Hey there
Koz,
I’m Dan, a second year MBA at SOM! Congrats on your admittance to two incredible schools! I don’t envy the difficult choice that you must make.
First of all, thank you for your military service. What branch did you serve in? My Dad served in the Air Force and after flying, he was in military finance as well.
While I’m a little biased just like
Flyte, allow me to throw my two cents in.
bb said SOM is the “nonprofit” school; I do want to clarify that while yes, SOM is recognized as being a leader in the public sector, including the government, our placement rates for the nonprofit sector is twice as much as our peer intuitions (which fluctuates from 4-6%) – though it’s sort of hard to compare to Tuck, because they don’t break down nonprofit/public/government.
Have you had the opportunity to visit campus yet? If you haven’t, I hope you can make it to welcome weekend or one of the visit days because what really stood out to me was the social conscious that all SOM students have – so while many of us might go into Banking, or Media and Entertainment, all SOMers are concerned not just about the bottom line, but the double and triple bottom lines (Profit, People, and Planet). See below for a comparison of FT placement:
SOM Tuck
Consulting 29.3 34
Finance 24.5 24
Technology 14.2 18
Retail & CPG 8.9 10
Healthcare/Pharma 4.9 6
Nonprofit 4.4 (In Other)
Manufacturing 4 2
Media/Entertainment 3.6 (In Other)
Energy 3.1 2
Real Estate 1.8 (In Other)
Other 1.3 4
https://som.yale.edu/programs/mba/career ... ent-report https://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/mba/caree ... e-salariesIn this regard, while both schools are similar you’ll see that SOM has a longer tail in terms of diversity of industry interest – and that’s definitely something that drew me to SOM. I was in my International Real Estate Class taught by Professor Gray (SOM ’81) who were looking at our classroom concepts from totally different perspectives – me as a complete newcomer, others who were going into Real Estate, some folks form the PE/IB side, still others from the Energy and Retail perspective. I think one of the greatest things about SOM is our joint-degree students (nearly 20% and among the highest of any B-school) and number of other Yale Grad and Undergrad Students who are in our classes – I was in a group for my Int’l Real Estate project with a Student at the Divinity School, and a founder of oVote, one of our student startups. We have our integrated curriculum that stresses theory and praxis, but are also excited that we have niche praxis classes, like this one that I’m TA’ing this quarter:
https://www.innovatelaw.org, a law class cross-listed with YLS.
With United Technologies right down the street and lots of SOM engagement with new companies like SpaceX, if you’re interested in aerospace, I think there’s definitely an exciting fit for you here. There’s the Center for Engineering and Innovation and Design to help prototype if you want to take that route (I love studying there – in fact, SOM has the highest number of Graduate or Professional Students who are part of the center), and you can join Yale Aerospace Association.
Regarding our veterans – we have a very active veterans club at SOM – and I’d be happy to put you in touch with some of my friends – James who served in the Air Force and is now headed to McKinsey, and Mo, who served in the Navy and is heading back to duty, among others. Likewise, I’d be happy to put you and your wife in touch with our partner’s club – I’m positive Laura and Perla would love to chat - more than 1/3 of SOM students come to campus with families and partners and they are closely integrated into our community.
SOM does have a smaller alumni community than Tuck – Tuck’s been around for 70 more years than SOM, but I think both schools definitely have their merits in regards to alumni engagement – SOM has the second highest alumni gift participation rate, behind Tuck, but SOM’s average gift size is larger. Nearly two thirds of SOM’s alumni are part of our active LinkedIn group and we have active SOM and Yale communities all over the world.
We’re also really excited about SOM’s trajectory – Dean Snyder and the administration have done a fantastic job integrating SOM better with Yale, and making SOM the most global US business school with initiatives like the Global Network for Advanced Management, which includes 27 other B-schools from around the world.
I’d be happy to show you and your wife around if you can’t make it to one of our student visit days – just feel free to shoot me a note at Daniel.kent[at]yale.edu.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Dan ‘16