Pharma industry career: Wharton vs. Haas vs. Sloan vs. Fuqua

Question

Dear all,

from your point of view which MBA would be the best choice for someone wishing to work in the Pharma Industry? Any insights would be very appreciated.

Background:
Pharmacist, MPharm, MSc Management
6 years of experience, 3years in pharmaceutical strategy consulting
GMAT T-Date: Mid June, GMATPrep scores withing the range 680-700

bryantmichaels · Answer

It is likely you could land the job you want with a degree from any of those schools, but what you should be doing now is to find out where the companies you are targeting do their recruiting. You are at a distinct advantage by knowing not only what you want to do before you apply, but potentially where you'd want to do it as well. Pick your top 5 companies for whom you'd like to work and see if they recruit at your schools. you should even be able to find out how many job offers were extended by each company at each school. Contact the career services center and identify yourself as a prospective student--they should be able to help.

Nymphetamine · Answer

Thanks so much Bryant for your excellent advice. Would it be possible for you to comment on how attractive my profile would be for my target schools? (caveat: I know that admission depends on several factors, what I am asking is for a very top-level view).
Many thanks in advance for your time

A

EBSIFounder · Answer

My take is Wharton > Duke > Haas for pharma ... and recruting #s will be consistent with that. I have pretty similar goals as you.

Aximili85 · Answer

Sorry, there was some error and this got posted thrice!
Hi all

To add to your original post, I was wondering what are the good schools one should apply to if one wants to go into overall healthcare domain in the States (preferably health insurance or hospital corp strategy consulting or corporate strategy for payers)? I'm currently a US Healthcare Analyst with Mckinsey & Co., based out of their New Delhi, India office. All my work exp here has been specifically US Healthcare related, and I want to leverage my knowledge base post MBA. I've looked into the following:

Berkeley Haas (top choice), Wharton (will not be applying), Carnegie Mellon's Tepper (will be applying), Vanderbilt Owen (will most likely apply), Duke Fuqua dual degree (not sure), and Ross which has a "Healthcare focus" option (may apply), Indian School of Business (Healthcare focus option - new). Do you guys recommend getting professional help with essay writing?

I'm going about this in an ad hock fashion, so would greatly appreciate any comments or advice!

A.
 Background 
(Will have 2.5 years here by 2012 fall) Research Analyst - Mckinse & Co.
(2 yrs) - Client Servicing, Advertising industry role 
B.Sc. (Hons) Biology, Minors: Economics/Chem. University of Windsor, Ontario; Canada

asimov · Answer

Personally, I think your background fits well with Fuqua. Duke-Fuqua is renowned for its Health Sector Management program. The students in the program get significant and meaningful exposures to healthcare executive in seminars and classes across the entire industry, payer, provider, pharma, medical devices, CRO, etc. The resources available for HSM students are above and beyond those for the regular Daytime students. For example, they get reimbursed Week-In-Cities trip to San Francisco, dedicated program director, specialized recruiting, etc. The job placement for HSM students is also significantly higher than regular daytime, I heard on the order of ~98% vs. ~90%. Not sure what you mean by Fuqua dual degree, HSM is only a certificate on top of your regular diploma, and most of the classes are add-ons, so you don’t have to give up your regular electives.

I can’t speak definitively on this, but I think the other schools’ program is more like a concentration and do not have dedicated resources. IMO, the dedicated resources makes a huge difference.

If you are interested, you should look into the HSM website as well as the Healthcare Club website.

https://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/duke ... anagement/
https://mbaa.fuqua.duke.edu/hcc/index.html
https://fuqua.campusgroups.com/health/about/ (new site, as the school is migrating to new platform)

Aximili85 · Answer

Thank you for the response Asimov (btw, have you named yourself after the sci-fi author? I loved his books as a kid!) . To be honest, the only reason Fuqua wasn't a top choice is because I hadn't done enough research! And yes, I meant the HSM program. Let me do a deeper dive into the links you sent.

Do you recommend any good backup school programs as well? I was keeping Tepper (top back up program), Indian School of Business and Vanderbilt's Owen as options due to their dual degree/healthcare focus offerings.

My social service involvement is very low, something which may cause me to delay my apps to 2013 fall to get something going in between. Unrelated topic, but do you feel B-schools will label my involvement as last minute & thus half-hearted if I start now for the fall 2012 app (which is what, 2 months away!)?

Aximili85 · Answer

or in fact even for the fall 2013 apps? Say I don't get in this year and am forced to reapply for 2013 fall.

arcticTO · Answer

Sorry to bring back this old topic but I wanted to ask how does Wharton compare to Fuqua for healthcare today?

Pharma industry career: Wharton vs. Haas vs. Sloan vs. Fuqua

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