issues that determine the quality of an MBA experience.
The message: Use the rankings for broad comparisons. Choosing between two schools because one is ranked 29th and the other 36th is foolish. In reality, the overall quality of these two schools is probably indistinguishable. Currently Washington is #29 in the U.S.News ranking but in the two previous years we were #18 and #27. This year USC is # 26. Recently they were #18 and #20. In reality, both schools are solid and were solid all three years. The rankings may fluctuate from one year to the next, but the quality of experience remains relatively unchanged. Washington and USC are very different geographically and culturally. Your choice should be based on your personal needs and objectives, including factors that are related to the school (curriculum, student quality, placement efforts, culture, etc.) and factors not related to the school (industry links in the area, your recreational preferences, etc).
7. Placement statistics matter in some ways and not in others.
The University of Washington has had among the best overall placement record among the top 50 schools for the past five years. Even so, I tell MBA candidates not to base their decision to attend a school on the placement statistics.
Averages are only relevant to you if you are an average MBA. You probably are not. MBA students who continue in the same field or industry, those with more relevant work experience or those who acquire more relevant work experience during their MBA program often significantly raise their pre-MBA salary. For those who make major career changes and those with less experience, the salary improvement may be less. This is true regardless of the school you attend.
Every MBA program has a mix of people from both these groups. The amount and relevance of your pre-MBA work experience and the credibility you can build toward a new career through internships and company projects will have far more impact on your post-MBA salary than the school name on your diploma. People who choose (or don't choose) an MBA program assuming they can expect to earn the school's average salary don't fully grasp career statistics. With less experience in a new field and without a vigorous effort to build credibility in a new field, a student will likely earn less than the mean MBA salary across all leading schools. With the right mix of background, new skills, and practical experiences, you likely will earn a higher salary than the overall mean of all leading schools. Because most schools have this bimodal distribution of students split between experienced "career advancers" and those who are less experienced and/or major "career changers," rarely do more than a handful of graduates from any school actually earn the mean salary. Nearly all are earning significantly less or significantly more. Also, there are basic facts that are not apparent to most applicants. One example is that all schools report salary figures in U.S. dollars without adjustment for international placements or regional cost-of-living. As an applicant, I was appalled that one of my target schools listed a low salary of $12,000 until I learned this was the salary of a graduate who accepted a position in Asia. Schools with overseas placements inevitably show lower averages. Finally, just ten students admitted with an incoming salary of $140K and an outgoing salary of $220K can raise a school's mean salary quite a bit. Beware of using averages. Instead, try to discern the true salary potential for someone with your background and your career objectives in the region where you hope to live after earning your MBA. Information like this may be more readily found in sources like the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, from regional agencies, or from informational interviews, rather than from MBA program statistics.
8. Cost doesn't matter.
How can I say such a thing? Because I firmly believe that a free ride to "Anytown U" cannot possibly match the value of a Wharton MBA, even if you must borrow every cent for a very costly tuition. Of course, between those extremes it becomes a closer tradeoff. But consider what you are trading. If a degree from School A gets you exactly the job you want and School B doesn't, how quickly does that $20,000 scholarship from School B look like a bad deal?
If a school's tuition is subsidized by state funding, as it is at the University of Washington and many state institutions, why would a $12,000 scholarship to a $36,000 a year school seem like a better deal than a flat $20,000 state tuition? A high-priced tuition does not ensure quality and vice versa. (Education is the last industry to remain relatively untouched by economics… for now.) Many schools today charge higher tuition so they can use some of the tuition from international students and wealthy domestic applicants to support scholarships to other targeted applicants. This is a strategy used to boost rankings. Other schools use retail pricing mechanisms -- stating a high tuition, then "marking it down" with scholarships to give applicants the impression they received special consideration.
Again, look at the big picture. In my opinion, supported by the biennial analysis by Forbes, the return on investment for an MBA program at this point in history is excellent. In all likelihood, whatever the tuition, on average you will recoup the total cost in less than five years. Knowing this, select the school with the best lifetime value to you, whatever the cost.
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