Drama Queens!!

Point well taken, and id also assume most of the people going to the top 15 schools aren't going for part-time night classes either. My primary reason for going for the MBA is getting the requirements for the CPA exam (I have a degree in finance and need more accounting courses to satisfy the requirements).

It was just an eye opener to see how crushing this exam is to people. On top of that, having a 700+ still dosent mean you are a shoe in at the ivy league schools.

I don't disagree with anyone that having a top school on your resume helps with your salary, but I work at a global manufacturing company and the CFO went to the same undergrad school as I did, a small private college. One thing I still hold in high regards is the fact that networking is the number one trait among successful managers. So, being at a top business school will put you in good company...but I think im in good company already so I can't identify with the people who think an MBA is only valuable if its from a top 5 school. School is what you make of it.

Ok, i'll get off my soap box.

Max, I know you're sort of amused but you're not being -ve or provocative. It's just that to get to a top school, from a situation where you feel you can do a whole lot better, you need a solid GMAT score among other things. So if someone (and there are a lot who fit this picture) has a decent GPA from a sort-of-OK school with has a not-so-incredible career so far, GMAT simply has to be solid. And solid for all the top programs is higher than even 700! So for all those people (and that includes me too), any score less than what they target and hope to achieve, is a painful blow. What can one possibly do, it's a competitive world!

peace,

I guess my reaction is "will your company be paying you 100k more per year once you complete your MBA?" The average difference between salaries at entry and 1st year compensation is about 90-100k right now; and most people go to business school for the pay-off down the road, not in the first year.

MBAs help people gain entry to elite positions with elite pay. People intending to stay with the same company may not need the benefits offered by a top business school. On the other hand, many would argue that an MBA from anywhere other than a top 15 or 20 school is just a waste of time and money. There are examples for everything; I have a friend that has been with Accenture for 8 years. He's starting to move up the management chain with nothing more than a BS, but one example hardly proves the point.

I doubt that Goldman Sachs will come and interview on campus if you just tell them "school is what you make of it". They are well aware that the school has culled the ranks for them already - not just the brightest, but also the hardest working (GMAT reflects smarts & hard work). The place where elite employers go to meet elite candidates is at elite business schools. Certainly, there are those that fall outside the normal pool, but that is the exception.

At top business schools you will learn by being surrounded by the best, the brightest and the most driven. At other business schools you will be surrounded by what? And how will that prepare you to lead your company when it faces competitive challenges? If you don't need the employment & salary benefits offered by a business school, then you can skip the rigamarole altogether and take extension courses to learn specifically what you need.

Related item: Just the other day, I was reading an article that asked the Director of Human Resources at a consulting firm why she recruited MBAs from the top universities. Her response "It's a pre screened applicant pool."

Rhyme,

I'm not surprised - that would be the case in a large number instances. For e.g. in India there are the IIM's (Indian Instt. Of Mgmt) where most entrants are just out of college (unlike in the US/European business schools where entrants have some experience), and yet they have a 100% placement record within days of placement season. The reason? it's incredibly hard to get into - so those who actually make it in are the ones who are really bright, and when companies come to recruit, they have a highly pre-screened talent pool. The same rationale would apply in most cases.

There is a certain truth in the need for higher GMAT scores - let's objectively look at the high scorers. These are people with some, or all of the following characteristics

a)very driven, focused and motivated (e.g. you, IHateGmat etc. and many others)
b)dedication, strategy, willing to work really hard to get where they want to be (e.g. dahiya, grover etc etc)
c)are naturally very bright or smart (Pelihu, HongHu --hmm.. maybe I should rename myself as NecromongerHu and I'll get a 780!!!!)

So there is a certain amount of pre-screening the test itself does. It's not that I'm putting down those who don't reach there, just that when you get to a high score - you must have done something more than the normal scorers. Besides, GMAC itself states that statistically the correlation between first year performance in b-school is quite closely related to the GMAT score of the entrant.

The bottomline is, people should take the exam really seriously and give it everything they got - it might be painful to repeat, but it's necessary for a competitive application. Don't be disheartened by a low score - but if you need it, then work really hard for it.

Very interesting this topic came up.. Get todays WSJ if you guys can.. There is an interesting article that only 30% of CEOs in fortune 500 have degrees from ivy league.. granted this does not say much.. because lot of MBAs go into investment banking and consultancy etc where there is a bigger pay..

still an interesting read!

I was just reading that an hour ago..

Do you think I should paste the article here from WSJ online?

I was going to..decided not to paste it because of propreitary reasons... I can create a pdf file of it.. But I dont know if I can share that with friends?
Whats the real take on sharing that? I believe our friend pehilu is in legal stuff

willget/haas - I've read that article before. They're deceptive statistics. 30% of fortune 500 from ivy league... let's see.

150 from ivy league, 350 from elsewhere. But those 150 are from about 20 institutes (or maybe 30), and the other 350 maybe from 1000 other institutes. The skew becomes obvious there.

In many organizations I've seen - most of the top mgmt is from highly rated institutes..it's depressing (to me) :)

I have not read the article, but I would want to know a few things before assessing the numbers.

Were they talking about busines schools or all schools? For example, many CEOs don't go to business school, and many well-known CEOs never even finished college. There are 6 Ivy league business schools, and Yale's is pretty young.

My next question would be how many of the non-ivy CEOs are from Ivy-like schools? "Ivy league" is nothing more than an out-dated sports affiliation, and I think there are a good number of schools that compete on equal footing academically with Ivy league schools. For example, Stanford is not an Ivy league school, but I think many Silicon Valley CEOs (among others) are from Stanford. Duke, MIT, Berkeley, Northwestern, Michigan, Chicago, Virginia are some others...the list goes on but is short. These are schools that are simlar to Ivy league schools in terms of selectivity and student qualifications.

I'd be willing to bet that if 30% of CEOs are from the Ivy schools (8 undergrad or 6 business schools), another 30% are from a dozen or less "Ivy-like" schools. Throw in the CEOs that didn't finish college at all and you are probably looking at less than 20% of all CEOs with degrees from "other" schools.

Of course, there is some randomness as to who get's to be CEO (my name isn't Bill Ford, for example) but I would guess the percentage of high-level management that attended these top schools is even greater than the percentage of CEOs. I'm more familiar with law firms, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that 90%+ of the partners at top law firms have degrees from top 15 law schools, probably 80%+ from top 10 school. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that 80%+ of the high-level management at major companies hold degrees from about 20-30 schools.

Thank you, all I ment to say is its not the end of the world. And its also pretty funny that money is the first thing that is being discussed..because i can guarentee you that for every ivy league graduate that is running a company and earning deep into the 6 figures I can find you 5 or 10 that are too, with state school degrees and professional designations like the CPA, CIA, CFA, etc...

I work at a privately held company that does $300MM in annual revenue and I do not believe any of the VPs have degrees from an ivy league school, and they all make deep into the 6 figures.

My point is definatly not to discredit those who have these hard to get statuses, but I believe its more about an individuals passion and drive, which can get you much farther than any school can. I know some companies only want people from top business schools, but there are way more companies that pay a lot of money for people who have more common schools on their resume. Most companies can't afford to be that selective. Ive also read that working at houses like Goldman Sachs is not all that glamorous with the 60 hour weeks and weekends. In a city like NYC, $100,000 can be diluted very fast.

Excellent discussion everyone. I was worried this would turn into a businessweek type discussion.

Another perspective is that GMAT is perhaps the only thing that an applicant can 'alter', so to speak, in his or her profile. Also, the disappointment is probably not so much about scoring a 710 or a 650 as it is about the amount of effort that went into the prep. When you have sacrificed so much of your time and put so much effort into something, you want to see the benefits.

Say what we may about the merits of a 780 vs. a 700, it is important to respect everyone's ambition. The testing and application process is a lonely and long process. Its perfectly reasonable to be unreasonable..