The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride)

I would look at the long term pay-offs, rather than the immediate salary vs. the extra investment I need to make if I were to go to Harvard.
Apart from intangibles like recognition, brand image and grand-parents feeling happier, purely looking at the financial/ career aspect, I would examine, would going to Harvard give me any advantage over the long-term, let us say over the next 20-25 years? Would that advantage be worth the additional investment of $100K?
I remember reading an article in BW regarding the cumulative salary after MBA for 20 years, for MBA graduates from different schools.
I think Harvard had the highest cumulative salary.
I think the difference between Harvard and Chicago is more than $500K; of course you can also do discounting. While that is average, this may not apply to you!
The tricky question is would there be any long-term differences in the career progression and net-working effects and would these differences be worth $100K!

I would say that 100k is probably going to be closer to 120-125k when you are done with it due to loan origination fees, interest, and the fact tuition goes up pretty quickly. Not a huge difference but still 20-25% more than you are thinking about.

That 500k on average I think is probably greatly a result of the very high paying finance/banking fields. Someone working in a PE firm is going to make many times what someone in a GM role is 10 years after school. Even CEO's make a fraction of what someone running a PE or HF does. I would say that average salary differences over a career in the same corporate function will be much less than 500k. Brand matters in the corporate world but its not as big of deal breaker as in the finance fields. I don't think a single of the senior executives in my company has an MBA, a few have done executive certificate programs. For advance degrees one has a JD, one has a masters in finance, and one a masters in engineering...the rest just have undergrad degrees.

Personally if I had to make this decision I would go to Booth, the same would be said for full ride at any of the other top 5 schools (MIT, Kellogg, Booth, Wharton)...heck 100k+ would have me ignoring fit and dealing with being less excited about where I am going. As someone paying back student loans for my MBA, I can tell you that not having what amounts to basically a mortgage payment is something to consider. I know people who took out 150k+ of loans and are paying more towards their loans than they are for rent.
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I'm of the belief that if you were to choose between schools without considering money, where would you want to go? If HBS was your dream school before Booth offered money, you should go to your dream and not double guess years down the road (although unlikely given Booth) what if you went to HBS and paid everything out of pocket.

I would go with what the poster above said. Forget the money (and that's rich coming from a broke college kid). Go to the school that appeals to you more.

Personally, I'd take HBS hands down. No questions asked. The brand and resources are unparalleled. The money will not be so hard to come by if you have that resume stamp. Ask yourself if you'll regret either decision.

But. Congrats. This is an amazing problem to have.

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Both schools are dream schools to me. Before I started researching MBA programs and going through the application process, I considered getting my MBA at local state school programs part-time. As a graduate of a state school, these "ultra-elite" schools never seemed to be a realistic place that I could attend. I felt that I was reaching when I applied to 5 top programs in round 1 and I hoped that I would be fortunate enough to get into one program. The fact that I would be accepted into three dream schools is a situation that I didn't even dare consider during the application process.

If money wasn't a factor I'd pick HBS because of the name/network/prestige/etc.

If name/network/prestige wasn't a factor, I'd choose Booth because of fit/demographic/campus/etc.

With that said, money IS a factor, name/network/prestige IS a factor, and fit IS a factor! I can't discount those things and say that one is more important to me than the other. I know I'll have an amazing time at both schools but I know my experience would be drastically different.

ASW will hopefully clear things up for me. I'm looking forward to meeting my potential classmates and trying to envision where I can see myself for the next two years.

The voting is now up to 87 votes and HBS seems to be pulling away! Thanks everyone for adding to this dialog and for voting.

eskimoroll,

flip a coin.
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The one voice you haven't heard chime in on this thread yet is an HBS alum. It'd be interesting to hear what they'd do, based on their experiences with the brand name.

We had a member a few years back that actually went to HBS for CPG Marketing. I'll PM him and see if he's still hanging around.

Eskimoroll,

What a fascinating situation to be In???? While most of us here are scratching our heads to even have a glimpse of what these BIG - B Schools ''look'' like , You have been ''Invited'' already and to , three of them !!

I have no much experience at this , as I read posts to learn from but I would say one thing - Since You have already weighed in so many ''materialistic'' factors , put them aside for a while , Just ask your heart where it wants to be , where do you see yourself living more happy, where do you think the two years to be spent would make a classic chapter in your life filled with wonderful memories, filled with learning experiences that make you a better man, and where do you think you could find good friends who would add colour to your life ???

Though I have a feeling, Your already in Tune with going to HBS

P.S - I am using the above formula ONLY cos Life is much more about evolving as a Human , than about evolving as a corporate money making ''machine'' .

Also I had a wonderful sms which read something like this '' If your faced with two choices, which you love equally, and have determined each one on all parameters, then ... toss a coin .. and while the coin is in Mid Air, your heart would pray for one result(Either Head or Tail ), and BINGO !! , You know what You desire''

Good Luck with decision and God Bless.

Rhyme - I seriously liked your blatant outburst about the cons and am beginning to admire the kind of person you are. God Bless.

That definitely would be good to hear. I actually work at a CPG company where a large portion of our marketers are HBS grads. I think HBS has a bigger presence here than even Kellogg. All of them (several who are good friends of mine) think that it's a no brainer that you go to HBS and sort of take it for granted that I'm actually pretty undecided. They assume it's an inevitability.

Analytical Hierarchy Process. Draw a prioritization matrix. Engineering Design FTW

I have no idea what you just wrote.

so out of curiosity, have you decided?

Haha. It's a process that allocates numerical weights to each solution (school) based on a preference scale established for certain prerequisite criteria. Then you can get a final number if you normalize the matrices for each factor and voila, a numerical answer.

Ahh, I follow now. We use those when we do failure mode effects analysis on large projects. Since I'd be subjectively defining the numerical weights for the various criteria, the process of doing something like that would probably reveal my inner bias toward one school or the other.

In my head, I think I'm going to be a little more simplistic. My criteria are career opportunity, financial support, and quality of classmates. From a career opportunity standpoint, I think the unique Booth fellowship or the Harvard name will both get me to the place I want to go so that's pretty much tied. For financial support... I've applied for financial aid from HBS so hopefully I'll have some information on that front but I suspect that it will be close to the Booth fellowship since that turned out to be not a full-ride. So that just leaves my classmates. I'll attend both admit weekends and whichever school has higher percentage of people that I'd want to work with (nice people), is probably the school I'll pick.

Makes sense. Good luck and keep us posted

Just posting a quick update...

I attended Booth's ASW a couple weekends ago and had a great time. The people (faculty, students, and fellow admits) were warm and welcoming and Chicago is an amazing city. I also got a slight bump up on my fellowship which was a nice little surprise.

As far as HBS goes, I'm flying out this Wednesday for their ASW. I got my financial aid from HBS and it pretty much was a half-tuition fellowship which I was thrilled to get. So while Booth still is offering me $12K more than HBS, overall it is a wash from a financial standpoint as far as I'm concerned. Pretty much it's Booth's mentorship opportunity vs. HBS' network/brand/etc. My wife really enjoyed the partners club at Booth so once she has a chance to experience HBS' partners club, we'll have the information needed to make our decision. I should know one way or another this weekend!

Oh the suspence!!! Congrats again, dude.
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So this little drama in my life has come to an end. I attended HBS' ASW and I was blown away. As far as jerk test goes, everyone I met were genuine people that I really liked. I'm sure the jerks were there but I didn't meet any of them so Harvard passed the character test with flying colors. I still wasn't sure through the first day but participating in a class with Professor Ramon Casadesus-Masanell got me really fired up and his passion for teaching made me feel passion for learning. Also, seeing Dean Nohria speak was great and Youngme Moon is ridiculously impressive. She quelled all my concerns about the school and really inspired me.

I guess the difference was that Booth made me feel like I could achieve my goal of being a great marketer or a great product manager but with HBS, I felt like I could achieve things that I haven't even thought of yet. What was most surprising was that I got a sense that the HBS faculty and administration were hungry to make the educational experience at HBS even richer. They weren't resting on their legacy and that in turn made me hungry to be a part of that experience.

So at the end of the day... I have formally accepted their offer and I will be part of Harvard Business School's class of 2013.

P.S. Oh and everyone (friends, family, random strangers on the street, etc.) all thought that it was an easy decision and I was just coming to my senses. Maybe they're all right but I know that I needed to take this decision extremely seriously and I refused to be blinded simply by the name of Harvard.

Congrats! I'm glad to hear that you were able to make a decision without too much doubt