Yale SOM $0 vs NYU Stern full ride

Question

I was fortunate enough to be admitted by two full-time MBA programs: Yale SOM and NYU Stern. Yale SOM was my #1 choice but did not offer any scholarships. Stern offered me a full ride (named faculty scholarship covering full tuition and fees for two years). I have tried to negotiate with Yale leveraging the Stern offer but the answer is still $0. My immediate post MBA goal is investment banking in NYC. In terms of IB placement, based on my conversations with current students and recent graduates, both school are doing well. Stern seems has a bit of edge over Yale SOM due to its larger alumni network and location in NYC. But Yale is said to have a higher placement rate: 80% vs 65-70% from Stern. I'm not sure how accurate these figures are and whether I should be worried about the 10-15% difference.

Yale (the parent institution) is a household name in Europe and may have more long-term benefits. NYU/Stern is very strong in finance but almost unheard of outside of the US. I never went to an ivy league or Oxford/Cambridge. Not having a brand name on my resume has been haunting me for years. I think it's all down to the money - a difference of about $150k. Would the Yale name be worth the price tag? I don't come from money and will finance my MBA all by myself (saving and loan). Per MBA ranking, the two school are pretty much peers. But to the general public and people outside of MBA circle, Yale is the fancy/shiny name. Regarding school culture, Yale is more relaxed and has a close-knit community. Stern appears to be super competitive, especially for IB, it can be cutthroat sometimes (based on the story I heard from a current student who is going through the IB recruiting). I guess it is probably how NYC and IB industry is. If I don't experience it during MBA, I'll certainly come across it later on at workplace.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

bb · Answer

Congratulations on your admits. Stern and Yale are peer schools. There is a whole group of schools in this band but it also includes Fuqua and Haas, Ross as well as sometimes Tuck.

While the schools are different enough, they target the same students. It is pretty amazing and interesting that there’s such a disparity with a full scholarship from Stern and Yale would not budge.

Had the same time, the brand power of these programs have is generally fairly similar. It would be unusual for you to try to recruit and across the board everyone would only want to see Yale people. Sure, some companies may recruit at one program and not the other and some may have strong connections with certain programs but when you average things and take the industry as a whole, I don’t think you would have much of an advantage at Yale with what your goals are. I feel that Geo has a much stronger international brand and is more of a household brand but that usually doesn’t play much when you recruit for investment banking.

Bottom line, I wouldn’t have any reservations going to Stern. I think there are clear differences between the programs. Being in the city is different than being in New Haven but then of course nobody wants to be in New Haven. Being close to your future employers also helps. It helps to network and hopefully meet people, when those things start again. Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about competitiveness. There’s always an unhealthy share of FOMO in every business school and people trying to make themselves feel better by making others feel worse. It is part of the experience, to make you stronger…. And you can always ignore your classmates and recruit on your own. I really dislike the group recruiting environment anyway. I believe the column them circles or kill circles - when a number of students circle each of the recruiters 😂 I feel the group recruiting really brings out the worst out of people and I don’t think that Stern necessarily attracts the worst people and they all attracts the best people. There is diversity in business schools and since these appealed to the same group of applicants, it’s really the side of the person that you’re seeing.

Anyway, I would put down a deposit for Stern 👍😎🎄

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hzhet · Answer

bb  Thank you very much for your great advice. Really helpful. Some people say that Yale SOM is steadily rising up the ranks and may potentially break into Top 7 (crashing M7 party). What is your opinion on this?

bb · Answer

I would say Bitcoin is also rising (though that is highly debatable)

but it will take a lot of time for Yale to get into M7 and be a member of it and my money is on bitcoin rather than Yale. But let's say it does rise into the M7 territory and gets accepted 5 years later. Why do you care? You would have graduated by then and it likely won't happen fast enough for you to get a bump or value out of it. I mean if you got an admit from Columbia, would you have dumped Stern with Full Scholarship? that's your test

MBASomeTime · Answer

As noted above, this is a decision between peer schools and unequal money. Unfortunately, it does look like schools have been stingy with scholarship negotiations this round – I saw a few posts on reddit where the opposite (Yale with $ vs Stern with no $) was the case and Stern didn’t budge.

Stern IB placement rates are probably more a function of dedication rather than the school. You have substantially more group-specific and firm penetration when compared to other T15 programs. I interned at an EB pre-MBA and had a 2Y T15 student reach out to me; I thought this was surprising but then noticed there were only two people at the firm from their alma matter. SOM would fall into a similar category here, and most of the time this is a negative.

Honestly, I find the “prestige” component to be extremely overrated for the most part. Your grandma isn’t the one that’s hiring you. In terms of “brand recognition”, I looked at overall google search volume, and both are pretty comparable – with NYU Stern/MBA getting higher search volumes, while Yale has more hits for undergrad.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=NYU,yale
https://trends.google.com/trends/explor ... yale%20MBA
Additionally, QS, which is probably the most internationally heavy ranking, puts NYU quite high up at 18 nationally (vs Yale at 7). Stern is an entirely different story and is much more competitive than the overall institution; Acceptance rates and test scores are in-line with Duke. Stern also has much, much higher international salaries (for MBA grads), where in theory parent prestige would be more important.

With regards to ranking, the M7 is set in stone. Will X program be consistently ranked in that category at some point? I have no idea. But considering the cross-admit yield that Yale has (quite a bit lower than Haas, which is the most M7 esque school) I don’t think that’s the case. Honestly, considering the 700m endowment, I don’t know why they don’t take the UF approach and give everyone full rides. That would greatly help the rankings and break them out of the peer group.

bb · Answer

I love the M7 being set in stone... I thought about it but then I did not want to be wrong in 3 years but I agree. M7 is going to be very hard to break into.

P.S. About 15 years ago Ross was #3 in US News. That has not made them M7.

JTdaniel · Answer

I'm a 1Y at SOM, and I'd say take the money. Full ride vs nothing is simply too much of a delta. If you are dead set on SOM, ask them to counter and negotiate hard.

Yale SOM $0 vs NYU Stern full ride

Yale SOM ($0) vs NYU Stern (full ride)

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