The number one reason you are considering going to business school is to improve your career situation, get a better job, move industries maybe even move to another country.
If so, Kenan Flagler is not the school for you. Career services have issues with retaining talent, which means that the people who are supposed to help the most are inexperienced. The same is true for the administration, for example, the director of the MBA program is new, the head of career services just quit after a year in her role, her predecessor had similar time in the program. Career professionals for consulting and investment banking are also new.
About financial aid- GMAT score might get you financial aid from the school, which for many helps the decisions for ROI reasons, but i offer you not to be tempted by the money. From the top of my head, I'm thinking of at least 3 classmates with full rides and no offers meaning the very qualified people are not doing well because of the current situation at the school.
Managment: The management is currently putting its effort into it online MBA program and not in the MBA, from a financial point of view it makes sense, the program has an infinite capacity for students with no GMAT requirements which leads to incredible income from that venue but it also means less attention and investment in full-time MBA students.
What I like about KFBS: North Carolina and the Triangle generally is a pretty chill location, cost of living is pretty low and the weather is nice.
The academic staff is great and I enjoyed many of my classes.
If you enjoy sports the local sports scene is cool.
Many big names do not come to KF even though they do come to Duke (Apple. FB) and many others just don't come and I'm not sure about duke (Ford, GM, GE, Verizon, Chevron)
International students- the situation is even worse, only 30% of the opportunities that Americans have are open for you
Overall BSchool experience (2.0)
Schools contribution (1.0)
Classmates rating (4.0)
Curriculum, Classes, Professors
Alumni Network
Finance
Marketing
Career opportunities provided by school
Culture & Student Support
Admissions Team
Hey there kfstudent! Insightful review. I noticed that this was your first post to GMATClub. Welcome.
It seems like you had a very poor experience at KF. The schools employment reports for class of 2016 show 95% of students received an offer within 3 months, and for class of 2017 (your class, right?), that number dropped to 93%. So, the verified employment numbers don't quite agree with the statement "very qualified people are not doing well because of the current situation at the school."
As someone who is about to commit two years and a ton of money to this program, your review was initially concerning. I have heard similar rumblings with the turnover of program staff, but haven't let that sway me because overall it seems like a great program, and staff turnover / culture shift occurs at every program.
If you don't mind me asking:
- Were you able to secure employment after graduating in 2017?
- If so, was it the role you desired upon completing the program?
- How are your fellow classmates who weren't able to secure employment (the7%) currently doing?
- R3 decisions were just released today. What inspired you to write the review close to a year after leaving the program?
I don't want to blindly defend the program, but I also feel as though there are some missing pieces to your story.. Your review/advice helps tons of future student make once in a lifetime decision, so that's why I wanted to reach out for clarification. Thanks.
Thank you for a genuine and insightful review. Helped me choose wisely.
As a current full-time student, I have to disagree with your belief that "most major firms do not come to campus". That is simply not true. As someone going though recruitment now, we already have the top 6-7 consulting firms coming to campus, and more are still being signed on. We have the top tech firms (not apple, I agree) but nonetheless, extremely well known firms. In fact, I am quite pleased with the line-up that UNC has pulled in for company visits. We also have all the major healthcare firms as UNC is one of the top healthcare programs in the country. You will have AMPLE opportunity to recruit at the biggest firms from Carolina. Lastly, if you're intested in finance, all the top IB and corporate finance players from NYC and Charlotte are coming to campus as well.
Thanks for posting Woody! If you have not submitted a review yet, would be very helpful to hear a different perspective with some thoughts and details about employment.
Hey Woody,
Thank you for your comment, let me elaborate and let me know if things got better.
I didn't say "most major firms do not come to campus", I said "Many big names do not come to KF..." and I think we can both agree on that fact.
About consulting - when I took "consulting skills and framwork" the first class we delt with the case of consulting in KF and why it's doing so bad. Yeah MBB shows up on campus, but how many do they actually take BB ~1-0 each McK ~3-5? In my year Accenture, PwC and KPMG did not arrive for on-campus interviews. It's hard to say KF is good for consulting.
Tech companies - How many people got FANG? in my year only Amazon and Google came on campus and took very few people.
IB - Only GS, JPM, BOA came on campus(no CS, no Barclays, no HSBC, No Citi, no UBS). GS took one yearly, JPM took ~2 BOA took a few more (under 10)
I am still very connected to campus because I do care what my school looks like. If I hear correctly the head of the career center left his position (this is the second person in the role to only hold it for 1 year), and many others who left did not get replaced. KF is still focused on the wrong things and the price is still student opportunities.
If things change dramatically and I have been misled I would love to hear about i.e take bb's advice. If not, let's not try to paint a picture of what's not there.