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Trending Younger?

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collegesenior
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   25 May 2008, 01:40
As I see it, the MBA could means different things to candidates at different stages.

The person who wrote my recommendation matriculated after 9 years of work experience and used the access to faculty and resources during the MBA to think through various business models and eventually launch a startup.

For an early career candidate, the MBA could open doors, earlier, to opportunities that he/she might not have had access to. [Here, I don't refer to compensation, but beyond that, am referring to specific assignments that are more challenging or entrepreneurial]

In many ways, the Class Profile on the website, with an average of 5 years work ex. can be a great heuristic -- but only just that. The candidate can best assess when they are ready, and based on their profile/stage, what they realistically hope to get out of the program.

As for me, a college senior, I've deferred at admit at Sloan by 2 years -- which I see as the sweet spot for my specific case :)
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msday
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   25 May 2008, 09:26
collegesenior wrote:
As I see it, the MBA could means different things to candidates at different stages.

The person who wrote my recommendation matriculated after 9 years of work experience and used the access to faculty and resources during the MBA to think through various business models and eventually launch a startup.

For an early career candidate, the MBA could open doors, earlier, to opportunities that he/she might not have had access to. [Here, I don't refer to compensation, but beyond that, am referring to specific assignments that are more challenging or entrepreneurial]

In many ways, the Class Profile on the website, with an average of 5 years work ex. can be a great heuristic -- but only just that. The candidate can best assess when they are ready, and based on their profile/stage, what they realistically hope to get out of the program.

As for me, a college senior, I've deferred at admit at Sloan by 2 years -- which I see as the sweet spot for my specific case :)


I agree completely. Everyone needs to decide when he/she is ready for b-school. For me, with only 2 yrs of FT work, I am looking to gain a new network and a new framework. I hope/think that my experiences in college will compensate for my lack of "real-world" experience, but I will give you a definitive answer by Jan 2009 when the admissions process will be over!
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   26 May 2008, 07:43
not much to add other than great posts to river and KK.

I personally think that an MBA class should have a good mix of people from all lengths of experience (I still would put the minimum at 2) to give everyone a better learning experience.

I've sat in management training classes (hosted by my company) before, where I was a rookie and had no idea of how to contribute to the discussion, even though I benefitted a lot from it. It's probably not because I didn't have the "great intellect" or didn't have any student org leadership experience (which I had a lot of), but because the working/business world is SO different than college orgs or even volunteering organizations. Having 2 years under your belt of interacting with different levels of people and a wide range of work experience will not only help you learn better, but also contribute back to your fellow classmates to make it a more equal learning experience.

My disclaimer: This is not to knock young admits like dabots or KK, but to say that a b-school trending too young (straight out of college) or too old (EMBA level) will hurt the students trying to maximize their peer learning experience. A good mix of 2-8 yrs of exp would be an ideal classroom, and one that I think schools like Kellogg, UCLA, Wharton, Haas, and others do very well. :)
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   26 May 2008, 10:38
kryzak wrote:
and one that I think schools like Kellogg, UCLA, Wharton, Haas, and others do very well. :)


And Ross my dear friend :-) Don't you forget Ross!
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togafoot
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   26 May 2008, 15:55
I don`t think it has anything to do with age at all.
It`s all about recent quality of experience, ergo someone with no experience would have limited quality experience. Likewise someone with 20 years experience may only have had a few years recent quality experience (they may have been doing something else for a while before acquiring leadership experience).

Also a key differentiator between EMBA and MBA is a lot of EMBA`s require company sponsorship, so it excludes a lot of people (the costs are usually higher). Also the EMBA is usually for career enhancers and not for career switchers/changers.
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   26 May 2008, 17:01
riverripper wrote:
But thats an unfair comparison. What about 2 years post MBA who is going to be the better business leader. Yes 10 years post MBA they will probably be about equal and one will be older than the other. The guy who graduated from the MBA at 26 may work for 6 or 7 years longer than the guy who graduated at 32 but how many of them will be with the same company for those 30 odd years?

Companies recruiting fresh MBAs are goign to want the most bang for their buck. I think thats why people say its tougher during recruiting for a 25 year old than a 29 year old. Turn over is pretty high these days at most companies so they wont be looking at who is going to be around in 2040 but will be looking at who will be the better performer for them in 2012.

i think the comparison is fair. obviously older mba grads will be better managers straight out of school, but the question asked was whether or not the trend of starting mbas younger was good for american business. the earlier you start the more years you will have to benefit from the mba experience. back in the day, admitting students straight out of college was the norm, and american business was just fine. some people seem to think of the mba as the capstone of your managerial career, whereas i think i can be a launching point just as college is the launching point for most careers. should we delay high school students from entering college so they will have some real world experience and be "better college students?" would that be good for american business? i dont think so. i think it is best to go when you are ready, and there are many with 2-4 years exp that are ready.
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   26 May 2008, 23:09
I think a lot of this is being driven by recruiter demand. For example, it seems that schools that tend to have more of a marketing and general management focus prefer an older crowd. This can be explained by the fact that older folks will fit in better into the middle-management tracks offered by Fortune 500 companies - they're more settled, they may be married with kids, etc. and would be more interested in quality of life and a house in the suburbs. Examples of schools with a lot of this type of recruiting would be Kellogg, Duke, and Haas.

Schools that have a large amount of investment banking and management consulting recruiting may prefer to trend younger, as a 25 or 26 year old is far more likely to be willing to live in a studio in Manhattan, be on the road 4 days/week, and/or work an 80 hour week. Examples of schools with a lot of this type of recruiting would be HBS, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, and Chicago.

This is a gross overgeneralization, and I understand that, but that seems to be one of the few logical explanations I've managed to justify the differences with.
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rajpdsouza
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink] New post   27 May 2008, 05:54
As some have already said, it's all about QUALITY of experience, not necessarily quantity.
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Re: Trending Younger? [#permalink]
27 May 2008, 05:54
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