[EWMBA Program] Admitted to HAAS EWMBA, thinking of applying to Booth

Haas is more of a cohort so it’s more similar to a full-time program. If creating a deep network is important to you than I think maybe it’s the better choice..

Thank you. Sorry I had to run an errand and then got distracted.

Back to the point, I don’t feel that the full-time MBA necessarily translates into recruiting into very niche industries such as PE or VC or others. Those employers often look for a specific type of a candidate and usually prefer certain experience that sometimes may be previous experience in the industry and sometimes it can be for a specific project. Depends on the size of the employer. They would usually look for someone with less experience since a traditional MBA graduate would be with only about a half of your experience.

I would check with some of the current Berkeley students to see how realistic it is to join events. I’m not sure how much of that is happening these days after the pandemic.

I guess another question would be the logistics. Does Booth have a campus in Bay Area or are you putting to commute? I guess if it has a program in the bay area, it will be purely PT without benefits of full-time. So you’re planning to fly to Chicago every weekend? I know a lot of people do that kind of stuff but I’m not sure you can argue the flying for booth every weekend or every other weekend it’s going to be superior to being local Berkeley. Also some of the recruiting events would take place on a Tuesday at 10 AM. Would you be flying to Chicago for a Tuesday or Wednesday event and then fly again or stay the whole week?

You will miss out on the full-time clubs and it will be lonely and slightly awkward because you try to join some of the events and have people ask you questions and then realize you are a part of the part-time program. I think you can definitely make a lot of friends if you have value to bring to the table and perhaps help people in financial or tech recruiting and talk to them about opportunities in your company rather than just coming in trying to steal their jobs 😂 which again you won’t steal their jobs because most of the recruiters will be younger than you and equally confused about what to do with someone with that much experience. So I have convinced myself that the best value of your time would not be attending these events but rather trying to network through the alumni net work when connecting with other part-time students or full-time and doing some informational interviews during the first year or second year of your program trying to build a net work in that industry I think that’s the most logical past four recruiting for someone in your journey.

In terms of actually your question and about to plan to booth, you can totally do it. I don’t know how much better it is. I think you’re definitely more folks in New York and Chicago with booth background as most Berkeley grads are on the West Coast but I think both programs will have at least someone you can talk to…. And you just need one person. The question of course is what can you bring to the table and how can you make yourself attractive to an employer who would potentially recruit you?

Posted from my mobile device

I cannot speak for Haas but:

Am I grossly overthinking here and HAAS and Booth would have no difference to me and both will provide similar opportunities?
>> Yes. Personally, at this point, it's up to you(especially in this selective field of finance you are interested in) - that is, fully prepping yourself to achieve 1) Technical knowledge (including being able to ace modeling tests) 2) enough networking to get opportunities & know about the industry/function you want to be in.