ACTUAL post MBA salary: are the figures real or tilted to the upside?

Good question.

Maybe the files of the career services department ... which doesn't help us out much today.

I graduated from Ross last week and have a decent network across top schools in the country. What kind of salary stats are you looking for? I might be able to answer specific salary questions.

Unfortunately I am looking for European MBA stats... Here the dispersion is even more considering totally different economies...

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Personally, I feel the European schools are a lot less transparent than the US schools and because of a lack of transparency for European schools, the numbers raise more questions and scrutiny. I think it would be awesome to validate some of the salary numbers and assumptions for European schools.

I don’t think MBA programs would be as brazen as to fabricate salary numbers, But many schools and pretty much all employment reports are not an exact reflection of reality. For example, the salary figures are only available for those who have a job. This means that unemployed graduates are not calculated or included.

Example 2: usually, the first ones to get job offers are the strongest candidates who tend to get higher compensation and better jobs. That also skews the numbers depending on when they are collected.

Example 3: The numbers are self-reported and there is a natural motivation for people to inflate their earnings. This seems preposterous but at the same time it seems tempting as nobody wants to be the low earning guy. There is also a motivation to outline the best case scenario because that makes the school ranking better and makes the school look better.

Bottom line, I don’t think employment reports have fake data. However, the data they have does not cover everyone and that creates a view l that is different from what really is happening.

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The reality is that some schools don't adjust their ratios by eliminating students who didn't accept a job offer ... because they're starting a company ... or this going to work for the family company. And they should (at least with the self employed).

And ... is a school averaging $125k total compensation at 90% employment AT graduation better than one that averages $127.5k three months AFTER graduation for 88% of the cohort?

Etc.

It's difficult.

Schools (ones with good reporting) report numbers with ‘graduates seeking employment’ which, in my opinion, acts as a pretty decent indicator.

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Strongly agree ... subject to their simultaneous disclosure of what the ones not seeking employment were actually doing instead of trying to get a job ...

Self employed / starting a business?

Additional graduate school?

Sponsored attendance by current employer?

Depressed at the job market?

Etc...

All of the above I think. But also it could be the heir to an oil magnate.

Well, come to think of it, the heir would probably look for a job even harder than other students.