Uncertainity !!

I agree that going to an ultra-elite is a no-brainer while going to a lower ranked school is a much tougher decision. But I think people sell these school short.

I don't know what everyone thinks about the Financial Times rankings and the data they include in their grid, but if you take the average percentage salary increase that they show for students 3 years removed from b-school, you see that Harvard students are making 123% of their pre-MBA salary. Rochester (Simon) students would be at 130%.

According to Business Week the average pre-Harvard MBA salary is 79K, for Rochester that number is 40K. So Rochester students have a lower opportunity cost and a slightly lower tuition. But in terms of salary, they get a pretty good bump. And while the ibanking-and-consulting-centric mindset of most people going into lucrative fields is that you have to earn your money back in five to six years for it to be worthwhile, for a lot of people an MBA is something that they will need when they're fifty years old and they've been working in an industry capacity and they're in the running to be the Vice President of Operations for Federal Express or an energy company.

If an MBA take twenty years to pay for itself, does that mean it's not worthwhile? Or does it mean that in twenty years you'll be making a lot more money then you would have otherwise.

I'm just kind of throwing these ideas out here, I'm not really sure that I totally believe all of this, I guess what I'm trying to reason out is why low ranked schools charge people almost, or even more than, top schools, and people continue to go to them and pay huge tuitions. Are these people getting ripped off, or are they overly optimistic about what they can do with their degree? I'm sure there are plenty cases of the latter, but at the same time I think there has to be a reason there are hundreds of business schools turning a profit.

Nope, I got you beat. Because I didn't "pass" the GMAT until late November of last year, I was only able to wholeheartedly apply to ONE school in R2 and still have a few apps going out for R3 and possibly R4. The flipside is that I'm not applying to any elite programs, so I'm praying that some of the lower cluster schools (IU, Mariott, Davis, McDonough, etc.) might still have a couple seats available in February/March.

Anyone here have a salary thats already at a post-mba level? I do, and I wonder how much, if at all, it'll go up when I graduate. It worries me.

https://www.aomonline.org/Publications/A ... chools.asp

Found it.

From the article:


Investment banking is another major destination for graduates of MBA programs (Norris, 1997), and another occupation where one might think that having a graduate business degree is important and useful. Ronald Burt did a private consulting study of the careers and career success of its employees for an investment bank, and concluded that because getting a degree takes time, people with an MBA were, on average, a year older than those without the degree (R. Burr, personal communication, Nov. 26, 2001). "With respect to pay" however, "more education has no association with total compensation...but has a negative association when it matters at all." Burr, who has also done follow-up studies of University of Chicago alumni, concluded: "I have never found benefits for the MBA degree--usually it just makes you a couple of years older than non-MBA peers" (Burt, personal communication, Nov. 26, 2001).

Livingston (1971), comparing Harvard MBA graduates and attendees at an advanced management course with similar years of work experience, reported that the senior managers earned more than the Harvard Business School graduates. Two studies compared the salaries of graduates from MBA and undergraduate business programs, in one instance from the University of California at Berkeley, and in the second case from three business schools in the Midwest. Both studies reported that, although there was an effect of having the graduate MBA degree on starting salary, there was no effect of having an MBA on current salary, except for students from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds (Dreher, Dougherty, & Whitely, 1985; Pfeffer, 1977).

Even those studies that have found a positive effect of the MBA degree are open to the alternative interpretation that what is being assessed is the quality of the student body rather than the effects of acquiring some specific skills or knowledge. A study by the Graduate Management Admissions Council of people who registered for the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test) found that 7 years later those who had graduated from business school had higher earnings than those who had either never attended business school or who had started a program but did not finish (Dugan, Grady, Payne, & Johnson, 1999). But the benefits accrued mostly to graduates of the more prestigious programs; individuals coming from unaccredited or less competitive schools earned amounts that were more similar to people who either did not attend business school at all or who did not graduate. These findings echo those of others who have observed there are almost no economic gains from an MBA degree unless one graduates from a top-ranked program (e.g., The Economist, 1994).


Personally, I agree with the below:

The fact that graduate business programs may be as much networking, screening, or recruiting services as educational institutions is an observation made by numerous others. For instance, Jill Rupple, a partner at the consulting firm Diamond Technology Partners in response to the question of why companies recruit MBAs, replied, "It is a prescreened pool" (Leonhardt, 2000: 18). Similarly, Seth Godin, a journalist from Fast Company who attended Stanford's Graduate School of Business, argued that the core curriculum taught at business schools is irrelevant, and that the utility of a business school degree is to provide a pedigree rather than learning (Godin, 2000: 322).

Just wondering: why are you going to a FT MBA program? Are you looking for a career change? Are you hoping it will help you down the road? If you're not a career changer, why didn't you go for PT (I think you live in Chicago)?

I don't think my Salary would change much post-MBA maybe 10% or so. I'm banking on the substantially larger bonuses/perks and/or equity in addition to access to the "fast track".

That's exactly why I'm reading your discussion from a so much different point of view. If I land an average job in US after my MBA, I will have at least 500% salary increase.

Considering that Japanese income taxes are less than 10% for expats (even lower for Shimin-zei dodgers) netting under US$100K, I guess you can add me to this group. It's more the knowledge and alumni connections that are stoking the burning fire within at this point.

If that is the case, I WILL BE DISAPPOINTED...

But i did spoke to alumni from Ultra/Elite and all of them have spoken highly about their education experience at Bschool and some even went on to claim bschool as a " Life changing Experience"

I dont have any interest in Consulting or Finance , neither i will join the herd( if i make it to a bschool )....more interested in a job where i can get a chance to practice general management .....( not sure what kinda job offers such exposure )..

i doubt if consulting/Management will give any HANDS On exposure to managing....either it's all about a project(MC) or a new deal(IB) or stock market( S&T)...

A few reasons I didnt chose PT. In no particular oder:

1. I've heard, again and again, that the PT route is far less rewarding because of the fact that you just don't interact as much with people, have less access to resources, have weakened networking opportunities, etc. In short, the people I've talked to who went PT regretted not going FT - with, of course, a few exceptions. I know some Kellogg people who are trying to switch to FT precisely because they don't like the PT way of doing things. They describe it as "disjointed" and "poorly integrated".

2. I'm in IT now, and while I would consider staying here - I would only consider doing so in a totally different strategic role, not in a tactical role. This means: no tester roles, no developer roles, no systems analyst or BA roles, no PM roles, no architecture roles, no PMO jobs, no back office support roles, no application support roles, no unix admin roles, no mcse/mcdba or ccie or whatever the heck anything roles, no network engineer roles, no data warehouse stuff, no application consulting stuff, no third party vendor management jobs, no software sales realted jobs, none of that. Very simply: If the job description involves a word my mom doesn't know, its not a job I'd want.

For instance, there was a job I once saw called "Strategy Manager" for a GPS company. It was a direct MBA recruit job, and it sounded exactly like what I'd enjoy (other than I'm not passionate about GPS in any particular way). Lead a team of analysts to data mine customer information, competitive analysis, etc, and help develop strategic plans for new company initiatives. Drive directional recommendations to senior management and help grow the firm. It read something like that. Basically it was a job where you helped define not just the next GPS toy, but helped define it's marketing, its target customers, its pricing, and overall firm strategy - not just for the "next toy" - but for the entire line of products. That's strategic - not tactical.

To put it differently - I don't necessarily KNOW what I want to do - but I know what I DONT want to do. I don't want to do IB. I probably don't want to do IT, unless its something like the job above. I'd consider going back to consulting, but only for a strategy consulting firm. Not an IT shop.

Moreover, although there may be some correlation between what I'm doing now and what I'd like to do - it's tangential at best - and I don't think I could really make a move into a totally different and more strategic role just by going to my boss and saying "I now have an MBA" - even if the position is still "IT related".

I think it would require a real move to another firm, but that firm would have to see beyond my work experience and let me into a new area. I think that would be a hard sell if they weren't directly recruiting from the MBA program itself. That said, I do have some friends who have seriously impacted their salaries - one I know just went from about $70K to $120K plus upwards of $60K bonus, but his situation is a bit unique because his team and everyone on it all jumped ship together to a competitor and negotiated virtually as a group. I'm not sure his to-be-completed PT MBA really had anything to do with it (right place, right time more than anything else).

Even if my salary doesnt bump by much, at least I've moved out of the boring stuff I'm doing now, and I'm doing something more interesting. I know how I ended up where I am now - you can trace it back to my first job out of college. It defined my path for the last few years - although I was able to get out of IT and go do finance for a while, I ended up back in IT eventually - mostly out of financial necessity. I honestly believe that the only way to really break into something different is to go FT. Even just a small change in direction or focus, I think, requires I go FT. That first job out of my MBA program will, I imagine, largely define what direction I end up - just like my job out of undergrad did - and to have as many options I need a FT MBA.

Moreover, if you consider that I only sort-of know what I want to do, a FT MBA makes sense becuase it will let me recruit into a variety of different areas - and refine where I want to go as I complete the MBA. What if, for instance, I decide I want to go into Brand Management? Thats going to be heckuva hard sell when I apply from my current IT job. It would be much easier from a FT recruiting base.

To put it succinctly - because I don't have the clearest path defined, a FT MBA makes sense because leaves the most doors open.

3. I honestly think that an MBA is 80% networking. Simply put, I think the opportunities I might have to network at a FT program far exceed those of a PT program - and this is something I've heard again and again from current PT and FT students. PT programs mean that I may have one person in one class, but not in another, or maybe they take a quarter off -etc. It's more of a transient relationship. FT programs, study groups, cohorts etc, are going to foster a much deeper and established networking opportunity than people I see for a few hours a week after work when they are all tired and only sort-of engaged.

4. I think the MBA will be demanding enough, and a PT mba with a full time job would likely prove very difficult for me to manage. I'd likely have to put my career "on hold" while I got the MBA, at which point, I'm unlikely to get promoted anyway, and all that would likely happen is I'd have mediocre performance for a few years at work, and a mediocre performance at school. Lose-Lose.

5. Overall, I think a FT MBA would just be more fun and I want to be immersed - completely - not just with one toe "in".

6. I've read articles (ill see if i can find them) that state that recruiters view PT candidates as "lesser" to their FT counterparts and would choose a FT over a PT if given the choice. They cite the teamwork aspects - that is a FT is thrust into a team oriented environment - a PTers team orientation may be weaker and thus the recruiter cannot truly assess their ability to work in a team as easily or readily as that of a FT.

7. I know PT programs can be done relatively quickly, but I just don't want this thing to take 3 years - which is likely what it would take me. I'm going to be "old" when I graduate already - the last thing I need is to be even "older".

All of this can be summarized easily:

I'm doing FT because I might switch paths completely and need all the opportunities I can get to succeed in doing so, including networking, resources, recruiting, all while having as much fun as I can have.

Same here...It worries me to an extent, but I am a career switcher (getting out of IT) so the MBA will hopefully open doors, give me a great experience, blah blah blah.

Yea, what I said in a lot more words.

The problem with all these sorts of studies is that they always compare MBA candidates to their "non-MBA peers." For instance when the article is comparing people in I-banking with MBA's to their peers who do not have MBA's. It says the MBA's are just older, but not earning more. But this is silly, think about this analogy:

Say you're a mediocre college basketball player who doesn't have a shot in h*ll of making the NBA, but you go to a rigorous two-year basketball camp after college and they hone your skills and all of a sudden you're good enough to make it in the NBA. Then someone could say, "Look at this guy, he wasted two years at that basketball camp, and now he's making the same money as these guys who just went straight to the MBA from college."

The point is, an MBA opens doors for people who for whatever reason, aren't on the super-fast track. If I get an MBA and manage to land a consulting job, you can compare me to my consulting peers who didn't have to go to business schools to make it to my position, and you can conclude that business school was a waste of time and money, or you can compare me to my peers as in the people I worked with before business school.

Guys for those wanting to work with IB, and in Europe LBS may be a good R3 school, I went to an Info Session recently and David Simpson who is responsible for admissions there said out loud, R3 and 4 exists because we do intake students in those rounds, otherwise they wouldn't exist. And then he said that even if all slots are already completed sometimes they offer intake for the next year. I really belive that 60% of what he said is true, so it may be a good later rounds school to apply for.

Hope that helps.

I have the same problem but I have stopped worrying about it. I am following my dream...If I build a career around what I love I will ultimately be more successful and happy.

Listening to you guys feels like tuning into another planet. I will put it out there - I make $31k. My bonus was $250 this year - that's what we all get at Christmas. Ooh, and that extra 4% 401k discretionary employer contribution was pretty hot too. BTW - I should add that my big 31k only came after my position was finally regraded to reflect all the balls I juggle at work. I started out at 18k 4 years ago.

I AM NOT DOING THIS FOR MONEY. I am doing this because I want to move to a higher level in my field. Because I have nearly zero analytical skills. Because I can't do much more than read my organization's balance sheet. Because I want to learn more about the business side of my field, and I come from the nonprofit side.

The networking will certainly be valuable - it always is - but I already have a pretty fancy network in my existing field.

So I will be sorely disappointed if the curriculum is meaningless and if I have to spend all day every day with a bunch of people who are constantly calculating the ROI of what they have for lunch.

That's my rant.