H/W/S selection criteria

Interesting. See the assumption that you are making for Harvard grads here? You said that Harvard grads make "that much more money" and perhaps that is because of their experiences/achievements. It appears that everybody (Including us, who are supposed to be in the know) assumes that if someone is from Harvard, he/she must have been a terrific achiever. Will this general image of Harvard grads help them in their future? You tell me.

I will say this again, do not judge other's school selections, people! If we really want, we can pick just ANY person on this forum .. yes, ANYBODY .. and shred his/her school selections into pieces.



I usually tend to agree with what river says. But I don't agree with him here. If one person chose to apply only to H/S, then that doesn't mean that all of his eggs are in one basket. There are other eggs and there are other baskets in his career .. they perhaps just don't go through MBA. He calculated (Maybe through his contacts, maybe through his visits and maybe just through the USNEWS rankings) that it was better for him to continue his career if he didn't get into H/S. We don't know about that person enough to call this approach "silly". I also made the mistake of judging nervousgmat's R2 applications (Since she had an admit already). I wish I hadn't done that. The difference between BW forum and this place is that we just help .. we don't judge. Let's keep it this way.

Or if more Ross grads remained in the midwest after graduation, unlike today.

'that much more money' was in reference to the B-week survey dosa posted, Harvard grads from the Class of '92 appear to be making nearly 600k after bonuses etc., way higher apparently than some of the other schools. I was not making any assumptions.

Good point bherronp.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I didn't say that you assumed that Harvard grads make more money. I was focusing on the following statement of yours:

Are these Harvard grads making that much more money simply because they were already well on their way to the top of the corporate ladder before starting business school?

Well, I can provide an example here. I am not looking forward to get recruited from school. Now I applied only to Stanford, since after my research I found electives and programs matching my intended field, a professor who is an authority in exactly what I want to do and Stanford alumuni at the right places where I need contacts. So it only makes sense for me to try for Stanford, if I am risking (seriously) 2 years of my life. My plan is that if I do not go to Stanford, I will study part time at Fuqua, since I live and work at a commutable (4 hours) distance from there. For me, there are 2 tiers, Stanford and every other school.

And I agree I started my B-school process like a reputation crazy person, do I need to say anything beyond my id? Yes, just one more, I did not know there is a famous B School named Stanford GSB until 5 months back.

Yes, and what I was trying to get across was whether Harvard had any role to play in the fact that they are making 600k 15 years after graduating. If they were indeed a rising star in the corporate world in 1992, it's entirely possible that in 15 years they would be where they are even without Harvard.

This is an awesome discussion, one sees things through so many perspectives. Hopefully this is the kind of debate that's also encouraged in business schools.

I hope so too. And yeah, this discussion has been quite healthy and interesting.

ps. Just so you guys know, my frequent posts have nothing to do with me attempting to become a VP ASAP.

This would require knowledge of the MBA market in 92. Was it as competitive as today? How many people got MBA degrees? How established were the business schools?

Post-MBA salaries these days are not that much different among the top 10 schools (apparently they were, looking at how badly-paid Michigan MBA grads were back then)

The Harvard figures (Bonus) might be strongly influenced by a select few (if you get 20million bonus as a hedge fund manager you pull up that figure).

The question is also, if the strengths of the H/S/W are still so superior or if they are getting under fire as companies realize that social skills are more important and looking for schools with graduates that provide these better than a H might. (pure hypothesis)

good discussion

i concur with whoever said that for many people it is not silly to only apply where you want to go, even if there is a high probability of not getting in. i only have one application left on the table after having been rejected at Cornell and LBS. i believe the wharton/lauder russian program is such a good fit for me that I think I might just get in, despite it seeming like a long shot on the surface.

if I don't get in, I am up for a promotion at work, and I am totally comfortable staying on my current path. i'm a born salesman. i can be a salesman here or in russia. it would be more interesting in russia, but i'm fine staying here in california. the weather is nice and the girls are just as pretty as they are in moscow.

I just found an interesting thing while poking around on admissions411 this morning, that I think illustrates your "and they usually don't" point well. If you look at the distribution of (admittedly self-reported and non-randomly sampled) GMAT scores for people who applied to Stanford last year, and compare it to the distribution of people accepted, they are almost identical.

What you'll find is that the 10th and 90th percentiles match nearly exactly if you assume that non-reporting scores belong within the middle 80%. The mean and median come no where close to matching, but I suspect that most of those non-reporting people are in the 10th-50th percentiles.

The implication is that GMAT scores actually don't matter at all in the admissions process. Once someone makes the decision to apply, someone with a 660 has the same chance of getting in as someone with a 760. Of course people could inflate their scores on admissions411 (and no doubt some do), but an alternative interpretation is that people are actually very good at judging their chances of being admitted. Aside from the $250 application fee, it takes a large investment of time to write essays, and you use a fair amount of "personal favor" capital in getting people to write letters. So people only apply to places where their self-evaluated chance of being accepted times the personal cost is worth the potential rewards.

Efficient markets at work.

Of course (and sadly), the evidence also supports the inflated reporting and self-selection for admissions411 theories as well (or better), but I find my theory attractive nonetheless.

one thing that happened to me out of pure chance in terms of recommendations was that my recommendors assumed that I could see what they wrote after they submitted it. After they finished their recommendations they came up to me and asked me if it was good enough.

They way I look at an MBA degree is as merely a step in the career path of one's life, although a very critical step. MBA is always part of a bigger picture and shall not be a goal of itself, rather a tool to reach a broader goal in career, success, and life. For some people, spending two years at Harvard or Stanford MBA is a huge waste of time and money. For others, many others actually, an MBA degree can be the single most influential event in their life, the point of a huge change in life that leads to unexpected high level of success. For people in Finance area, for instance, may find getting the CFA charter more focused and effective than getting an MBA, and thus getting a Wharton MBA may not be the best choice for them. On the other hand, people in a particular industry may not accelerate and move to managerial positions unless they get better understanding of business, for they come from non-business backgrounds, and need the MBA designation to be trusted to run a huge manufacturing company. Furthermore, in evaluating the value of an MBA degree one must consider other attributes than just the money or career position. Intellectual growth and international exposure are two examples, amongst others.


I'd love to read your comments on the following qoutes:

" Given that Wharton attracts far more aspiring I-bankers, your competition for on-campus recruiting will probably be much higher there. Whereas at Stanford, the same prestigious banks will come for a much smaller group of students."

" Pedigree plays a larger role in Harvard MBA admission than any other factors. It is almost a requirement to have some type of a pedigree, either from undergrad school or employer, to get into Harvard "

I guess I'm a bit late to the discussion, but River is right, to me, Stanford and Haas are at the top of my lists because of the culture, the strong enetrepreneurial program, and the location. Brand is good and all, and I am aware of it, but in the end, if I do get into Haas, I would probably choose it over any other school except for Stanford (which I've already been dinged). Part of it is because I went to school at both schools and know the culture and way of life well, the other part is that they have exactly what I'm looking for in what I want to do in the future.

Kellogg is a great school and all, which is why I even applied, but in the end, its programs might not help me do what I want to do.

In my experience, the candidates who ask the question of what a particular set of schools is really seeking are usually missing the point entirely. It seems like these candidates want the "answer" to be revealed as some sort of code that can be cracked or possibly gamed if one is diligent and crafty enough. In the most simple terms, I have seen that the students who stand the best chance of admission to the most selective schools are the ones who show they don't really need it- attending school X is not the difference between success and failure but the difference between being great and being superlative. Put in a less cryptic way, schools are attracted to students who make it clear that they are already highly skilled indviduals with broad (and deep) set of achievements. These students focus not on what they can take away from the institution in terms of prestige but what they can add to the insitution through their skill and life experience.

Agree on the whole fit thing. The only "fit"'s I can understand is when someone choses S over H as H is all case (or Darden over Duke?). Or living in a small town or city. But other than that-all the schools are collaborative, analytical (to an extent) and other such qualities are pretty much the same.

"Fit" to me is another "holistic"- just a buzz word that is included by b-schools (and hence applicants) in their evaluation criteria.

I am of a completely different opinion. Let's assume a business school is similar to a company. I dont think to think of it that is that far fetched. I have been working in several different companies and there is something like a company-specific atmosphere, culture etc. This culture - or whatever you may call it - is set forth by the CEO/board/leaders and is cascading down into the company. Do you disagree?

I say the same applies to business schools.

En garde!