MBAs Flock to Consulting, Silicon Valley

Your undergrad major may not matter as much as what you get out of it.

While Darden MBAs look to consulting, Midwestern business school grads are taking their startup dreams to Silicon Valley. Here’s what’s trending on the business education landscape.

Consulting bonanza at UVA Darden

Graduates of the top-ranked University of Virginia Darden School of Business are hot on consulting—and consulting is hot on them. More students go into that industry than any other, according to new statistics. This could be explained by the fact that Darden’s new dean is a former partner at McKinsey, a longtime destination of business school graduates. To hammer the point home, consider this: Consulting firms were the top three employers from Darden’s MBA class of 2016.

Darden is also reporting a 2.5% rise in average salaries to $123,806 in 2016, up from almost $120,000 in 2015. Average sign-on bonuses jumped nearly 6 percent to around $31,400, up about $2,000 from 2015. The school did report a slight drop in job offer rate though, saying that 86 percent of its students received a job offer before graduation, down slightly from 89 percent the previous year. (Poets & Quants)

Boothies go west… to Silicon Valley

Chicago Booth may be located in the Midwest, but many of its graduates are headed west to Silicon Valley for career opportunities… and not all of them are angling to work at Google or Apple. Many are channeling the spirit of the 49ers to create their own businesses in a land known for being friendly to startups.

“Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of investors, funding and startup activity in the US. It can be intimidating, but generally the people here are very open and inclusive,” said Erin Lenhardt, a 2015 graduate of Booth, and founder and CEO of The Food Mint.

“I’ve always wanted to work here, and with the Chicago Booth MBA you can work anywhere in the world,” added Vincent Chevalier, who graduated from Booth in 2011, and founded Impulse Analytics. “I’ve fallen in love with the area. People here are insanely optimistic and just want to have an impact.” (BusinessBecause)

Many ways to an MBA

The good news about business school admissions is that MBA programs aren’t looking for one “type” of academic background. Just because you majored in Comparative Literature rather than finance doesn’t necessarily put you at a disadvantage. As Laurel Grodman, Director of Admissions, Analytics and Evaluation for the Yale School of Management, says, “We have a healthy representation from all of the big major groupings, so we’re certainly not advantaging or disadvantaging any particular group, and we certainly don’t go out on the onset looking to hit some sort of quota.”

“Say, ‘This is what I gained, and these are the skills I bring to the table,'” advised one MBA student whose college major was religion. The larger point is this: There is no “right” major for getting into business school. Show admissions officers how your major shaped how you view things and how an MBA will continue to help you on your career path. (U.S. News & World Report)

Brexit fallout worries business schools

There’s still a great deal of uncertainly about what the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union means for its people and its economy. Among the industries most concerned about the fallout are the UK’s business schools, which rely on non-British EU citizens for a large percentage of their student body. But with the coming withdrawal, business schools are concerned that non-British students will get bogged down in bureaucratic immigration paperwork and securing visas. Some MBA programs have banded together to form a network to show these students that their international creds still stand and that they are still welcome.

Kathy Harvey, associate dean responsible for Saïd’s MBA degree programme, said, “Joining this network is part of a commitment to saying that we think we have to work together with other schools and we have to be open.”

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