While still in the top 30-ish full-time MBA programs, Simon was actually the lowest ranked of all the schools I applied to and was accepted at. At the time, I was in a relationship and decided that Simon offered a chance to stay relatively close to my girlfriend while still providing a well-rounded curriculum and education in a highly ranked program at a school with a fantastic regional reputation. In retrospect, I couldn't have made a better decision. Especially considering the relatively small class size at Simon, there are so many unique opportunities to learn and gain practical experience and skills there that I never had a shortage of things to talk about in any interviews or networking calls. In fact, I'm incredibly lucky to have chosen Simon. I originally intended to pursue a career in Equity Research, but after taking advantage of the opportunity to work as an Analyst for the Simon School Venture Fund in my first year, then managing the Fund in my second year, I can't imagine working outside of the startup/venture investing space and having even a fraction of the passion I developed while working on real deals, investing real dollars and later training and managing my successors. And that's just one of the multitude of opportunities you get at Simon you don't get everywhere else. I even got to live, take classes, network, and make new friends in Japan for a term through a student exchange program.
Somewhat unexpectedly, I soon realized that the caliber of faculty at Simon is second to none. Having previously earned an MPA degree from the #1 ranked Maxwell School (sorry Harvard, but you're still #2), I thought there might be a small step-down in experience, teaching capability, or accessibility of Simon's faculty compared to my Maxwell experience, but this turned out to be one of the strongest aspects of my MBA experience. Whether learning valuation and negotiation in "Cases in Finance" from Professor Jarrell or the due diligence and term sheet items that are crucial when 'papering the deal' in Professor Couch's Private Equity course, I'd confidently put my new knowledge and skills to the test against recent grads from any top-10 MBA program.
Because of my chosen career path, my recruiting experience was largely outside the norm for typical MBA students at Simon. While Simon does get some company and recruiting visits, they are somewhat less than at schools closer to the biggest US cities and with larger class sizes, as I came to know when meeting students in other programs. To combat this, the new (and fantastic) career services team organizes regular trips to NYC, Philadelphia, and other cities and schedules a number of alumni and recruiter events for the students. In my case, VC/PE firms don't typically have organized recruiting programs so my internship and job search were largely my own responsibility. But again, my experience working for the Simon School Venture Fund provide more than enough opportunity to make contacts and build a network to draw from when seeking out job opportunities.
Overall BSchool experience (5.0)
Schools contribution (4.0)
Classmates rating (5.0)
Curriculum, Classes, Professors
Student body, diversity
Specialization in a particular area (e.g. Finance, Consulting, Healthcare, etc)
Consulting
Finance
Management
Location
Facilities