Kryzak's Battle Royale 2: Haas vs Kellogg vs Anderson

Our primary strategy for spreading our rabies is sending you to DAK.

Yikes, its a nefarious plan to infect the west coast!

I didn't realize this was such an emergency

Anyway, I voted Kellogg, but I can definitely see a strong argument for Hass given your goals and geographic preference. My personal bias leans towards Kellogg though, so I went with that arbitrary criteria is a tiebreaker.

hahaha, rabies!!!!!!!!

I'll have to stick closer to terry to defend against crazy Kellogg rabies zombies

Yeah, gotta watch out for those Kellogg folks

(someone asked me to assess my decision Re: this thread after my experiences at Haas, so I decided to post it here as a "conclusion" for future generations who happen to stumble upon this thread.)

Personally, I think my decision to attend Haas was one of the best decisions I've made in my life. The reason for that is as follows:

- As a small class, I pretty much know of every single person in my class, and a majority of the people in the class before and after me.
- Leadership positions are a little easier to come by with a small school, and since it's VERY student driven, you get a lot of responsibilities, opportunities to work with the administration, and they tap the students a lot for feedback and improvements.
- The culture of collaboration here is amazing. I think partially because it's a self-selection process, but the other part is the small class size makes people all feel much closer to each other, like a family.
- The proximity to all the tech companies have been a boon. Whether it's easy company visits, independent studies with tech companies, case competitions and projects (often at the company's site), the culture of entrepreneurship (and mingling with tons of entrepreneurs), and doing quick turn-around interviews for companies that might not have full on-campus recruiting. All of these made my career switching a lot easier than if I had to fly back to the Bay Area during break or take time off school to do interviews on-site.
- The administration is very responsive, and since the school is small, they know almost all of us by name.
- The career center is pretty amazing in helping us prepare for job searches/interviews, hunting down leads, and maintaining very good relationships with hundreds of companies in and out of the area
- the weather has been amazing, even though it's been raining a lot lately and the temperature is around the 50-60s.

There are a lot more subtle reasons why Berkeley was the best choice for me. But now that I've been through 3/4 of my bschool experience, I can confidently say that the school is not for everyone, and the same goes for any of the top schools. YOU have to personally go and try to experience the culture/atmosphere yourself, ask the hard questions, and talk to as many students as possible to see if it's a right fit for you. However much I love Berkeley and am biased towards it, I can objectively say that for a majority of industries, you'll probably be able to do what you want to do at any of the top 10-20 school if you work hard enough at it. What really matters in the end is whether you love the people you are around and whether that will motivate you to thrive and achieve your potential at that school.

I know, it's hard as an applicant and admit to understand that, and making the decision between two or three (or more) great schools often feels like a "life-death" decision. But now I understand why everyone told me, "no matter where you go, you won't make a bad decision, so follow your gut instincts."

Hope that helps!

At the start of this thread, you mentioned location as one of the most important criteria for your school selection. I too have a similar belief and I am in a similar situation as yours..

I have admits from UCLA Anderson and Michigan Ross. Though I understand Ross has better rankings than Anderson, I'm leaning more towards Anderson primarily for its location and Media/Entertainment focus. My post-MBA goals are product management in digital-entertainment and high-tech and hence the focus on "location, location location". I also want to work in the West Coast after my MBA, preferably the Bay Area.

Do you feel location played that big a role during your MBA as you had originally thought it to be ?

Good question topa. While I now know location isn't the "be all and end all", it did make my life significantly easier. My friends at Kellogg and Ross have found great jobs at the Googles, Amazons, and other big tech firms on the West Coast, but I feel that with the proximity of those companies to Haas (and Anderson), and the good relationship that these school maintain with them, it definitely makes things a LOT easier. There are also a lot of smaller companies or startups that are in the digital entertainment/tech space that will not go recruit at far away campuses, and that's where location becomes a very useful factor.

In my case, I feel that the ability to travel to LucasArts and Zynga numerous times to do informational interviews, official interviews, and visits probably helped my chances there. The fact that LucasArts hired 3 Haas MBA interns last summer out of over 100 applications from around the country suggests that the location factor may play a big role.

Plus, would you want to always fly 3-5 hours from the midwest out to California for interviews and schedule them only during break or miss a bunch of class for those interviews?

Kryzak - your posts have been extremely helpful for me, so thanks a lot.

Assuming that I'm fortunate enough to get into Haas, i'll be presented with the same dilemma as you (Haas vs. Kellogg). I'm hoping you could add your thoughts to my scenario. I'm dead set on working on the west coast post-mba, possibly even the northwest. Post-mba I'm considering PE/VC, Corp Dev, or IB (quite a range, I know). Can you comment on how Haas does in these areas with respect to west coast firms? Also whether many folks get recruited to the northwest (e.g. Corp Dev at MS/Amazon)?

I know that Kellogg has a stronger brand name (and higher rankings) for most people, but it seems to me that Haas might be better positioned for my interests.

Thanks very much

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