mkeck
Hey everyone!
This is my first post here after being a long time lurker (Thank you all for the wonderful amount of insight into this process)!
I've got some decisions coming up regarding an EMBA program. Thus far I have EMBA offers from Fuqua and Stern-Washington D.C Campus, along with an offer from IU-Kelley's Direct program. Stern and Kelley have both offered $10K in Scholarship and I'm in the process of seeing if Duke will offer any sort of funds.
I'm also awaiting decisions from Kellogg- Miami campus, Ross, and Darden. I've felt like each of those interviews went as good as they possibly could have and each of those schools has agreed to expedite their review of my application due to the deposit deadlines of the three I have already been admitted to.
I'd like to break down my question in two parts:
1) Of the three schools that have already offered, which would you choose and why?
2) Assuming Kellogg, Ross, and Darden offer which of the six would you choose and why?
For context; I am a 38 year old entrepreneur operating as an M&A advisor in the far reaches of the lower middle market (think transaction values of $10-$100 million). I would like to move upstream to one of the larger Boutique M&A practices or a regional and perhaps BB M&A division. Alternatively, making a pivot to general management (I do have experience in that realm from several family businesses) would be another possible career path.
Ideally I want to continue to work in the South or Mid-atlantic/Midwest. I do not want to go to NYC or the West Coast for a career. I've chose Miami as the campus location for Kellogg; I can't swing the twice a month requirement to Evanston.
The most important things to me in selecting a school are career opportunities through the alumni network/school brand and the quality of instruction and academic experience.
So, what do you all think? Anything I've left out that you need to know?
Thank you for reading and I look forward to everyone's thoughts!
I am no expert per se but here are my thoughts. The more you want to get into bigger brands in the world, the more strict organizations get. Why? Because they simply can. You want a job at a no name company? Much easier to get that job with a no name MBA compared to the same job at Apple. That being said, I think you should go the biggest name school possible given your budget and your situation. If you can't make it to Evanston, fine, how about the next best option? Why not Duke? I wouldn't go from Kellogg to Kelley for $10,000 or even $20,000 or even $30,000 for that matter.
The above is more so applicable for someone like you who seems to get into a bigger M&A practice.
As for which school, as you can probably already guess, I would put a lot of weight on the brand of the school. Yes, if they throw an extra $10,000 I know it helps but unless it's a significant amount of money, I wouldn't give up a Kellogg MBA for a Kelley MBA. I might go from Kellogg to Duke because Duke is offering me $20,000 while Duke is offering nothing but if you can get into Kellogg, unless you want a degree to work for your dad's business and it really doesn't matter where you go to school, you should never consider Kelley. Forget about the long run, even in the short run, keeping everything else fixed, an MBA from Kellogg will have a much greater return than a Kelley would.