Top 10 vs Top 20 vs. Top 50 - We Interviewed Alums & Students

This is a fair point and something that makes 1 year MBA Programs not much sense for internationals who are not sponsored candidates. But the underlying points mentioned above still remain the same. You still have to work yourself towards getting an internship or a job even when you go to a top 10 school. No one is going to serve you any job on a platter!!

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Fully agreed. Everyone - I mean even the folks I know at HBS - paid their dues in blood, sweat, and tears to get what they want. Certain schools give their students better exposure to recruiters, but it comes down to hustle and interview skills.

Totally agree with ENGRTOMBA2018 - how about this though - keeping the hustle and the interview prep variable constant - would you say that landing a job at a top 15 would be similar to a top 30-40 school? No, right?

That being said though, I know way too many people struggling to get internships/jobs even at top 5 or top 10 schools so it does seem like a really heavy competitive space out there.

This is a very important point that incoming students and prospective students must keep in mind that even if you crack H/S/W you still have to show up and do really well during networking events and interviews. Most of the time, American companies are meritocratic and dont care about anything else. Its an important consideration. As to your point of better exposure, definitely true! Some schools will provide you tremendous exposure to traditional finance (Booth/Wharton) , some will provide you unmatched consulting exposure (Kellogg, Stanford) while H/S will provide you great exposure to top VC/PE/HF/GM roles. So your application strategy should also look at these small but very important nuances.

Hope this discussion helps incoming and prospective students in making their decisions.

Its easy to keep certain variables constant but given the current scenario around H1B and Trump Administration's take on international workers in US, you must keep the variability of interview and hustle in mind while evaluating options as top 5/10 schools provide unmatched resources say for example the case prep book at Kellogg is getting used at all top 10 schools as the go to guide.

That being said and for the sake of this conversation, yes, even if you keep hustle and interview prep, top 5/10 schools will always be worth the money given the tremendous exposure you will get through your interactions with not only great faculty but top execs at big companies throughout the world. The other big distinction in favor of top 5/10 is the fact that these schools place well outside US as well, which cant be said about other international or top 20/30 schools in US.

To your point about struggle of international students, it has always been extremely competitive, especially for top 5/10 schools as most of the international students are coming in with great GMATs, GPAs and a plan of attack on what to do during MBA. This much focus will only create more competitive space. this much competition is good, IMO, as it weeds out people who are not serious or who do not a set method of attack. It is not an ideal world and in order to achieve something, you must be at your true best!

Fuqua vs. Ross vs. UNC - Part II
	Fuqua by Alum	Ross by Alum	UNC by 2nd Year Student
What school did you choose and Why?	I applied to a few business schools and got an admit to a couple, including Fuqua. It was an easy decision because Fuqua was the higher ranked school, and was clearly a better fit. I was excited by Duke’s great healthcare program and Fuquans, in general. From the very beginning, I got great vibes from the school and was made to feel a part of the family.	Ross was a top choice for due to proximity, being from a Michigan family. I have known Michigan folks for my entire life, so that made the choice quite easy. Michigan was my top choice among my admits, but I will say it wasn’t my #1. Ann Arbor is an amazing town, great for all aspects of life (single, committed, married, married kids, single with kids). Being a Big Ten school definitely has a strong impact on the spiritedness of the school and timing of the games, for all seasons and all sports.	I was looking at a course that had a small classroom size. I was very impressed with the leadership roles offered at UNC and the collaborative culture, hence I applied UNC in the Early Action round. I was lucky to get a full scholarship at UNC and that was good enough to seal the deal. I was admitted to Tepper also in R1 and applied to Soan as a long shot after getting my UNC admit. But KF with a full scholarship was too sweet a deal to refuse. Hence I became a proud Tar Heel.
How Were the Classes?	Classes The first 6 months at Fuqua is ‘core curriculum’, which all ~450 students go through. The next few months offer some flexibility in terms of choosing courses, but you are also expected to complete ‘basic’ courses e.g. Corporate Finance. Having enrolled in the ‘Healthcare Sector Management’ certificate program, I also took a few healthcare classes in my first year. Second year at Fuqua offers great flexibility, with people charting their unique MBA paths. For instance, although I was focused on healthcare, I took a class on ‘Blockchain Technology’, which seemed really interesting. In addition to the certificate programs, most students also complete a couple of concentrations (e.g. Strategy, Investment finance, Product Management etc.). My final few courses were targeted to complete my ‘Strategy’ concentration. Finally, there were plenty of ‘Experiential’ learning programs at Fuqua while I was there. I participated in a couple of them – consulting a major US retailer, and working at the Duke Hospitals.	I went into Michigan focused on the operations program, which is a very high commitment program. It’s a mixed program of the honors engineering master’s students along with the MBAs. Your summer internship is contained within the operations program, so this is both good and bad (you don’t have to actively recruiter for internships, just network, but does hinder if you want something that is very outside of the companies that offer operation roles). All MBA programs have the bidding on classes, so this is not unique to anything. High energy and teamwork in most classes, and great dynamics all around.	UNC has 2 modules in each semester. The 1st 2 mods have core classes that teach us the basics of business and the electives kick in after Mod 2. There is a program called ASW before the classes start so that people can understand the basics of Finance and Accounting if they want. The initial 2 mods get a bit hectic because of the recruiting. IB and consulting start early from October and it gets a bit busy to manage that along with the core curriculum. The interviews typically start in January so it is advisable to take less course load in Mod 3 and 4 to focus on recruiting. The electives are assigned through a bidding system and you should be wise in what courses you chose as there are a few popular courses that need a lot of points. The course offerings are in “Concentrations and Enrichments”. You can take one concentration and one enrichment and have a choice to concentrate in a particular domain by taking the elective courses in that domain.
What can you say about Classmates?	As I expected, my classmates were from diverse backgrounds – from the usual banking/consulting crowd to the non-traditional poets. I can throw more numbers such as ~40% internationals, ~40% women etc., but that is exactly what I expected out of a top MBA program. Needless to say, students worked towards each other’s success and were very collaborative within classes and outside. The values of ‘Team Fuqua’ are inculcated earlier on, and the majority lives up to it. Having said that, there was a certain degree of separation between native speakers and internationals during the latter part of the program. I have been told that this is very natural because students gravitate towards their ‘comfort zones’ after an exhausting program. Also, some people are keen on learning new cultures and some are happy with the status quo. This certainly does not mean that there was ‘groupism’, but it just highlights that everyone finds their own tribe when thrown amongst ~500 odd people. In conclusion, it was a great platform to meet such diverse people and learn from students from different backgrounds. Don’t think such an experience is replicable outside of a graduate program, especially MBA, where there is relentless focus on working in teams.	Michigan tends to attract people who enjoy or are looking for a big sports school experience. The bredth of experiences was there, as was the demographics. The class size at Michigan was on the larger size for MBA (500+), but this has been tapering down over the last few years	The class diversity is impressive to say the least. There are students from around 30 countries and from a variety of backgrounds. One thing that UNC prides on is the collaborative culture also called the Carolina way. Everyone from classmates, seniors, Alums, professors and staff is fully invested in your success. One particular instance that impressed me a lot – we were being the taught about options and there were two students who had worked on the trading floor in Wall Street. Hearing their experience was eye opening and helped bring home the concepts.
How was the Challenge Level?	Challenge Level MBA is challenging because it forces you to prioritize and manage time effectively. Once I learned how to prioritize what is important to me, it was smooth sailing. For e.g., recruiting, academics, and ‘stuff I want to do’ weren’t challenging themselves, but balancing all of them was a major pain. However, I consider myself a bit lucky that things fell in place on the recruiting front, allowing me to focus my efforts elsewhere. The only advice here is to be deliberate in terms of what you want to do during the program. There will be a thousand different directions you can take, and you will have to chart your unique path.	For some people, MBA is two year vacation from work, for others, it’s a chance to have a fresh start and shine. The no reporting grades to employers and significance of graduating with honors or not being the only attributes, it was easy for people to stand out who wanted academically or those who wanted to enjoy themselves and have a career change (and the select few who could do both). The challenger was there, without a doubt	MBA is challenging and this is evident from day 1. The first two mods are pretty challenging given the recruiting and core classes. Typically classes start from 8 and end at 3:30.
How would you rate Career Services?	How would you rate Career Services & Recruiting Their major input to the whole process was their relationships with the companies and what they did to get them on campus. Often people underestimated that aspect, but the career services people did that fairly well, year in year out. However, there is definitely scope for improvement there e.g., there was no explanation for why a few companies didn’t visit our campus but visited other MBA programs, there was no ‘bidding’ system etc. Outside of their role in bringing recruiters to the campus, they helped with creating resumes, resolving scheduling conflicts, navigating offers etc. However, it was a pain to go to them for advice, mainly because often they didn’t have anything substantial to say. It wasn’t for the lack of trying though. They are genuinely nice people, helping students achieve their goal. It’s just that recruitment is a very individualized journey and doesn’t have a lot of scope for external help.	Herding cats. There is too much FOMO and too many people trying to do everything, so it’s not always easy. That being said, there is the test they offer to help guide you into what your tendencies lend to for a career choice. I know people who were floored by what the results were and ended up going after those things, and were very happy with the results. You only get out of the services what you invest in, so the student has to personally invest a lot to get the benefit (prep, practice, willingness to listen, etc.). All the typical run of the mill help (interview practice, case practice, resume review, etc) were there.	CMC can definitely do a better job. There are various companies that come to the main UNC campus but not in the MBA school. They do not leverage the larger UNC alumni and can definitely utilize them to bring more companies. One more issue is that the CMC Directors are rotated between different functions. Case in point – previous consulting director is handling IB right now. Because of this the directors have to build their connections again. Having said that, KF is trying really hard to bring in more Tech companies on campus. A collection of schools including Duke, UNC, Darden and Ross are trying to bring in more companies on the East Coast. There are various treks arranged to west coast for tech companies and Atlanta, Charlotte, DC for consulting. The IB treks are arranged for Charlotte and New York. Having said all this, there are a lot of things that are good and a great area of improvement.
What did Recruiting look like?	Recruiting Recruiting process at Fuqua could be segmented into 2 categories – FY recruiting for internships and SY full time recruiting. FY recruiting starts in mid-Sep/Early-Oct. when students start to attend networking events and form their first contacts/relationships with their target companies. They also get opportunities to meet company representatives that are on campus for 6-8 weeks, go to select company offices, and network with companies in all kind of events (receptions, dinners, diversity events etc.). This, for me, is the most tedious and strenuous process of the recruiting cycle. Subsequently, resume drops happen in Oct/Nov. Then, every company releases a ‘close list’ for interviews. Students start preparing for interviews (casing/technical ivs, behavioral etc.) as soon as they drop resumes (in early to mid Nov.) Finally, interviews start in Jan with Banking/Consulting and go up until Mar/April with Technology companies typically last to visit the campus. Generally, students choose between Banking and Consulting early on as it is almost impossible to do both the processes together. However, you may choose to do either with General Management/Healthcare/Tech recruiting. I maintained a dual focus with Consulting and Healthcare Strategy roles. Post March/April, few students do off campus recruiting for niche roles/companies as well. CMC typically helps these students to form the first few connections within these firms. The second year process is much more condensed. If you are happy with your offer from the internship, you are good to golf and drink starting from Sept. However, quite a few people want to re-recruit to land a better job, and have to drop their resumes again for their target companies. Students, typically, are much more focused and selective in this process as compared to throwing spaghetti on the wall approach in the first year. Anyways, the whole networking thing happens again, and typically the on campus recruitment wraps up by Nov./Early Dec. I ended up recruiting in the SY as well, and I definitely had to make tradeoffs to maintain a singular focus in the months of Sept/Oct. to land a job in 2 companies that I was targeting. Worked out well in the end! Recruiting at Kellogg starts from mid-sept with IBanking and early October for others (Consulting/Marketing/General Management/Corporate Finance etc). So you must be extremely focused on what you want (industry/function). If you don’t get an offer till January-Feb, you must get involved with CMC to land you an ‘off campus’ job through connections/networking. If you are dedicated towards getting an internship, you will end up getting an offer by April.	MBA recruiting is pretty much the same everywhere, you get a short period where no one is coming to campus, and then it’s a giant mess. TONS of FOMO and people spreading themselves thin. It’s probably a good idea to have an idea of what you want and then cast a fairly focused net. Off campus is there, but it’s ad-hoc an on your own terms. This is where using the coffee chats, career assessment and other things that require the student actively reach out for is VERY useful.	In 1st year, Consulting and IB recruiting starts from October with all the treks and copany presentations. There are a number of companies that come for campus presentations and office hours, where 1 -2 students interact with the company representatives. The off campus recruiting efforts should also start around November if you are targeting some company that does not come on campus as most of the roles are opened in that time frame. The second year recruiting is pretty quick and ends in October, post this, it is all off campus where you have to build connections with Alumni and work your way out.
Alumni	Fuqua has a quite strongly knit Alum network in all major industries – from finance and consulting to healthcare and technology and they are well spread across the US. Outside of US, Asia/LatAm are well represented but we could certainly do better with our EU/Australia numbers. There are frequent get togethers and events that allow us to stay in touch. While alums in the same industries can often help in finding new business/job opportunities, alums in the same company are extremely important to career growth and networking. Given Fuqua’s employment spread, this becomes a great asset. In general, alums are very responsive over email/social media. Fuqua also maintains an alumni portal, which serves as a gateway to interact with individuals that may help you.	Michigan Alumni is HUGE. If you’re wearing Michigan attire in a place with alumni, you will hear a “go blue” just walking around. I reached out to alums as I was evaluating certain companies or geographies and there were all very receptive and responsive. Since I was in the Operations program, I got to see how strong the alumni network in the Engineering college was, and it was also very strong, cohesive and available.	UNC takes pride in its collaborative culture and the Alumni also follow it. They are really helpful during the off campus search. Recently UNC won a competition against Duke for the funds raised by the current students and Alumni. This shows the support that KF has from its Alumni.