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Alright... so let me provide a soft fuzzy girlly perspective...

Firstly, congrats... i absolutely resonate with he 80 hour work week + b school apps is a nightmare.... i actually split the 4-5 schools I want to apply to over r1 and r2.. so hats off to you for getting everything in order for r1

Second, with your background and the schools you are looking at.. you'll get into PE/VC etc. regardless of the school you go too... the %s are comparable.. i don't think the results will be dramatically different for you.. it would be different for a non IB background person t o crack right out of B School.. but you are already "trained"

Next up... personal life, dating etc (that you have listed in bold)... if you haven't visited the schools, i'd recommend to do so now... tepper/tuck/darden are in middle of no where...and Yale... well NYC is close enough... but dating is NYC sucks (if u have the time for it). But then again im sure you'll meet great people in any of these schools... I'm 28 so one thing I have looked for is avg age.. because the last thing I want to do is go to school with a bunch of 24 yr olds (don't think thats a consideration for guys... but if it is..)

So that leaves the two in Chicago...
Chicago Booth... great school.. yes very quant.. and they like that background of people too... dinged you twice and now WL - doesn't it make u wonder... maybe its not as ideal of a fit as you think it might be?

So Kellogg Kellogg Kellogg.. I loved this school for all the reasons everyone mentioned earlier... everything is student run.. very collaborative... you work with a lot of different people... those guys are heavy drinkers over there.. instead of other schools that don't have classes on Friday.. Kellogg has no classes on Wednesday... so the drinking starts early in the week (doubt it ever stops).. Now the only thing con is if purple is not your color... its a tough color to pull off...

Congrats gain! and Good luck.. on quitting your job.. . pre-MBA internship... and travel like crazy... 8 odd months of bliss!

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lol confidence or swagger... hardly... i just got WLd at Wharton...and I haven't done much for R2 (other than decide where I want to apply)... From what i've seen happen with friends... PE/VC is really more about being in the right place... and being really lucky rather than being that much smarter/talented.. A pre-MBA internship is actually going to help you get a leg up through the process...

And honestly... you probably know that the employment report is an indicative and not exact... so the opportunities you will have in either of the schools listed is going to be comparable...

I am so jealous... i would much rather be in your situation... quit soon after bonus time than wait till March end...

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I want to hear from all the people voting for Tepper because no one's said a peep about it. I kind of see it at the bottom of the list but maybe it's great for your career?

OMG! our experiences sound similar... I haven't told my bosses either... not a word...when i wanted to give my GMAT i took a week off and told him I was going on a safari to Africa with no internet to work... and then I hid in my apartment for the week to study and get it done (Dramatic, but it worked)

Thankfully we hear of our bonuses shortly after the board decides in early january.. and the payment comes in with the Feb Paycheck.

Voting is strange... that people would give equal weightage to tuck, tepper and kellogg... coz another thing to consider would of course be the class size... if you are as outgoing and networking type as you describe.. you could benefit from a larger class size..

Should have applied to Anderson, in my experiences their students were the most laid back and the girls were the hottest.

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Tepper has only 1 vote. I would assume that is because of both the 50% tuition, as well as tepper having a decent # of portfolio managers among its alumni base.


Graduate Degrees of Investment Professionals at Morningstar Ranked Funds
Rank Count School Index
1 1 University of Pennsylvania - Wharton School 100
2 2 Harvard Business School 46
3 3 New York University - Stern School of Business 45
4 4 University of Chicago Graduate School of Business 40
5 5 Columbia Business School 35
6 6 University of Wisconsin - Madison 31
7 7 University of California at Los Angeles - Anderson School of Business 20
7 8 Stanford Graduate School of Business 20
9 9 Northwestern University - Kellogg Graduate School of Business 18
10 10 University of Virginia - Darden School of Management 17
11 11 University of Southern California 15
12 12 University of Michigan School of Business 12
12 13 Cornell University - Johnson Graduate School of Management 12
12 14 Indiana University 12
15 15 >Dartmouth College - Amos Tuck School of Business 11
15 16 MIT Sloan School of Management 11
15 17 Oxford University 11
18 18 University of California at Berkeley Haas School of Business 9
18 19 Carnegie Mellon University 9
18 20 Duke University - Fuqua School 9
18 21 Cambridge University 9
18 22 University of Texas at Austin 9
23 23 University of Minnesota 8
24 24 University of Connecticut 7
24 25 Case Western Reserve University 7
Example For every 100 investment managers that earned their graduate degrees from Wharton, 31 earned their degrees from UW-Madison.

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Fair enough, although I'm sure you'll be jealous when I'm surfing during the wintertime!

My post is not meant to offend, so don't take it that way.

My vote is Kellogg if money's not an object. I bet its social life will be the best out of all your options, (dont even sweat Chicago IMO, the people are weird) and I assume it places well on the east coast. Tuck is alright but reminded me of summer camp, students were kind of cultish, and is in middle of nowhere, Pittsburgh is not as cool as Evanston (IMO), and your social life would be pretty bad (relatively), Darden also in BFE. Yale seems to be out because it may not place as well into what you're going for.

Best of luck!

My mistake.

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Okay I've checked twice now. Yale not in the top 25?
I know the class strength is pretty low, but Cornell (only slightly higher number of people, and closer to NY, like Yale) is on the list.

Maybe because of quite a few going in non-profit industry. None the less, interesting.

Congratulations on your admits! As a first year at Kellogg, I voted Kellogg! Obvi.

For the most part, I agree with the comments already brought up by azn84, cheetarah1980, and str1der. Go to the admit weeks, talk to current students, and look through the employment reports.

A few comments:

Kellogg is not known as a finance school, but still has a strong finance program. I’ve been told by my classmates recruiting for finance that this is a good thing for the same reason you alluded too: less competition among classmates for the same jobs. This is only anecdotal so do some more research, but I do know all the big banks and financial institutions that recruit at Booth will recruit at Kellogg (we’re only an hour apart).

As cheetarah1980 mentioned, Kellogg does have two classes that pair you up with a PE or VC firm for a 10 week long unpaid internship during the school year. One is called VC Lab and is specific to VC (https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/res ... tudent.htm) and the other is called Buyout lab and is specific to PE (https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/res ... tudent.htm). These are great opportunities for students with no VC/PE background to get into the industry and make connections. An important note is students must apply into these classes and get picked by the VC or PE firm. Roughly 12 students get picked each quarter for each class (24 total). Your IBD background will be a big advantage to getting picked since many students applying don’t have any finance background, which some firms look for.

Finally, here is some general marketing material from our PE/VC club: https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/res ... VC_web.pdf

As for dating, cheetarah1980 already said it. It’ll happen no matter where you go so don’t let that drive you too much. Go to admit week. Really understand the culture. Do some prelim scouting to see if there are cute girls. Meet as many students as possible. I will say
- statistically speaking, the larger the student body, the more options you’ll have
- being close to a big city helps diversify the dating scene
- kellogg doesn’t mingle much with the undergrads or other grad programs

I’ll end with the most relevant yet useless advice I got when deciding between schools: All your choices are amazing. You can’t go wrong. Go with your heart.

But really. Just come to Kellogg.

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Sounds like you just made a case for Tuck. Based on employment reports, 25% of the class ends up in NYC, and another 25% in Boston. Pretty cool to have half your class in that area after graduation.

IMO people overrate the location of schools. Between schoolwork, recruiting, club events, etc, there's not as much time as you think to explore a new city, plus the cost of living is going to be higher. You've got the rest of your life to life in a big city - a two year detour to a small town you'd otherwise never live in might not be such a bad thing.