Pre-MBA Salary for Applications

Question

I saw a post about this on the BW forums earlier and I thought I would ask this here as I found it interesting.

How does Pre-MBA Salary impact admissions committees decisions to admit an applicant? Does it have any impact whatsoever? Would it be possible for ad-coms to overlook a lower years of experience when admitting younger applicants if their earnings are fairly high already (i.e. this may show that they have already peaked at a younger age)?

I suppose there are 2 schools of thought here:

1) An applicant with a high salary prior to business school will likely command and shoot for a high salary in his or her post-MBA position, and therefore this will bring up the average post-MBA salary statistic.

2) An applicant with a lower salary prior to business school will likely command a larger increase in salary as compared to one with a higher salary pre-MBA. This will equate to a higher ROI for the applicant. I am unsure if ROI is a published figure.

IHateTheGMAT · Answer

I'm pretty sure that nearly all schools say that salary has no impact on the admissions decision, it's just a data point they track. Not sure though. And of course, they could be lying. Lets see what some of the pros on this board have to say...

sudden · Answer

i don't know for sure, but i personally believe that what you have said about the averages is correct. i also suspect that salary is used as a proxy for responsibility on the job -- i.e., if you are such a hotshot, why aren't you getting paid more? etc. i doubt it's enough to keep an otherwise strong candidate out, but i bet they think about it as part of their "holistic process."

riverripper · Answer

I think it does show a difference in some careers where job titles are the same for a lot of people for a long time, or can be differ company to company for the same job basically. A person can be have one job for many years with no change in title but make 20% more than an applicant with the same title from the same company. Where as a software engineer at one company could have the title of lead XXXX while someone from another could be a senior XXX, and another could just be engineer/developer but pay can be the same for all those people.

I know my wife got a lesser sounding job title when she switched companies but got a large bump in pay...so salary does show progression. It also can show the speed with which you move forward...with thousands of applications I am sure they have a sense of how different careers progress.

I know my wife got a lesser sounding job title when she switched companies but got a large bump in pay...so salary does show progression. It also can show the speed with which you move forward...with thousands of applications I am sure they have a sense of how different careers progress.

agold · Answer

I agree with all of the things you have mentioned, and I can certainly see how it could help differentiate applicants from smaller companies, applicants with "different" job titles, etc.

However - my question is really: Do the admissions committees at the UE and E schools think like you and I do and take this into consideration?

jb32 · Answer

My opinion is that the only reason they track pre-MBA salary is to use in marketing materials. i.e. A degree at school XXX results in an average salary increase of %. I mean if you worked in the Peace Corps for 4 years in an African AIDS orphanage then obviously your salary would not be much to even live on, but I'm sure the adcoms at Stanford would overlook that fact.

agold · Answer

I don't think I've ever seen a UE or E school publishing average salary increase %s. Has anyone else seen this?

I generally see this in the marketing material of lower-ranked schools.

riverripper · Answer

I think its more a function of being able to equalize career progress. I think its like GPA from various schools, adcoms have a lot of experience looking at numbers for a lot of schools and careers. An electrical engineering grad from MIT might have a 3.2 but that could be very high for compared to EE MIT grads. Then someone from an easy major at a school that inflates grades may apply with a 3.5 but people with the same educational background commonly have a 3.75.

togafoot · Answer

In some rankings, %Salary increase is one of the measurement criteria!!!!

So for a school which is trying to climb the rankings for marketing purposes, maybe they will use this as a factor when they see 2 equal candidates but a pay differential which could influence this metric.

(conjecture)

gixxer1000 · Answer

My company usually gives out an average of about a 3% pay increases. Over the past two years I have really excelled and received 20% pay increases year over year. I was going to highlight this fact in my essays but if this information is required in the application do you think it would be redundant?

goBears · Answer

All the schools I applied to published pre-MBA salaries, but I don't think they use them to make any decisions. I found data between schools to be a little skewed anyhow. Some schools have a larger percentage of internationals, where there is a lower cost of living and salaries reflect this.

They may look at career progression and look at starting vs. current salary as a sanity check to see if everything checks out though. I dunno.

They may look at career progression and look at starting vs. current salary as a sanity check to see if everything checks out though. I dunno.

navy01 · Answer

They also are ranked on ROI or some sort of "best value" type ranking.

isa · Answer

When schools ask for salary, is it better to put the salary or the salary + bonuses? Asking because there's quite a difference there for me...

thanks!
ac.

dabots · Answer

they may ask for a breakdown. i know wharton did.

VictoryMBA · Answer

We get a pay increase once a year (if you deserve one), at the same time every year. I have only been working for this particular company for about 15 months, but my first raise was nearly 70%. The problem is, I still make a very small amount, however it is my first real job (I was in law school before, long story). To put it another way, I went from paid internship type of pay to full time entry level pay. The company is private, and it's known (at least among people who know the company in the industry) for having lower pay across the board but great benefits, vacation time, family friendly enviornment etc...the overall quality of life is much better here than at mega corporate companies. Will this affect me at all? My responsibilites have sky rocketed, but my salary is abysmal. Some of it has to do with the fact that my review period coencited (sp) perfectly with the entire collapse of the housing market, and in their words...couldn't justify paying me more when they had to lay people off.

falibay · Answer

If you work in finance, it is all about your bonus. That's how you get compensated and we always talk about "total comp" not base salary... I hope they we can list base salary + bonus. I think if they asked for salary I will put everything I earned. They should know that on Wall Street your bonus can be 2-3 times your base...

Why are we worried about that ?? That process is stressful... arrggggg

Why are we worried about that ?? That process is stressful... arrggggg

Pre-MBA Salary for Applications

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