The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) : Business School Reviews

eskimoroll

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 08:13

rhyme wrote:

eskimoroll wrote:

To update you on where I stand, I was 90% sure I was going to HBS before learning about the fellowship, I was 90% sure I was going to Booth after learning about the fellowship, and now I'm 50-50 because I received some surprising news. I had two separate half-tuition fellowship opportunities from Booth and I thought that they would supplement each other. I've found out that I have to pick one or the other which was a bit surprising.

Well aren't you glad you clarified that little nugget before setting foot on campus? "Oh, hi, Financial Aid? Yea, I got a bill... I wasn't supposed to though .... Oh what? I was? Oh." Thats a tougher call. You mentioned in your original post "back to CPG" - are you in CPG now?

lol, yeah that would have been a nice little surprise! Yes, I'm in CPG now and have been for my entire career.

eskimoroll

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 08:30

CharmWithSubstance wrote:

HBS.

Just so you won't be kicking yourself down the line for not attending HBS. I agree the material difference is small and that Booth is a great school. But if your dream school is HBS and you find yourself constantly justifying to people why Booth is actually just as good, the doubts will creep in.

Put it this way, if your career totally takes off, you won't really care about the money. If it doesn't, you'll wonder if you've short changed yourself.

I assume that back out in the real world, I will never really have to justify that to people. Here on gmatclub and on businessweek, we are so focused on this goal of getting into business school that small differences seem enormous. I went to normal Big 10 state school and everyday I work with people who have MBAs from Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Booth, etc. It never comes up in conversation, it doesn't change our working relationship, and it holds little value outside of getting you that first interview. We all care more about if that person is someone who can produce results and is someone we like working with. Granted getting that first interview is definitely one of the reasons to go back to school but I also know that I still have a lot to learn about how to be a better manager and I also need a more broad understanding of business in all its forms.

Regardless of what school I choose, when I make that decision, I'm promising myself that I will not look back and rather immerse myself in growing as much as I can during those two years.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 08:36

LOL, maybe this debate would have been decided once and for all if rhyme, earlier, decided to take out his infamous financial calculator and hash out his "Steven Levitt-esque" analysis..

Sort of like this:

gmat-low-700s-vs-99867.html#p770248

If you haven't noticed by now, I am a BIG fan...

BIG

eskimoroll

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 08:50

nink wrote:

LOL, maybe this debate would have been decided once and for all if rhyme, earlier, decided to take out his infamous financial calculator and hash out his "Steven Levitt-esque" analysis..

Sort of like this:

gmat-low-700s-vs-99867.html#p770248

If you haven't noticed by now, I am a BIG fan...

BIG

lol, I don't think that the starting salaries and the career progression dollar increases would be dramatically different for either school as far as brand management goes. It's $100-130K a year starting salary and then it's all dependent on my skills and abilities. I'm also a big fan of rhyme and have read many of his great posts this past year. :-D

How about we frame this conversation a bit differently then and ignore brand management for a minute. If I wanted to do a start-up after school (for the sake of this conversation, let's say it's either in movie production/design or technology) what school would give me the stronger foundation of skills to learn to be a savvy entrepreneur? HBS just announced a small scale entrepreneur seed fund of sorts for students through the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and has produced some great entrepreneurs. Booth has a great entrepreneurship program as well (ranked #2 by Entrepreneur magazine for whatever that's worth) with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. HBS has a much bigger presence in VC but that's probably not as important for a fledgling start-up but might be important later on if I'm on to something good.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 09:04

One more thing. Let me re-emphasize the importance of the flexible curriculum, and the ability to choose almost all your classes. This is PRICELESS. It will let you really enjoy your classes, learn, and feel that you are getting the most out of it. It really SUCKS to sit down and go through classes that provide little added value for you.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 10:02

vannbj, salaries are standardized. HBS grads don't get paid more than Booth grads. The difference in salary stats comes from a) chosen career paths and b) time of survey.

eskimoroll, I read that you are married and want to do marketing. Those two things should pull towards Booth.

Based on my experience, the most important bonding experiences in B-school are drinking, traveling (party style, mostly with singles), recruiting, and sports clubs. I would expect the partying/drinking factor to be overwhelmingly important at HBS because of the age factor.

On another hand, I highly doubt you will learn to be a general manager because of the case method. A very experience manager myself, I firmly believe b-school cannot teach anybody to be a manager, that you have to learn out in the real world.

Nevertheless I am not American and have a very international profile spanning most continents. I do not want to work in the US any longer. For the branding reason I personally would go for HBS unless the difference would be in the order of 30k per year or more.

B

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 10:17

powerka wrote:

vannbj, salaries are standardized. HBS grads don't get paid more than Booth grads. The difference in salary stats comes from a) chosen career paths and b) time of survey.

eskimoroll, I read that you are married and want to do marketing. Those two things should pull towards Booth.

Based on my experience, the most important bonding experiences in B-school are drinking, traveling (party style, mostly with singles), recruiting, and sports clubs. I would expect the partying/drinking factor to be overwhelmingly important at HBS because of the age factor.

On another hand, I highly doubt you will learn to be a general manager because of the case method. A very experience manager myself, I firmly believe b-school cannot teach anybody to be a manager, that you have to learn out in the real world.

Nevertheless I am not American and have a very international profile spanning most continents. I do not want to work in the US any longer. For the branding reason I personally would go for HBS unless the difference would be in the order of 30k per year or more.

I realize that at least the starting salaries are generally standard but two seperate studies show that HBS alumni careers progress significantly faster than Chicago alumni careers. While I'd agree that the difference in salaries comes from the chosen paths I'd also add that HBS gives more choice. Also, the time of the survey is controlled in both Businessweek's and Forbes' surveys so it's definitely not a cause of the difference.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 10:27

Vannbj, I highly doubt that HBS offers more choice than Booth beyond PE. And PE pays many many more times than most career paths. I would prefer to not go any deeper into this subject, and let the most experience gmatclubbers, those that graduated many years back, speak.

Cheers!

eskimoroll

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 11:12

powerka wrote:

vannbj, salaries are standardized. HBS grads don't get paid more than Booth grads. The difference in salary stats comes from a) chosen career paths and b) time of survey.

eskimoroll, I read that you are married and want to do marketing. Those two things should pull towards Booth.

Based on my experience, the most important bonding experiences in B-school are drinking, traveling (party style, mostly with singles), recruiting, and sports clubs. I would expect the partying/drinking factor to be overwhelmingly important at HBS because of the age factor.

On another hand, I highly doubt you will learn to be a general manager because of the case method. A very experience manager myself, I firmly believe b-school cannot teach anybody to be a manager, that you have to learn out in the real world.

Nevertheless I am not American and have a very international profile spanning most continents. I do not want to work in the US any longer. For the branding reason I personally would go for HBS unless the difference would be in the order of 30k per year or more.

Yes, the partying/drinking stuff is fun but I had more than my share of that during undergrad and the subsequent years following it. I'm looking forward to the social aspects of b-school but I'm definitely not expecting it to be spring break for two years. Yes, HBS is young but I've met many fellow admits so far around my area and they all seem to be relatively mature and respectful people that I'd enjoy working with. Granted all the people around here are from industry and are in the midwest which may skew the personality types in a certain direction. I guess I'll get a better feel at ASW.

As for learning to lead, I do think that the case method has real value in that it teaches you to look at problems from a variety of perspectives and make decisions with limited information. I'm a manager as well (albeit not very experienced like yourself) and while I'm learning to be a better leader in a corporate setting, I am looking to learn how to lead when I'm not in my comfort zone (my company, my function, my categories). With that said, I absolutely agree that there is a limit on what you can learn in a classroom discussion vs. actually experiencing it in real life.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 11:17

vannbj wrote:

I realize that at least the starting salaries are generally standard but two seperate studies show that HBS alumni careers progress significantly faster than Chicago alumni careers. While I'd agree that the difference in salaries comes from the chosen paths I'd also add that HBS gives more choice. Also, the time of the survey is controlled in both Businessweek's and Forbes' surveys so it's definitely not a cause of the difference.

Do you think that it might be because of selection bias? HBS has typically attracted extremely driven and talented individuals and perhaps as a class, they are personalities that on average tend to be able to climb corporate ladders better than most. I have no doubt that other schools all have equally talented and driven individuals who have achieved amazing things but perhaps it speaks to the types of people that these schools are able to attract. I don't discount that Harvard's brand and network do mean a great deal, but I'm always a bit wary of studies like these that cast such a broad net.

B

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 11:54

eskimoroll wrote:

vannbj wrote:

I realize that at least the starting salaries are generally standard but two seperate studies show that HBS alumni careers progress significantly faster than Chicago alumni careers. While I'd agree that the difference in salaries comes from the chosen paths I'd also add that HBS gives more choice. Also, the time of the survey is controlled in both Businessweek's and Forbes' surveys so it's definitely not a cause of the difference.

Do you think that it might be because of selection bias? HBS has typically attracted extremely driven and talented individuals and perhaps as a class, they are personalities that on average tend to be able to climb corporate ladders better than most. I have no doubt that other schools all have equally talented and driven individuals who have achieved amazing things but perhaps it speaks to the types of people that these schools are able to attract. I don't discount that Harvard's brand and network do mean a great deal, but I'm always a bit wary of studies like these that cast such a broad net.

I assume the inputs (students) to be relatively homogeneous across the ultra elite schools (not homogeneous within the schools because every school’s pretty diverse). I don’t know though. You raise a good point. Maybe it is a little the type of person that enters. Maybe it is the brand and network. But I had another cause rattling in my head. I think that the curriculum makes HBS very very polished public speakers and enables them to think and lead large groups on their feet in concise ways. I’m almost certain that helps them get promoted. That’s speculation though.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 12:03

vannbj wrote:

eskimoroll wrote:

vannbj wrote:

I realize that at least the starting salaries are generally standard but two seperate studies show that HBS alumni careers progress significantly faster than Chicago alumni careers. While I'd agree that the difference in salaries comes from the chosen paths I'd also add that HBS gives more choice. Also, the time of the survey is controlled in both Businessweek's and Forbes' surveys so it's definitely not a cause of the difference.

Do you think that it might be because of selection bias? HBS has typically attracted extremely driven and talented individuals and perhaps as a class, they are personalities that on average tend to be able to climb corporate ladders better than most. I have no doubt that other schools all have equally talented and driven individuals who have achieved amazing things but perhaps it speaks to the types of people that these schools are able to attract. I don't discount that Harvard's brand and network do mean a great deal, but I'm always a bit wary of studies like these that cast such a broad net.

I assume the inputs (students) to be relatively homogeneous across the ultra elite schools (not homogeneous within the schools because every school’s pretty diverse). I don’t know though. You raise a good point. Maybe it is a little the type of person that enters. Maybe it is the brand and network. But I had another cause rattling in my head. I think that the curriculum makes HBS very very polished public speakers and enables them to think and lead large groups on their feet in concise ways. I’m almost certain that helps them get promoted. That’s speculation though.

Interesting theory. If that's true, that really is a real value that comes from the case-method system. Of course, I've sat in an HBS second year class where I saw awkward students who obviously didn't prepare the case struggle to put together a coherent thought. It was uncomfortable for everyone. :oops:

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 12:11

eskimoroll wrote:

vannbj wrote:

eskimoroll wrote:

Do you think that it might be because of selection bias? HBS has typically attracted extremely driven and talented individuals and perhaps as a class, they are personalities that on average tend to be able to climb corporate ladders better than most. I have no doubt that other schools all have equally talented and driven individuals who have achieved amazing things but perhaps it speaks to the types of people that these schools are able to attract. I don't discount that Harvard's brand and network do mean a great deal, but I'm always a bit wary of studies like these that cast such a broad net.

I assume the inputs (students) to be relatively homogeneous across the ultra elite schools (not homogeneous within the schools because every school’s pretty diverse). I don’t know though. You raise a good point. Maybe it is a little the type of person that enters. Maybe it is the brand and network. But I had another cause rattling in my head. I think that the curriculum makes HBS very very polished public speakers and enables them to think and lead large groups on their feet in concise ways. I’m almost certain that helps them get promoted. That’s speculation though.

Interesting theory. If that's true, that really is a real value that comes from the case-method system. Of course, I've sat in an HBS second year class where I saw awkward students who obviously didn't prepare the case struggle to put together a coherent thought. It was uncomfortable for everyone. :oops:

They've gotta get good at pulling stuff out of their butts one way or the other. Just about every manager does this at several points in their careers.

Maybe they're just better at doing it by the time they graduate than others. IDK

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 13:04

In 20 years you will have made your money regardless of what school you pick. You will have had an excellent education and will most likely have 'made it'. I would want to say I went to Harvard. The flexible curriculum would need to be a hugely beneficial factor for me to go elsewhere.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 13:37

Given that you're done with apps and probably find yourself with a bit more time. It might be interesting for you to read "Ahead of the Curve" before making that decision. To be honest I just started reading it myself, so I can only repeat others' praise for it, and not my own (yet). It's a relatively short read. Just an idea.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 14:17

dalillama wrote:

Given that you're done with apps and probably find yourself with a bit more time. It might be interesting for you to read "Ahead of the Curve" before making that decision. To be honest I just started reading it myself, so I can only repeat others' praise for it, and not my own (yet). It's a relatively short read. Just an idea.

Just finished it a couple of weeks ago also. Very entertaining/insightful read.

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Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 14:24

Rux10 wrote:

dalillama wrote:

Given that you're done with apps and probably find yourself with a bit more time. It might be interesting for you to read "Ahead of the Curve" before making that decision. To be honest I just started reading it myself, so I can only repeat others' praise for it, and not my own (yet). It's a relatively short read. Just an idea.

Just finished it a couple of weeks ago also. Very entertaining/insightful read.

What'd you like about it? What made it so insightful?

gmatclubot

Re: The toughest decision of my life... HBS vs Booth (full-ride) [#permalink]

03 Feb 2011, 14:24

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

HBS vs. Booth (full-ride)