esmeralda wrote:
Hi orange code, good luck for your results tomorrow. You do have a point that MIT is better recognised especially when overseas. I guess the question really is does MIT's business school has an equally stellar reputation as it's engineering and science schools? (don't get me wrong, I know MIT has a great reputation but just confirming the business school brand is as strong)
orangecode wrote:
Congrats on getting into both schools.
From a reputation standpoint, MIT (as a University) is a much better recognized brand than Chicago. It is what it is.
Even if Chicago Booth has a higher ranked MBA program, for me the school's overall reputation matters more, especially abroad!
This is one of the reasons I am considering choosing Yale over Wharton this fall - Wharton has a far better program, but Yale is a much better brand overall.
Good luck with your decision, but if left to me personally, I'd choose MIT.
P.S: I'm waiting to hear back from MIT tomorrow, too, and I'd choose MIT over Yale because of my specific field (Operations)!
The question of MBA "brand equity" is an old one. It really depends on what you want to do. If you expect to source your job through the school, on-campus recruiting or through alums, brand doesn't matter as much. If you plan on cold-calling people or recruiting with people or in an industry that does not have a tradition of being formed by or hiring MBAs, then the "blind" brand (that of parent universities) matters more.
I personally chose Booth over MIT, but that is a strictly personal decision. The people who will be more impressed that you went to MIT than Chicago are the same people (from my experience) who will also ask you if you applied to Princeton. People who have MBAs, have gone through the whole admissions and research process, know the differences (or lack thereof) between the programs.
I would strongly suggest you pick the school according to your goals. You want consulting--the same set of companies will recruit at both schools and they will not pick between two students on the basis of the school they went to. As far as I know, even if you want to go back and work at a regional international office for, say, McKinsey, Bain or BCG, the hiring will be done primarily at the campus. Brand
should not be a deciding factor here. Having lived in both Boston and Chicago, I would go further and say even the geography shouldn't be a big factor for you.
Talk to alums and focus on the program differences.