Globe trotting my way to Tuck

Question

What  
In short I was looking for a business school that had significant number of career changers, recruited well for management consulting, had excellent alumni engagement, and ideally had a well known brand internationally. Finally, I was limited to three top programs due to having fairly busy recommenders (and Georgetown only needing one recommender snuck in as a late addition). Without further ado, here are my ruminations on the process, but please remember these are just my impressions and may not be true of your experience. I can only speak to what I found in my research and in my engagement with other applicants, students, and alumni of the various programs.

Where 
•  Tuck:  I’ve been a big fan of Tuck and Dartmouth since I first looked into the Business Bridge years ago. I loved Hanover, had arguably my best interview here, and could absolutely see myself enjoying my two years here. My interactions with alumni were top notch, even as an applicant, let alone as an admit. The Tuck network is a very real thing!

•  Fuqua:  Fuqua has the Team Fuqua mentality, lovely weather; Durham is now a surprisingly cute town. As a sports fan, I also liked the idea of going to Cameron Indoor and seeing the resurgent football team.

•  Yale SOM:  Yale has a business school? Yes, and it is rather revolutionary! I loved SOM’s interdisciplinary nature, its engagement with the wider university, and the non-traditional feel. The new building and growing student body definitely show SOM is putting its money where its mouth is so to speak. SOM’s mission of educating global leaders for business and society particularly caught my attention.

•  Georgetown:  I liked Georgetown’s focus on international engagement and its Dean’s lofty goals. Despite this, and without meaning to offend anyone, this was my safety school from the start.

Where Not

•  Darden:   Charlottesville is beyond beautiful, I loved the preponderance of pastels, and the people were generally friendly. However; the constant mention of working 16 hour days as a student, case-method only learning, and lower consulting placement compared to Tuck and Fuqua pushed it off my list.

•  CBS:   I love your follies videos. Seriously hysterical. But, the high cost of living in NYC, the general malaise friends who graduated from CBS had regarding the school, and seemingly low alumni engagement took it off my list.

•  Kellogg:   Loved the consulting recruitment and the small school vibe for such a large program. Unfortunately, I didn’t love the campus and decided to stick with East Coast only programs.

•  Ross:   I love Ann Arbor and I’m a big football fan. Ross came into consideration along with Fuqua and Darden, but knew I only was going to apply to one of the three and Fuqua won out.

The Decision

In the end the decision came down to Yale and Tuck.

DefyingGravity · Answer

Congrats on making the decision! Enjoy the next two years in the amazing Evans Hall.

p.s. I loved how some parts of your post sounded like a public service announcement, lol... "The above conclusions are based on my experiences during the process and may not reflect your own."

domotron · Answer

Congrats Flyte. You will have an amazing 2 years at SOM. Boo hiss at the fact you're not coming to Hanover this fall though (just kidding).
One thing I have noticed in the recent recaps: fit really is king.

Flyte · Answer

So, what a difference a few weeks make. Due to a couple sits downs, one with a peer, the other with my mentor, along with some other experiences...I have changed my decision and will be matriculating to Tuck this autumn. I will be elaborating more later this week. Suffice to say, I loved Yale's curriculm, but it wasn't the right fit.

domotron · Answer

Woah interesting flip late in the game. Super happy that you are joining me in Hanover this autumn!

mgg234 · Answer

To future writers (and op if he has old draft available), please don't edit and delete if you change your mind...it's much more useful to future readers if they can read your original reasons. It's better to leave the original, and provide update below. Will give them better insight into the decision making process and when/how things can change.

Flyte · Answer

Mgg234 et all,

I felt it was best to take down the conclusion of my original post, as given my change of heart, it was disingenuous. I will be posting a more robust explanation of my decision later this week, which will address the issue. In the meantime, I thought it best in case anyone else was making a last minute decision or was a R3 applicant.

DefyingGravity · Answer

Whoa, very interesting switch. Can't wait to read more about your reasoning!

Flyte · Answer

So what a difference a few weeks makes… As you may recall I had decided on SOM as of early April. Done and dusted so to speak. A nagging feeling prevented me from declining Tuck; however, so it stayed an option. Please keep in mind, as before, the following are only my opinions and reflect my personal opinions. You may have a different view or had a different experience, but this was mine.

Without further ado, there were three primary factors that informed my change of decision:

1.  Fit / Curriculum:  Frankly my primary reason for choosing Yale was the curriculum and thereby fit. After visiting the school, I did not feel that same fit with my soon to be classmates at SOM like I did at Tuck. The prospective students that I most connected with at my interview day all chose other schools, so this threw me for a bit of a loop. If anyone is interested this ranged from one who is going to Fuqua, two to Kellogg, one to Cornell, and another to Tuck along with myself.

2.  More digging:  Despite being a target program, and after much research, it became apparent that SOM’s consulting placement lagged much further behind Tuck’s than it seemed at first. Additionally, two of the niche firms that I was interested in took students from other schools at Yale, BUT had not had anyone get an offer from SOM. Combine this with Tuck being a core school for all of the Big Three, this definitely played in. For general management a number of the top companies who I looked into (also spoke to the heads of MBA recruitment at two top Fortune 50 firms) simply didn’t recruit or take anyone from SOM, whereas Tuck was one of their top 5 targets.

3.  Discussion:  A discussion with a peer I met at SOM making the same decision (he ended up choosing Tuck as well) along with an even more important extended chat with my mentor pushed me over the edge to change my decision.

In sum, I do think Yale SOM is a good programme, has a very unique curriculum, an active student body, and will eventually be a perennial top ten programme. In my view it is not there yet for prospective consultants or general management students (finance is closer). While I like the curriculum at SOM better, this is a fairly expensive endeavour and I’d rather not enjoy the curriculum as much, enjoy my classmates more, and get the job I want post-MBA, rather than love the curriculum, but end up at my 4th choice firm and not connect with my class. Additionally, while much is made about SOM no longer being a primarily non-profit programme / social enterprise school, its student body still very much is (they are perhaps slightly in the minority, but it still is a major contingent). This was apparent in not only the other admitted students, but also in the SOM ‘14s and ‘15s. In the end it just wasn’t for me.

On that note I am excited beyond belief to be attending Tuck this autumn! When I first started looking at MBA programmes it was my top choice. I love Hanover, the campus, and the other admits have been fantastic and absurdly active already. Finally, I spoke to a handful of Tuck alumni in Europe and they have been every bit as lovely as their American counterparts, so cannot wait to get stuck in!

mgg234 · Answer

Congrats on your choice. For what its worth, I definitely think you made the right decision with Tuck. It really shocks me how many people on this site don't factor in employment reports/recruiting when deciding between schools.

Globe trotting my way to Tuck

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