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Hi guys, I've just been admitted to Ross w/ half tuition scholarship. I am also on the Wharton summer waitlist. Assuming Wharton is out, should I attend Ross or regroup and reapply next year with H/S/W and some of the other top schools like Kellogg, Chicago, etc?
My career goals are Management consulting (MBB) Short term and General management long term. My stats are: 6 years work experience at smaller marketing firm, 3.4 GPA, 710 GMAT, and many solid EC's.
What do you think?
Setting aside pride, ego and the inevitable "what if" scenarios you will no doubt play in your head at some point in the next few years, I'd chose Ross.
Here's why:
* Ross is plenty 'good' to get you that initial interview if you want it.
* Wharton and other programs are no more likely to get an interview with those top firms than Ross is. If we were talking Wharton vs Olin or something like that I'd say there's a material difference, but your odds of getting to swing a bat at MBB at Ross and Wharton are sufficiently similar that I wouldn't say giving up on a half ride is worth the incremental difference - if there is any at all.
* Good research to do: find out how many interview slots there are at Ross for MBB. At Booth, its roughly 100 slots each for the first round. I would just use this as a data point, I wouldn't base my decision off it.
* You probably wont get a job at MBB anyway. Realisticaly speaking you should open your mind to other consulting firms.
* Once you get the interview, no one will give a crap what school you hail from. The guy to your left will be from Booth. The girl to the right will be from Duke. The guy interviewing you wont be from either. It doesnt matter at all.
* Your ability to land MBB will be entirely dependent on your ability to crack a case interview, which frankly, has next to nothing to do with teh school you attend and everything to do with luck and perserverance.
Now all that said, its worth playing out the otehr side of the coin a bit as well: If you think that you'll always kick yourself for not going to a "top" school the likes of H/S/W, there may be a perfectly valid argument for waiting. This I cant argue against - its purely personal, and I dont think there's anything wrong with doing it.
You should also consider how sure you are of your goals. While its true that Ross and Wharton will each give you the chance to make an idiot of yourself in front of MBB, its not true that they have equivalent playing fields in other job functions. I bring this up because a lot of people go into grad school thinking they know what they want to do and leaving doing something else. If that something else happens to end up being corporate finance, banking, investment management, etc, there's little question that Wharton would provide some materially different options over Ross, at least in the short term.
So my advice is:
Go to ross if:
(a) you can live with your decision and wont second guess yourself forever
(b) you are sure you want consulting or GM
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15 May 2011, 22:31
